Page 70 of Forbidden Vengeance

My phone chimes again—not one of my usual contacts. The number isn’t familiar, but the message makes my blood turn to ice:

Code Blue in L&D. Preeclampsia confirmed, BP critical. Twin B showing severe decels. Dr. Chen requesting emergency team.

Then another:

You should know—it’s bad. Really bad.

“No, no, no…” The phone slips from my trembling fingers, clattering against imported marble. The sound echoes through the safe house like a gunshot.

Mario materializes instantly, elegance forgotten in his concern. “Elena?”

“Bella’s in trouble.” My voice breaks as I scramble for my coat, hands shaking so badly I can barely manage the buttons. “The twins—their heartbeats are unstable. Preeclampsia. I have to?—”

“Are you out of yourfuckingmind?” He blocks the door, his expression thunderous. “You can’t go anywhere near that hospital. Matteo will have it locked down tighter than the Pentagon.”

“Get out of my way.” The words come out desperate, raw. But even as I say them, I know he’s right. The logical part of my brain—the part that’s kept me alive in this world—knows I can’t just storm Mount Sinai like I would have before.

That doesn’t stop me from trying to help remotely. My fingers fly over my phone as I contact trusted hospital staff, making sure the right specialists are called. Each update makes my chest tighter.

Status updates flood in, each one worse than the last:

BP 160/100 and rising.

Twin A showing decreased movement.

Protein in urine confirming preeclampsia diagnosis.

Preparing OR for emergency intervention.

Every message makes breathing harder, guilt and fear warring in my chest until I feel like I might shatter.

“They’re saying she might need an emergency C-section,” I report, refreshing messages compulsively as I pace the livingroom. “The boy’s heartbeat keeps dropping and—” Another text appears. “Fuck. She’s hemorrhaging.”

Mario watches from the doorway, his face carefully blank. “Your contacts have it handled. The best doctors are already there.”

“But what if they’re not enough?” My hand drifts to my own swollen belly, terror clawing at my throat. “What if she—” I can’t finish the sentence.

My best friend could be dying, and I can’t even be there to hold her hand. All because I chose Mario. Chose love over loyalty.

The guilt threatens to suffocate me.

“Going there is suicide,” Mario says quietly, his tone gentler than I’ve ever heard it. “After what just happened with Anthony? The hospital will be locked down tight. Every family in New York watching to see if the DeLuca twins survive. The Calabreses and Irish will be watching too. They know you’ll try to make a move.”

I shouldn’t care anymore. Shouldn’t feel this crushing weight of responsibility, this desperate need to help the woman I betrayed. Bella made her position clear—I’m dead to her, just like Mario is dead to his family.

But old loyalties die hard, especially ones forged through years of shared secrets and midnight confessions.

“You think I don’t know that?” But I’m already moving, grabbing my coat. My hands shake as I reach for my bag. “She’s my best friend, Mario, even if she hates me. The only real friend I’ve ever had. If she dies thinking I abandoned her completely…”

“Elena.” His voice cracks slightly, an edge of desperation I’ve never heard from him before. The sound makes my chest ache—Mario DeLuca, who fears nothing, sounds terrified. “Please. Don’t do this.”

I cup his face in my hands, feeling the stubble rough against my palms, the tension in his jaw. His eyes hold a fear he’s trying desperately to hide—the same look he had when Anthony held that gun in my office. “I have to. You understand that, right? After everything that’s happened, all my betrayals…I have to try to do one thing right.”

He mutters something about me putting him in an early grave, but I can see the resignation in his eyes. He knows he can’t stop me. I kiss him quickly before rushing out to where his most trusted guard waits with a car.

The drive to Mount Sinai feels endless. Manhattan scrolls past my window—streets I used to walk freely are now full of potential threats. Every red light feels like torture as another update comes in about Bella’s failing condition.

I make it three levels into the parking garage before Matteo’s security spots me. Just as I knew they would. The guards’ hands move to their weapons, but it’s Matteo himself who emerges from the shadows, fury radiating from every line of his body.

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