Chapter 18
“I’m going to save both of you,” I said, even though I had no power whatsoever to guarantee it.
I would give my life for theirs if necessary.
“No…” She grabbed my shirt, pulling me down. The smell of iron was suffocating. “Choose… him. Promise…”
“I won’t choose!” I shouted, sobbing. “You’re both going to live!”
The sirens were louder down below.
I couldn’t wait for them to come up. Every second meant more blood lost and her life being drained away…
“Let’s go,” I said. “I’ll take you.”
She groaned, her head falling back, limp.
I ran.
Carrying Bianca to the elevator was a blur. She was too light and fragile. I pressed the ground-floor button with my elbow, leaving another red smudge on the panel.
“Stay awake!” I shouted in the confined space.
“Tired…” she murmured.
The doors opened into the lobby, and the lobby erupted into chaos.
Paramedics in orange uniforms were rushing through the revolving door, pushing a stretcher, while the security guard pointed toward the elevators.
When they saw me, they stopped for a split second. I must have looked like a nightmare. A man covered in blood from head to toe, holding a dying woman in his arms, with an expression of pure madness.
“HERE!” I roared. “SHE’S BLEEDING! SHE’S EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT!”
They sprang into action. Skilled hands took her from my arms and placed her on the stretcher.
The chill of not having her pressed against me was immediate and made me shiver even more.
Panic consumed me with such intensity that it felt like it was strangling me.
“Airway clear… weak, threadlike pulse…” a paramedic shouted. “Blood pressure undetectable. Let’s go!”
They started running with the stretcher toward the ambulance parked on the sidewalk. I ran after them.
“Signore, you can’t…” one of them tried to block me at the ambulance door.
I grabbed him by his vest.
“I’m the father!” I roared. “If you try to stop me, I’ll kill you. I’m getting in that ambulance.”
He looked me in the eye and saw I wasn’t bluffing. He nodded and jumped inside. I followed him.
The rear doors slammed shut, trapping us in a box of white light and noise. The siren went off, and the ambulance sped away.
“Establish an IV line, now! Ringer’s Lactate, open it!” the paramedic shouted. “Oxygen!”
I squeezed into a corner, holding Bianca’s limp hand.
“Bianca?” I called.
She didn’t answer, and her eyes were closed.
“Is she in cardiac arrest?” I asked, feeling the panic make my voice sound shrill.
“Not yet, but she’s close. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
The heart monitor began beeping erratically. Beep… beep… beep-beep…
“The baby…” I said. “How’s the baby?”
The paramedic placed a Doppler on her belly for a second. The sound filled the ambulance.
Wush-wush-wush.
It was slow. Very slow…
“Fetal bradycardia,” he told the driver. “Notify San Raffaele. Immediate emergency C-section upon arrival. Code Red. The mother and fetus are in imminent danger of death.”
Imminent risk to life.
The phrase echoed in my head. I looked at my hand, which was holding hers. My skin was stained dark red. Her blood was drying on the lines of my palm, becoming a part of me.
I leaned down, resting my forehead against her hand.
“Forgive me,” I sobbed, my voice drowned out by the sound of the siren. “Forgive me, Bianca. I should have protected you. I should have been there…”
I felt a faint squeeze.
I lifted my head. Bianca’s eyes were half-open, and she was looking at me.
“Marco…” she whispered through the oxygen mask.
“I’m here.”
“If…” she struggled to breathe. “If I have to choose…”
“No,” I cut in. “Don’t say that.”
“Promise me…” She squeezed my hand with surprising strength for someone who was dying. “Promise me you’ll… save… him. He’s… the only one… who matters.”
“You matter!” I shouted. “You matter to me! I can’t live without you, Bianca! Do you understand? I can’t!”
A tear trickled down the corner of her eye and disappeared into her hair.
“I love you…” she whispered.
The world stopped… The sound of the siren, the paramedics’ shouts, the jolting of the road… everything vanished.
She loved me… after everything—the pain, the betrayal, and the abandonment. In the end, all that remained was love.
“I love you too,” I choked out. “I love you more than anything.”
Her eyes closed. Her hand went limp in mine.
The heart monitor began to sound a continuous, deep alarm.
“She’s gone!” the paramedic shouted. “We’re losing blood pressure! How long?”
“Two minutes!” the driver shouted.
“Get ready to intubate!”
I was pushed aside as they worked on her. I saw her jolt with the movement of the ambulance.
I looked at my bloodstained hands. I prayed, cursed, and promised anything—anything—if she survived.
It felt like an eternity before the ambulance screeched to a halt and the doors swung open.
The chaos of the hospital engulfed us. Doctors and nurses surrounded the stretcher, shouting orders, rushing down the hallway.
I ran alongside, clutching the stretcher’s rail, refusing to let go.
“Room 3! Now!”
We reached a set of double doors.
“Signore, you can’t go any further!” A nurse blocked my path.
“She’s my wife!” I shouted.
“We’re going to take care of her. But you have to let us do our job!”
I watched the stretcher disappear through the swinging doors. The last thing I saw was Bianca’s pale, bare foot, dangling lifelessly from the edge of the sheet.
The doors closed, and I was left alone in the bright white hallway.
The quiet pressed down, heavy and accusatory. I looked down. My white shirt was red… my pants, my shoes… everything stained with Bianca’s blood.
I was a map of her destruction.
My legs gave way. It wasn’t a conscious decision. My knees simply stopped working. I slid down the wall to the cold linoleum floor.
I buried my face in my bloodstained hands and screamed. It was the sound of a man watching his soul being carried away behind doors he couldn’t open.
I didn’t know if she was alive, or even if my son was alive. All I could think was that if they died, I would die with them. I wouldn’t survive this…
“Valenti!”
I lifted my head.
At the end of the hallway, running toward me, were Enzo and Matteo. Revenge had arrived, and I wasn’t going to lift a finger to defend myself.