CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
As a trauma surgeon, she had recognized the exact nature of the injury the second the bullet struck her.
She had felt the distinct, piercing burn of the entry wound, followed immediately by the tearing exit wound against her shoulder blade.
It hadn't shattered the clavicle. It hadn't punctured the lung.
The blood flow was steady, but it was not arterial.
It was a clean, through-and-through flesh wound. Painful, yes, but non-lethal.
Cassia looked up at her husband. She saw the mind-blind panic consuming him, recognizing instantly that he was trapped in a PTSD flashback of Flora’s death.
"Dante, stop," Cassia ordered, her voice cutting through the haze of his terror like a scalpel. She reached up with her uninjured right hand, gripping his face tightly, forcing his icy green eyes to meet hers. "Look at me. Dante, look at my eyes."
Dante stared down at her, his chest heaving. "You're bleeding. You're bleeding everywhere."
"I am fine," Cassia said firmly, her tone leaving no room for debate. "It missed the subclavian artery. It missed the bone. It is a clean through-and-through flesh wound. I will be fine. You need to breathe."
Dante couldn't process the medical terminology. He could only see the blood soaking into the silk.
"What were you thinking?" Dante demanded, his voice frantic, his hands gripping the lapels of her blouse.
The terror morphed instantly into a desperate, overwhelmed anger.
"Why did you push me? What would I have done if something had happened to you?
I cannot lose you, Cassia. I wouldn't survive it! "
Cassia held his face, her thumb brushing over his rigid jawline. She remained an anchor of pragmatic calm amidst the storm of his panic.
"Nothing should happen to you either, Dante," Cassia pointed out, her voice steady and unshakeable. "Now, take a deep breath. I am a doctor. I know my own body, and I know my own condition. I am fine."
"Boss! We are clear!" Zoran shouted, appearing suddenly through the smoke, his dark eyes wide with worry as he looked down at Cassia. "The cars are out front. We need to move."
"Get the car to the medical wing. Now!" Dante roared, scooping Cassia up into his arms effortlessly, ignoring her protests that she could walk.
He carried her out of the ruined restaurant, holding her so tightly against his chest that she could feel the violent, frantic hammering of his heart.
The ride back to the Fazzari tower was a blur of screeching tires, flashing streetlights, and Dante’s trembling hands pressing a wad of gauze against her shoulder.
Cassia kept her hand over his, the entire time, repeatedly reminding him to breathe refusing to let him sink back into the memory of his past trauma.
By the time the armored SUV slammed to a halt in the underground secure bay of the Fazzari tower, the medical team on the eighth floor was already prepped and waiting.
Dante carried her straight onto the private elevator, rushing her through the sterile, brightly lit corridors of the medical wing and laying her gently onto an examination bed.
The attending physician, Dr. Arcuri, hurried into the room, flanked by two nurses.
"Don Fazzari, please, step back," Dr. Arcuri instructed gently, moving to Cassia’s side with a pair of trauma shears to cut away the ruined silk blouse.
Dante refused to leave the room. He stepped back one foot, his hands shoved deep into his hair, his pale green eyes locked onto the wound. His tailored suit was smeared with her blood. He looked like a man standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the wind to push him over.
Cassia let out an irritated sigh as the doctor began cleaning the wound with iodine.
"It’s a clean exit, Dr. Arcuri," Cassia reported, taking over her own diagnosis with dry, professional exasperation. "No bony crepitus, no signs of pneumothorax. Just flush it with saline, pack the track, and throw a few superficial sutures on the entry and exit points."
Dr. Arcuri examined the injury under the bright halogen light, his shoulders dropping in a sigh of relief. He looked up, offering a small, amazed shake of his head.
"You are incredibly fortunate, Dr. Fazzari," Dr. Arcuri noted softly. "An inch lower, and it would have shattered the clavicle. An inch inward, and it would have struck the artery."
"I am well aware of my anatomical geography, Doctor," Cassia responded dryly, wincing slightly as the nurse injected local anesthetic around the wound edges.
She glanced over at her husband, who was still staring at the blood, looking pale and unraveled.
"Now, could you please just patch me up before my husband collapses on your sterile floor? "
Dr. Arcuri offered a faint, sympathetic smile and immediately began suturing the wound.
Outside the glass walls of the trauma bay, the rest of the family had arrived.
Concetta was pacing the hallway, her hands clasped tightly in prayer.
Fina and Isabella were hugging each other, visibly shaken by how close the moment had come to tragedy.
Zoran stood by the door, his jaw clenched, waiting for the final verdict.
Inside the room, Cassia remained composed.
Once the wound was fully sutured, bandaged, and her arm was placed in a black canvas sling, Dr. Arcuri and the nurses quietly excused themselves, giving the Don and his wife the room.
The glass door clicked shut.
Dante stood at the foot of the bed. The immediate, frantic crisis was over, but the adrenaline crash left him raw. He walked slowly up to the side of the bed, reaching out with trembling fingers to gently touch the uninjured side of her face.
He dropped to his knees on the linoleum floor, burying his face into the blankets beside her hip.
"Dante," Cassia murmured softly, reaching down with her right hand to stroke his dark hair.
"What were you thinking?" Dante asked again. His voice was broken, muffled against the blankets. He lifted his head, his icy green eyes swimming with overwhelming, unshed tears. "Why would you step in front of a gun for me? Cassia, why?"
Cassia looked down at him. The prickly armor she wore was stripped away, leaving only the unapologetic truth of her devotion.
"Was I supposed to just let you take it instead?" Cassia asked, her voice steady.
"Yes," Dante answered instantly, desperately. "Yes. A thousand times over. I am built for this world. You are not supposed to bleed for me."
"Don't be an idiot," Cassia replied, though the insult lacked any of its usual bite.
It was laced with a deep, tenderness. She cupped his cheek, her thumb wiping away a stray tear that had escaped onto his skin.
"I saw the trajectory of his barrel, Dante.
He had a clear shot at your center mass.
If that bullet had struck you, it would have hit your ascending aorta, or your spine. It would have been catastrophic."
Dante shook his head, pressing his face into her palm. "I don't care. I couldn't survive losing you. I lived through it once, and my heart turned to ash. If you had died today... I would have had nothing left."
Cassia looked at the powerful man kneeling on the floor beside her bed, undone by his love for her.
She let out a soft, shuddering breath. For a woman who had spent her entire life fiercely protecting her own independence, the admission she was about to make was the ultimate surrender.
"And what makes you think I would have survived losing you?" Cassia asked, her voice dropping to a fragile, fiercely honest whisper.
Dante froze. He looked up into her pale blue eyes.
"I have spent thirty years relying on no one," Cassia confessed, her hand resting warmly against his cheek. "But you made yourself the center of my life, Dante. You anchored me. If that bullet had hit you... if you had died on that floor today... I wouldn't have survived that outcome either."
The devastating weight of her confession hit Dante like a tidal wave.
She wasn't just a woman who had accepted his world; she was a woman who had bound her entire soul to his. She had looked at the violent, chaotic reality of his life, seen the bullet coming, and had deliberately chosen to take the hit rather than exist in a world without him in it.
Dante was overcome with emotion. The words failed him completely.
He pushed himself up off the floor, sitting carefully on the edge of the narrow hospital bed.
He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her uninjured side, pulling her gently, desperately against his chest. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin, the sterile smell of the hospital, and the sheer miraculous reality that she was alive, and breathing, and his.
Cassia let her head rest against his shoulder, her right arm wrapping securely around his back. She closed her eyes at peace in the silence of the medical wing.
Dante could do nothing but hold her close. He was consumed by a love so vast that it defied language, struck to the very marrow of his bones by just how fortunate he was to have this magnificent, lethal, unapologetic woman in his life at all.