Page 97 of Cage the Storm
“Get the car. Clear Route 12. Now.”
I claw at his shirt. “Nico. I hate hospitals.”
His palm caresses my cheek, thumb smearing my tears. “You claim I’m the storm in this relationship, but it’s always been you, Luna. Not me.”
The engine roars beneath us as he adds, “Every second matters. If they screw this up, they’ll wish they never laid eyes on me.”
But when we arrive and the steel doors slam shut behind us, I don’t care what happens to me. Just—please. Not the baby.
The fluorescent lights are too bright, and the antiseptic stings my nose. Nico’s grip is iron-tight, his other hand firm at the small of my back as nurses rush in. They talk in clipped codes—BP dropping, fetal distress, O-negative stat, but their eyes keep darting to the soldiers in the hall. To the glint of steel beneath Nico’s open shirt.
A young resident steps too close, her fingers cold on my wrist. “We need to get her to?—”
Nico’s knife is at her throat before she finishes. “Touch her again without my permission,” he murmurs, “and I’ll rip out your intestines for fun.”
The room freezes.
I bite back a scream as another contraction rips through me. “Nico.” He doesn’t lower the blade.
“Nico, let them work, or I’ll gut you.”
A beat. Then he smiles mirthlessly before he sheaths the knife. “Do your job. Carefully.”
They rush me to delivery, Nico’s men flanking the gurney, alert and watchful. He doesn’t let go of my hand, not when they strap monitors to my belly, not when the obstetrician barks about emergency C-sections.
“Look at me,” Nico growls as my vision blurs.
“Fuck you…”
“Look. At. Me.”
I do. His eyes are onyx fire, his jaw set like he can absorb every ounce of my pain and make it his own.
“You don’t get to quit.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
Antonio’s gloves are bloody as he interrupts. “Breech. Cords wrapped. We need to move now?—”
Nico’s palm slams the wall. “You said stable. You said monitor.”
“Nico!” I seize his wrist, dragging his focus back. “Let. Them. Save. Him.”
He stills. “Him?”
A ghost of a laugh tears out of me. “You didn’t know?”
For the first time in years, Nico Caputo looks afraid.
They prep me fast—oxygen, monitors, a blur of voices. Someone says epidural, and I agree. I want to be awake. I need to be.
The cold hits my spine, and I count backwards while the numbness creeps down, slow and deliberate.
When they slice me open, I don’t feel the cut. Just pressure, then a hollow void, and a wail that splits the universe.
Crying. He’s crying.
Nico’s thumb strokes my cheekbone as they lift him—tiny, furious, alive—and something wet slides down his face. He doesn’t wipe it away.
