24. Serena #2
“Of course it is,” Lucia says. “Why have a baby in adequate lighting when we could all develop Victorian character?”
I laugh. Then my water breaks. Not a polite little maybe. A warm rush down my legs, onto the hall floor, into my socks. My ugly socks. The socks didn’t deserve this.
I look down. Everyone else looks down. For one second, all of us are silent.
Then I say, “Well. That seems official.”
Lucia mutters, “Bloody hell.”
Rocco’s face goes white. Actually white. I’ve seen this man face armed men, staged betrayal, his council. But amniotic fluid on a hallway floor nearly takes him out.
“Rocco,” I say. “Do not faint.”
“I’m not going to faint.”
“Good. Because if anyone gets carried tonight, it’s me.”
The next contraction hits. Harder. My knees buckle. Rocco catches me. Miriam steps in but stops when I shake my head. Rocco lowers with me until I’m crouched awkwardly in the hallway, one hand on his shoulder, one hand on the wall.
Rocco is in front of me, one knee on the wet floor, not caring about his trousers, the storm, the guards, anything. “What do you need?” he asks.
I grip his shoulder. “Don’t talk.”
He nods. And shuts up. Lovely man. Possibly my favorite person. Do not quote me.
The contraction ends. I’m sweating now. Shaking. There are armed people in the hallway pretending not to look. This isn’t how I imagined becoming a mother. Apparently the universe said, Why not all of the above plus a thunderstorm?
“We need to go,” Miriam says.
“I know,” I snap. She doesn’t take offense.
Rocco helps me up. We move faster now. Pregnant-woman-after-water-breaking fast, which is basically a determined waddle with witnesses.
The stairs are awful. I say that out loud. Many times. Rocco supports one side, Lucia the other, while Matteo goes ahead with the bag and Miriam clears the landing. The lights glow red. Rain hammers the roof.
Halfway down, I stop. Not because of a contraction. Because fear hits me. Full. Cold.
Rafe. The bracelet. The flowers. The photo of the hospital. The van. The alley alert. My baby trying to come early during a lockdown with men and guns and storm water shining on the stairs.
My breath sticks. “I can’t,” I say.
Rocco stops immediately. Lucia does too. Matteo turns from the bottom landing. “Serena?”
I shake my head. My chest is too tight. “I can’t go out there.”
No one tells me I can. No one says be brave. No one says there’s no choice.
Rocco moves carefully until he’s one step below me, so our faces are level. “Okay,” he says.
“Not okay.”
“No,” he says. “Not okay. But we can stop for one minute. Doctor said move in. She didn’t say sprint.”
Lucia says, “Good, because none of us are dressed for sprinting.”
I almost laugh. My hand presses to my stomach. “What if he’s out there?”
Rocco’s face changes. Not rage first. Pain first. Then control. “Rafe is not touching you.”
He says it like a promise he knows I have to choose to believe.
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he says.
That honesty nearly breaks me.
“I don’t know anything perfectly. But Miriam cleared the exit. Matteo has the car at the curb. Lewis has eyes on both ends of the street. And I’m not leaving your side unless you tell me to.”
The stairwell is quiet except for rain and my awful breathing. “You promise?”
His throat moves. “Yes.”
Another contraction starts. Rude. Very rude. I grab him with both hands. “No no no.”
“I’m here.”
“You promised before,” I gasp.
The words rip out of me. Not planned. Not fair maybe. But pain isn’t a lawyer.
Rocco absorbs them like a hit. He does not defend himself. He does not say this is different. He just says, “I broke it before. And I’ll spend the rest of my life keeping it now if you let me.”
Oh. No. No big emotional lines on the stairs while my water is in my socks. I can’t process this.
I can, however, sob like a furious walrus. So I do that.
The contraction peaks. Rocco doesn’t move. I breathe against his chest, standing on a red-lit stairwell in a storm, and when it finally releases, I’m exhausted.
“I hate this,” I whisper.
“I hate it too.”
I lift my head and glare. His mouth softens. “Say something else.”
He thinks. “Your socks are brave.”
I stare at him. Then I laugh. It is ugly. Wet. Perfect.
“Keep moving,” I say.
Rocco nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
We make it outside. The storm hits like a wall. Rain under the awning. Wind pushing cold water sideways. The primary car waits at the curb with the rear door open and Matteo behind the wheel, wipers already fighting for their lives.
Miriam holds an umbrella. It’s useless. Comically useless. Within four seconds, we’re all soaked.
“This umbrella is decorative,” Lucia snaps.
Miriam says, “It’s bullet-resistant.”
I’m busy being guided into the car like a very emotional sofa. The back seat isn’t roomy enough for a woman in labor, her husband, Lucia, a pillow, a hospital bag, and several thousand unresolved feelings. But we make it work.
Rocco gets in beside me. Miriam gets in front beside Matteo. Enzo shuts the rear door. The car pulls away. The shadow car follows far enough back that I can’t see it unless lightning flashes.
Matteo drives like a man who’s done terrible things in vehicles and now has one precious reason not to. Smooth. Fast enough. Not reckless.
Rocco sits turned toward me, one arm behind my shoulders, one hand available but not forcing itself into mine. I take it. He exhales quietly.
The next contraction comes six minutes later.
Six. Not nine. That doesn’t feel like the correct direction.
Rocco says nothing because I told him not to narrate.
Instead, he presses his forehead to my temple and breathes slowly.
Not telling me. Showing me. I follow because my body wants a rhythm and his is there.
I hate that everyone’s here. I need everyone here. Both things. Always both things.
The contraction ends. I slump into Rocco’s side. “You smell like rain,” I mumble. “I didn’t say it was bad.”
He goes still. Small. But I feel it.
We hit traffic near the bridge because of course we do. Storm. Power outage. A fallen branch in one lane. Police lights ahead.
Matteo slows. Rocco’s body tightens beside me—a stalled car in the open is just a box with the doors shut, and every man in here knows it. Miriam speaks into her radio, low and clipped.
Lucia leans forward. “Do not get us killed. But also do not dawdle. There’s a baby making decisions.”
Another contraction starts before the car moves. This one’s worse. My whole stomach hardens, pain wrapping around my back, pressing down in a way that scares me.
“Pressure,” I gasp.
The car changes. Everyone hears it. Rocco’s face goes sharp. “Where?”
“Down. I don’t know. Just pressure.”
Lucia’s already calling Dr. Sayeed. Rocco’s hand stays in mine. “Look at me if you can.”
I can. Barely. His face is close. Wet hair. Pale mouth. Eyes dark with fear he’s holding back with both hands.
“If the doctor asks, you answer,” he says. “Not me. You.”
That cuts through the pain for one second. The old test wasn’t only whether he stayed. It was whether he remembered the body in crisis belonged to me.
Lucia puts the doctor on speaker. “Pressure during contractions,” I say before anyone else can. My voice shakes. But it’s mine.
Dr. Sayeed asks questions. I answer between breaths. No urge to push. No bleeding. Waters clear. She tells us to keep coming, to call again if pressure becomes constant or anything changes.
Matteo gets us around the blockage through a side street so narrow the car mirrors nearly kiss brick walls. Rocco doesn’t comment. Miriam does, quietly. “Good line.”
Rocco’s thumb moves once over my hand. Not possessive. Just there. I squeeze back.
His phone rings. The sound is small. Normal. It still punches through the car. My whole body stiffens.
Rocco looks at the screen. I see the name. ROSA CASTELLANO. Not Lewis. Not security. Family.
The old test walks into the car and sits on my chest.
Rocco’s jaw sets. He doesn’t answer. The phone rings again.
Lucia looks at him. I watch Rocco.
The ring stops. Immediately, a text appears. ROSA: Vittorio’s men moved on the north dock. Fire. Two dead. Council demanding you.
Another text. ROSA: If you do not answer now, they will fracture.
Rocco reads it. So do I. Because the phone is angled between us and because secrets have done enough.
The car feels too small. North dock. Fire. Two dead. Council demanding you.
This is the part where old Rocco leaves. Not physically maybe. But he goes. His eyes become numbers. His voice turns cold. His mind runs toward blood and docks and men who always needed him more urgently than I did.
My contraction starts. Of course. I hold his hand. Hard. Maybe too hard. “Rocco.”
His eyes lift from the phone to my face. For one second, I see the war in him. Family burning. Men dead. Power splitting. Everything he was raised to answer. And me. In the back seat. Wet, scared, in labor, holding his hand.
His thumb finds the side button.
He doesn’t look at the phone while he does it. He looks at me.
The screen goes black. Rosa, the dock, the fire, the council, every voice that ever needed him more loudly than I did—gone dark in the palm of his hand.
He holds it out to Lucia without looking away from me. “Take it,” he says.
Lucia does. No hesitation.
“Rocco,” I whisper.
“No.”
The word is quiet. Absolute. Not at me. For me.
He shifts closer as the contraction climbs. “I’m here.”
“But—”
“No.”
My eyes burn. “The dock. The council. Two men died.”
His face flickers. Of course it does. He’s not heartless. I don’t want heartless. I never did.
“I know,” he says. “And I’m sorry for them.”
The contraction peaks. I gasp. Rocco brings my hand to his chest again. His heart’s racing. But he’s still here.
“You and the baby are my emergency,” he says.
I break. There’s no other word for it. I break open in the back of that car while rain hammers the roof and Matteo drives and Lucia holds my husband’s turned-off phone like it’s a bomb she personally defeated.