Chapter 20
The vigil was an endless purgatory.
The hospital had its own sickly rhythm, disconnected from the world outside.
The sun rose and set, but inside, the fluorescent light was eternal and merciless.
The smell of burnt coffee in the waiting room mingled with the chemical odor of disinfectant, creating a scent of anxiety that clung to the skin.
Nurses’ rubber shoes squeaked across the linoleum beneath the constant, rhythmic, terrifying beep of the heart monitors.
I didn’t leave; I refused to get up from that uncomfortable vinyl armchair next to her bed. I’d doze off for twenty minutes at a time, then wake with a violent jolt, my heart racing, convinced her monitor had stopped beeping.
She was stable. The surgery had been a success… if “success” meant that she was alive, pale as a ghost, stitched up and broken, full of tubes and wires.
I was trapped between two doors, living in a corridor of guilt: the door to Bianca’s room and the glass window of the Neonatal ICU. When Bianca slept under the influence of sedatives, I would walk like a sleepwalker to that window.
She’s so tiny…
It seemed impossible that something so fragile could contain life, let alone survive the trauma he’d endured.
A tuft of dark hair, thick and unruly like hers.
A tiny hand, almost translucent, clenched into a defiant fist. He was in an incubator, with thin wires attached to his tiny chest, which rose and fell with visible effort.
Leo…
I’d called him that in my head from the very first moment. The name felt right. My lion, my little fighter, and… my son.
A wave of protective love hit me so hard that my knees buckled, and I had to rest my forehead against the cold glass.
It was a primal, fierce, and terrifying emotion.
It was the same feeling I had for Bianca—a violent desire to burn the whole world just to keep them safe…
and I had failed to protect either of them.
“Valenti.”
Matteo’s voice came low and heavy, as if it had traveled kilometers of pain to reach me.
I turned slowly. He and Enzo were standing behind me, shattered in their own way: red-rimmed eyes, tense faces, slumped shoulders.
For the first time in a long time, there was no war between us. Only loss. Only fear.
“How is she?” Enzo asked, his voice caught in his throat. His gaze couldn’t find me; it was fixed on the incubator, on the nephew who had nearly died.
“She’s sleeping. Her fever has gone down.” My voice came out too hoarse. “Her vital signs are stable.”
Matteo took a deep breath, as if gathering momentum for a leap.
“Silvio…” The name pierced the air.
My jaw clenched. Not because of the uncontrolled rage from before, but because of the certainty of what needed to be done.
“I know.” I ran my hand over my face, tired but steady. “I still haven’t been able to come to terms with this. I haven’t left this hallway since the surgery.”
Enzo crossed his arms, his posture rigid.
“Then we’ll take care of it.” He looked at Matteo, then at me. “He won’t lay a finger on our sister again. He won’t even breathe near her…”
It was exactly what I expected from them. The Ferraros’ controlling nature. Hot-blooded and taking justice into their own hands.
But I simply took a step forward.
“No!” My voice came out calm, heavy, and absolute. “I’m the one who’s going to handle this.”
They both fell silent, and I didn’t look away.
“He did this to me, to her, and to my son.” My hand clenched involuntarily, but my voice remained firm. “I left that door open. He walked right past me to get to her.” I took a deep breath, regaining control. “You two take care of her… He’s mine.”
Matteo was the first to nod, slowly.
Enzo exhaled through his nose, still showing signs of pent-up anger.
“Then put an end to it.”
“I’ll get over it,” I replied. “But not now. Not while she’s in here, hooked up to machines.” I looked at the ICU window, at my tiny son breathing through tubes. “They need me first.”
An unspoken truce settled over the room. It wasn’t friendship, just an alliance forced by catastrophe.
I was so focused on my pain, my penance, my regret, that I didn’t realize I was setting myself up to be a martyr, not a partner. Bianca didn’t need a man on his knees; I had to stand tall.
I love you…
Her words in the ambulance echoed in my mind. She said that. I heard it. But was it the delirium of pain? Was it the fear of death speaking? Or was it the truth, plain and simple, wrung from her at the end of the world?
I had to be strong enough to find out. Not the Marco Valenti who conquered and took, but the Marco Valenti who protected and waited.
I took a deep breath, swallowing my panic. I nodded to Larissa, taking the bottle of water she offered.
“Grazie.”
When I returned to the room, Bianca was awake. Her brothers were gathered around the bed, speaking softly, touching her hand reverently. But the moment I walked in, her eyes swept past them and found me.
There was pain in them, exhaustion, and a strange clarity that pierced me.
“I want to see him.” Her voice was weak, a hoarse whisper, but it was an order. Typical of the woman I knew so well.
Matteo began to protest:
“Bianca, you just came out of surgery; you can’t…”
“I want to see my son. Now!”
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t look at Matteo, only at her.
“I’ll call the nurse.”
Bianca nodded.
Ten minutes later, I was pushing the wheelchair down the silent hallway at 2 a.m. The tension between us was like a taut string, vibrating with everything that had gone unsaid since the ambulance ride.
She looked fragile, dressed in a thin hospital gown with a blanket draped over her knees, but her back was straight, even as she sat.
Bianca was unbreakable.
We reached the ICU window. The bluish glow from the machines illuminated the dark hallway.
The head nurse, a sturdy woman named Elena, smiled gently at Bianca through the glass.
“There! The little warrior.”
Bianca pressed an unsteady hand against the glass, tracing the outline of the incubator in the distance. A sob escaped her, a sound of pure… wonder and recognition.
“He’s…” Her voice faltered.
“…perfect,” I finished, whispering.
I stopped behind her chair. The urge to touch her, to comfort her, to claim her was so strong that my hands ached where they gripped the armrests.
Hesitantly, I placed my hands on her shoulders. I felt the tension beneath my fingers. She didn’t relax, but she didn’t pull away either.
“He…” Her voice was filled with a new kind of terror. “Marco, he’s so small.”
“Our son will be fine.” I knelt down beside the wheelchair, bringing myself to her level so she could see me. I needed her to see the truth in my eyes. “He’s strong. He has your blood. We’ll be fine.”
She turned to face me. The hallway was dark, lit only by the light from the ICU, but I could see every detail of her face. The conflict in her green eyes was a storm. The memory of the ambulance hung between us.
“I love you.”
She knew she’d said it and that I’d heard it.
The Ice Queen’s defenses tried to rise. I saw her instinct to shut down, to deny, to protect the heart she had just laid bare.
“I don’t know if there’s an ‘us,’ Marco,” she whispered, her voice unsteady, but without the conviction she’d had before. It was fear, not rejection.
The blow hurt, but I didn’t back down. I was no longer the coward who ran away from the altar. I was the man who held her as she bled.
“There is.” I grabbed her hand—the one resting on the glass, hovering over our son. I intertwined my fingers with hers, firmly. “He’s right there, and he’s living proof of ‘us,’ Bianca. You can try to deny it, say it was fear talking in the ambulance.”
She held her breath.
“But you said it,” I continued, relentless yet gentle. “And he’s here… I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. He’s brought us together in a way that even you can’t undo.”
I wasn’t asking; I was stating a fact.
She stared at me, the intensity in my eyes matching hers. Hatred tried to rise to the surface, but failed. Beneath it lay exhaustion, gratitude, and… love. Frightened, wounded, but alive.
Bianca didn’t pull her hand away; she just looked away first, turning toward our son, toward the life we’d created together in the midst of chaos.
“He needs a name,” she murmured, changing the subject but squeezing my hand in return.
I took a deep breath, feeling the air fill my lungs for the first time in days.
“Leo…” I murmured. “Our lion.”