25. Cat
— ? —
Cat
The hospital is nothing like the one in my nightmares.
It’s clean, professional, with guards stationed at every stairwell and a floor that’s been quietly cleared for our use.
Enzo arranged it, vetted doctors, trusted staff, men with guns positioned at every entrance.
The kind of security that comes from being a don’s sister, from being married to another don, from being the pregnant woman at the center of a war that has finally reached the man I love.
Max’s blood.
I can still feel it on my hands. Even after the nurses made me wash them, even after they checked me over and pronounced the baby fine and gave me scrubs to replace my ruined clothes.
I can still feel the warmth of it, the way it seeped between my fingers while I pressed against his chest in the back of that car.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
I look up. A surgeon in blue scrubs is standing in the doorway of the waiting area, her face carefully neutral.
“The surgery went well. We’ve repaired the damage and replaced the blood he lost. He’s stable now, in recovery.”
“Can I see him?”
“In a few minutes. But I need to prepare you: he hasn’t woken up yet.”
“You said the surgery went well.”
“It did. The bullet missed his heart, missed his major arteries. We repaired what we could.” She pauses, choosing her words carefully.
“But he lost a significant amount of blood before we could operate, and there was a period of oxygen deprivation. In cases like this, we keep the patient in a medically induced sedation. It reduces strain on the healing tissue and gives the brain time to recover from the trauma.”
“What does that mean for when he wakes up?”
“It means we don’t know yet. The sedation is keeping him stable while we monitor for swelling, for secondary complications.
We’ll reduce it gradually over the next several days and see how he responds.
Could be a week before he’s fully conscious.
” Another pause. “His vitals are strong. The surgical repair looks good. But I can’t promise you what we’ll find when we bring him back up. ”
I nod, because I don’t trust my voice.
“Do you have any questions?”
“When can I see him?”
“I’ll have a nurse bring you back in about fifteen minutes.”
She leaves. I sit in the plastic chair and stare at my hands, clean now, scrubbed pink, no trace of the blood that was there an hour ago. Two hours ago. I don’t know anymore. Time has stopped making sense.
The room is dim and quiet.
Max lies in the hospital bed, pale against the white sheets, hooked up to machines that beep and hum in a steady rhythm.
There’s an IV in his arm, a breathing tube helping his lungs, monitors displaying numbers I don’t understand, heart rate, oxygen levels, things that tell me he’s alive without telling me when he’ll come back to me.
I pull a chair to his bedside and sit down.
“Hey,” I say, and my voice comes out rough, cracked. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
He doesn’t respond. Of course he doesn’t.
“The doctor says you’re stable. That’s good, right? Stable is good.” I reach for his hand, careful not to disturb the IV line. His fingers are cold. “The baby’s fine too. They checked. She’s kicking up a storm, actually. I think she knows something’s wrong.”
The machines beep. The room breathes.
“You’re going to wake up,” I tell him. “You’re going to wake up because you promised me a second chance, and you don’t break your promises. Not anymore.”
Still nothing.
I lean forward, pressing my forehead against our joined hands, and let the tears come.
Day 2
I don’t leave.
The nurses try to make me, bring me food I don’t eat, suggest I go home and rest, remind me that stress isn’t good for the baby.
I ignore them. I ignore everyone. I sit in my chair and hold Max’s hand and talk to him, because somewhere I read that coma patients can hear, that familiar voices can help them find their way back.
“I’m going to finish my book,” I tell him. “The one I started while I was running. It’s about us, sort of. A woman who runs from her husband because she thinks he betrayed her, and then has to decide whether to trust him again.”
The monitors beep their steady rhythm.
“I haven’t figured out the ending yet. I was stuck on whether she should forgive him.
Whether forgiveness is possible after that much hurt.
” I squeeze his hand. “I think I know now. I think the answer is yes. It’s just…
it takes time. It takes seeing someone choose you over and over again, even when it’s hard. Even when it costs them.”
Silence.
“You chose me. In the clearing. You saw Sergio’s gun and you didn’t even hesitate. You just-” My voice breaks. “You just moved.”
I wipe my eyes with my free hand.
“I need you to wake up, Max. I need you to wake up so I can tell you things. Important things. Things I should have said before.”
The machines keep beeping. Max keeps sleeping.
I keep waiting.
Day 3
Enzo finds me in the hospital cafeteria, staring at a cup of coffee I haven’t touched.
“You need to eat,” he says, sliding into the seat across from me.
“I’m not hungry.”
“The baby is hungry.”
“The baby can wait.”
“Cat.” His voice is gentle but firm. “You’re not helping anyone by starving yourself. Least of all Max.”
“I can’t, Enzo. Every time I try to eat, I just see him falling. I see the blood.”
“I know. I see it too.” He pushes the coffee cup toward me. “But you’re carrying his child. You have to try.”
“You sound like Mamma.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. She kept this family alive through worse.”
I look at him, my brother, my protector, the man who’s been holding our family together since our father retired. He looks exhausted. Gray around the edges, shadows under his eyes.
“You look terrible,” I say.
“You should see the other guy.”
“Which other guy?”
“Any of them. Take your pick.”
“Enzo. Tell me what happened. After. With Sergio.”
Enzo looks like he hasn’t slept since the woods, and won’t, until this is finished. I know the feeling.
“He’s been dealt with.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he won’t be a problem anymore. Him, Lucia, Marcella, they’re all in custody. Our custody, not the police.”
“And they’ll stay there?”
“They’ll stay there until I decide what to do with them.” Enzo’s jaw tightens. “Sergio shot at you. He shot his own son’s best friend, the head of an allied family. There are consequences for that.”
“Nico got Bruno and his wife out,” Enzo adds. “It was one of Lucia’s drivers who followed our supply van to the farm. He gave Sergio the address. We have him too.”
“Paolo and Sal?”
“Paolo’s shoulder will heal. Sal’s sitting with him and complaining about the food. I told them you asked.”
I put the cup down before my shaking hands can spill it. They got me out of that house. Max told me they survived, but I’d been afraid to ask how Paolo was recovering.
“Lucia is Max’s mother.”
“Lucia helped plan an ambush that nearly killed her own son. I don’t care whose mother she is.”
We sit in silence for a moment. The cafeteria hums around us, nurses on break, doctors grabbing coffee, the ordinary sounds of a hospital going about its business.
“How is he?” Enzo asks finally.
“The same. They keep saying he’s stable, that his vitals are good, but he won’t-” I stop, swallow hard. “He won’t wake up.”
“He will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know Max. He’s too stubborn to die.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying. Like stubbornness is a medical treatment.”
“Sometimes it is.” Enzo reaches across the table and takes my hand. “Cat. I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not protecting him. For not seeing the trap before we walked into it.” His voice is rough, and he’s not looking at me, he’s looking at the table, at our joined hands, anywhere but my face.
“I should have verified the safe house myself. I should have known Sergio would try something like this. I should have-”
“Enzo. Stop.”
He finally looks up.
“This isn’t your fault,” I say. “None of this is your fault. Sergio planned this for months. He had people on the inside, forged orders, contingencies we couldn’t have predicted. You came when I called. You brought your men. You got Max to the hospital.”
“I should have been faster.”
“You were fast enough. He’s alive because of you.”
“He’s in a coma because of me.”
“He’s in a coma because Sergio Greco shot him. That’s not the same thing.” I squeeze his hand. “Thank you. For coming. For everything.”
Enzo nods, his throat working. He holds on a beat longer than he probably should, longer than a don should, anyway, before pulling away.
“Eat something,” he says, standing. “I mean it. I’ll have Mamma on the next flight if I have to.”
“That’s a low blow.”
“Whatever works.” He pauses at the door. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Call me if anything changes.”
I watch him go, then look down at my untouched coffee.
Then I go back to Max’s room.
Day 4
I read to him.
It starts as desperation. I’ve run out of things to say, run out of stories about the baby, run out of ways to fill the silence. So I pull out my laptop and read him the manuscript I’ve been working on, chapter by chapter.
“The heroine just confronted him,” I tell him, scrolling through the document. “She’s standing in the study, demanding answers, and he’s trying to explain without actually explaining anything. Sound familiar?”
No response.
“I’m going to take that as a yes.” I clear my throat and start reading aloud. “‘I spent every night of those six months thinking about you,’ he said. ‘Wondering if you were safe. Wondering if I’d made the worst mistake of my life by letting you go.’”
The machines beep their steady rhythm.
“She doesn’t believe him, of course. Not yet. She’s been hurt too many times to trust easily.” I look at Max’s still face. “But she wants to believe him. That’s the thing she won’t admit to herself. She’s already half in love with him again, and it terrifies her.”
Silence.
“I think that’s why she keeps pushing him away. Because if she lets herself hope, and he disappoints her again…” I trail off, staring at the screen. “She doesn’t think she could survive that.”
Day 5
The nurses have stopped trying to make me leave.
They bring me blankets now, extra pillows, trays of food that I sometimes eat. They check Max’s vitals around me, adjust his IVs, change his bandages. They treat me like furniture, permanent, unmovable, part of the landscape of this room.
“His color’s better today,” one of them tells me. Jenny, I think her name is. Young, kind, with a ponytail that bounces when she walks. “That’s a good sign.”
“But he’s still not waking up.”
“Give him time. The body heals at its own pace.”
“It’s been five days.”
“They started reducing the sedation yesterday. His brain activity is picking up; that’s a good sign.” She pats my shoulder. “He’s responding. You can see it in his numbers. We just need to let him surface on his own.”
After she leaves, I turn back to Max.
“Did you hear that? More time. Like time is something we have an infinite supply of.” I lean forward, resting my head on the edge of his bed. “I’m running out of things to read to you. I finished the manuscript yesterday. The heroine decided to trust him, by the way. In case you were wondering.”
His hand is warm under mine now. That’s new. That’s something.
“I’m tired, Max. I’m so tired. And I need you to wake up so I can stop being scared.”
I close my eyes.
I dream about nothing.
Day 6
“The baby’s due in about three months,” I tell him. “Give or take. The doctors aren’t sure exactly, I wasn’t exactly keeping careful track when I was on the run.”
The machines beep.
“I’ve been thinking about names. Our girl needs a name. I want to call her Vittoria. After Nonna. She would have loved the farm, Max. She would have loved what you did with it.”
Silence.
“And I was thinking, for a middle name, maybe something from your family. Not Lucia, obviously. Your grandmother deserves a place in her name too. The woman who taught you to cook, who made you laugh, who loved you before you became the man everyone fears.”
I run my thumb across his knuckles.
“You told me a little about her once, your grandmother. When I was telling you about Nonna’s farm. But I want to know more. I want all the stories you never had time to tell me. When you wake up, I want you to tell me everything.”
Day 7
I’m crying again.
I don’t even realize it until I feel the tears dripping onto our joined hands. They come every night now, when the hospital goes quiet and there’s nothing left to do but wait. They come, and I let them, because what else is there?
“I love you,” I whisper into the darkness. “I should have said it before. When you told me in the woods, I should have said it back. But I was scared, and stubborn, and I thought we had time.”
His hand stays limp in mine.
“We’re going to have time. You’re going to wake up, and I’m going to tell you to your face, and you’re going to make some terrible joke about how long it took me. And I’m going to roll my eyes and pretend to be annoyed, but really I’ll be so happy I can barely stand it.”
I lean forward, pressing my lips to his forehead.
“Please wake up. Please. I can’t do this without you.”
Nothing.
I settle back into my chair, my head on the edge of his bed, my hand wrapped around his. The monitors keep their steady rhythm.
I fall asleep crying, the same way I have every night for a week.
And somewhere in the darkness, between one heartbeat and the next, I feel his fingers twitch.