Page 60 of Bound to the Mafia King

I shook my head. The pain behind my eyes increased with each passing second, and my heart crumbled to the floor.

The air didn’t feel like it was enough in my chest. I felt like at any moment, I would collapse on the floor.

“He can’t die, Valerio. My brother needs to live so I can apologize to him.”

“He won’t die.” He threaded our fingers together and kissed the back of my hand. “You will see and speak to your brother again. I promise you that.”

“You can’t possibly keep that promise.”

“Whatever your heart desires, I will make it come true for you,cielo.”

His words carried a weight behind them that I didn’t know how to sustain. I opened my mouth to speak, but then the door opened and out walked the doctor who had rushed with Danny inside the room.

I hopped off my seat and rushed to him. My heart was in my mouth, and my stomach was in knots.

“How is my brother?”

“He’s awake now.”

When the doctor said those three words, I doubled over with my hands to my knees. The anxiety that had been pressing down on my lungs finally released, and I found the reprieve.

He’s alive. My brother was alive.

Valerio rubbed my back as I let out a cry of relief.

“Thank God.” I lifted to my full height. He wasn’t dead, which meant that I could right the wrong I had done.

“He’s out of surgery, and he’s awake. He just needed a little bit of time before he speaks to you.” The doctor offered me a small smile. “He’s waiting for you.”

My head bobbed up and down frantically. “Please, take me to him.”

“Of course. Right this way.” The doctor led us both down the hallway and toward the ICU, where he was being monitored.

I stood outside the room feeling nervous. The last thing I had said to him was that I wished I was never his family. I feared what he would say to me.

As soon as the door opened, he turned and looked at me with a smile on his lips. But it didn’t quite reach his eyes. His eyes were sunken, and the bruise on his cheek had darkened.

“Hey, Danny,” I spoke past the lump in my throat.

I didn’t know what to say after our fight. I had said so many things that I wanted to take back now. I didn’t mean them, and he never deserved that from me.

“Ana,” he said my name lowly. I could tell that he was in a lot of pain. Tubes were coming out of his arm, and he was attached to a bunch of machines that were likely keeping him alive.

The pressure in my throat increased, and my heart cracked in my ribs. Looking at him now and realizing just how close I hadgotten to losing him made all the stupid anger I held evaporate. I had been so focused on wanting a life away from this place that I didn’t realize that I already had one within it.

I walked over to his bed slowly. If I was being honest, I was scared. His eyes watched me carefully as I approached him tentatively. This was a space that neither of us had ever existed in together.

I stopped when I came to the side of his bed. The sadness that had riddled my chest from earlier melted away, and suddenly the tears welled in my eyes as the damn had reached its capacity.

“I’m sorry.” My voice broke as the tears flowed from my eyes. “You are the best brother that a girl could ask for, and I was mad, but those words should have never left my lips, and I?—”

“You were right,” he interrupted my thoughts.

“What?”

“You were right in what you said, Ana. I was a dick to you, and I should have never put you in that position. You didn’t deserve that, and I can't apologize enough for what I did.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared into his eyes. Those eyes that I had thought I would never stare into ever again.

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