Page 100 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

He came here to make me try to kill him.

Salvatore won’t believe me. Contessa can’t save me.

And Ava…she’ll never forgive me.

29

Ava

We have to go to the hospital.

These are the words that wake me up in the middle of the night. Tessa stands in my doorway, entreating me to get up as gently as she can, with worry all knotted up in her voice. I can barely comprehend what’s happening until she says:

Something has happened to Marcel.

Every bad dream I ever had as a little girl suddenly materializes all at once. A hundred nightmares come true in a single moment. I almost feel as if I have done this before a hundred times, and I am simply going through that old, forgotten routine that I carved out in my sleep.

But this time, I know I will not be waking up from the nightmare. After years and years, it’s finally caught up with me.

The trip to the hospital is a blur, a haze of anxiety, questions, and grim answers. My mind is terrified, my body tired. Tessa tucks me under her arm in the backseat of the car, and I have no idea if the nausea in my stomach is from fear or morning sickness.

No one seems to know what happened. Salvatore drives us, one hand on the wheel and the other on the phone with someone from the hospital keeping tabs on Marcel’s condition. Marcel was stabbed. That fact keeps coming up over and over again, the only sure thing about the situation.

According to the voice on the phone, Marcel was brought to the hospital via ambulance from an apartment building within the Mori territory. He had one stab wound to the stomach, and he was immediately taken into surgery for internal bleeding. They say he’s critical, but stable. I know what those two conditions mean when put side by side like that, but it stillsoundslike a contradiction. Like something you tell someone to make the bad news seemnot so bad.

Salvatore arranges for him to be moved to a different hospital with better family connections as soon as he’s stable. Tessa rubs my shoulder, promising me up and down that everything is going to be alright.

We’re almost there before I realize that Thaddeus did not come with us, either left behind in the chaos or too drunk or too invested in a full night’s sleep to bother. I was in such a state, I don’t even remember if he bothered to get up. If we spoke to each other. Maybe he just doesn’t give a fuck. I haven’t missed him, and I don’t really want him here, but itstillpisses me off.

I hate the way hospitals smell. We’re greeted by that chemical cleanliness that masks the stench of sickness, suffering, anddeath, as well as someone who looks suspiciously administrative rather than a nurse. A middle-aged woman in flats and maroon business casual personally escorts us to Marcel.

My brother has been tucked away in a private room with a hazy glass partition that I cannot see through. The admin stops outside, her mouth moving with medical jargon and comforting explanations on her lips, but I push past her, ignoring her completely as I walk mindlessly through the closed door.

I just have to get to him. I have to be with him. No one stops me.

He isn’t awake when I step into the room. My heart immediately splits in half.

When Marcel passed the bar exam, I congratulated him on being able to work on his tan again. He was always shoved into some office or classroom or library, locking himself up with books and arming himself with degrees and intellect. He had gotten so pale and thin during those years that it was a running joke between us. But he never looked like this. A deathly, sickly kind of pale. A paleness that lurks under his sunny complexion, his skin sour with blood loss and trauma. A number of tubes feed into the IV on his arm, and he is watched over by attentive machinery. My eyes lock on that little bouncing line on his heart monitor, the evidence that his heart is still beating, he’s still drawing breath. He’s still there somewhere. I curl my hand into his, wishing I could pass some of my strength into him.

I lean over him, fighting tears and panic and a stomachache that brings with it a horrifying anxiety. I don’t know if it’s just the stress, or something worse brought on by it. I try to keep myself calm, to just clutch his hand and tell myself that it’s alright. That he’s still right here.

Tessa and Salvatore step into the room behind me.

Salvatore brings us both chairs over to the bed so that we can sit.

“They said he hasn’t been awake since he was brought in, and that given his condition, we shouldn’t expect him to be for a while as he recovers,” Tessa says, rubbing my shoulder. I nod, trying to take that as good news. That he will simply just wake up, and everything will be fine. Salvatore’s expression is dark, and he doesn’t sit. He paces the room, checking his phone, speaking in low tones as he makes calls and gives muttered instructions over the line.

The room is quiet, and a sense of purposelessness sinks in as all I can do is sit here and hold his hand. Suddenly, I see Salvatore subtly double-check the gun at his side, which he isn’t supposed to have in here. He presses a kiss to the top of Tessa’s head and tells her to stay here.

“Where are you going?” she asks, coming up out of her seat with worry.

“I have to go find Nico,” he says.

“Why?”

It’s my voice that interrupts, reaching out from the edge of the hospital bed, my eyes finally drawn away from my brother. As if I don’t already knowwhy. Nico’s name shocked me out of the haze, and there’s only one reason it would be spoken here, in this room. The puzzle piece is right there, but I refuse to slide it into place myself. No matter how perfectly the edges line up, I make Salvatore finish the puzzle for me, because I just can’t stand the picture it makes.

“The ambulance that brought Marcel here brought him from Nico’s apartment.” Salvatore sighs, looking grim. We are both sharing the same thought—we could have prevented this. If we hadn’t let Nico get away with so much, if we had read all the warning signs, it could have been stopped.

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