Page 103 of Corrupted Empire

Once the nurses have cleaned me up, I am brought to a private waiting area where I find Clara and Harry playing on a mat in the corner. The second I walk in, Harry looks up and squeals happily.

“Momma!”

Tears brim in my eyes, and I swoop down to pick him up, holding him tightly to my chest. He smells like heaven, and I breathe in deep as I walk with him around the room. There was a moment in the penthouse where it looked like I would never get to hold him again. There’s still a chance that his father never will.

“You look awful,” Clara comments. “Are you okay?”

“The doctor just checked me out,” I tell her. “Healthy as a horse. Gabriel, on the other hand…”

“I heard.” Clara comes over and rubs her hand over my back. “Silvano told me I should stay at the house, but I thought you might want someone to wait with you.”

I have never been more grateful for my best friend. It could be hours until I find out if Gabriel’s going to make it, and the thought of spending that time in some cold hospital waiting room by myself is dismal. Now I have my friend and my baby, and I can deal with the rest as it comes.

* * *

A nurse comes into the room a few hours later to tell me that Gabriel is okay and that he’s waking up after the surgery. I let out a breath it feels like I have been holding since he first passed out in the SUV and hand Harry to Clara, kissing my son on the cheek one last time before I rush to his father’s bedside.

Gabriel looks way too big for his hospital bed. He is strapped into what seems like a dozen machines, with tubes and wires going everywhere. But he’s alive.

I slide into the chair next to his bed and rest my hand over his. His eyes open slowly, and when he sees it’s me, he smiles.

“What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?” he murmurs.

“What?” I don’t know what I was expecting his first words to be, but it wasn’t that.

“The next line of the poem,” he explains.

It all comes back, and I laugh. Reciting Blake in the back of the SUV while Silvano weaved through traffic feels like a lifetime ago.

“I didn’t think you’d remember any of that,” I say.

Gabriel licks his dry lips, looking around the room. “I make a habit of committing every second I’ve ever spent with you to memory.” His eyes return to mine, the black of his pupils spilling out toward the white. “Is the baby okay?”

I rest a hand over my stomach, smiling. “Baby’s fine. I’m fine. Harry’s fine.”

“Good.” His eyes drift closed, and he nods. “Good.”

“Gabriel,” I say, and his eyes blink open again. “What do we do now?”

His smile falls, and he grows more solemn. “That’s a good question. Call a meeting of my advisors. Whichever of them are left alive.”

I already know who is still alive, having received the news from Silvano a couple of hours ago. I squeeze Gabriel’s hand.

“I’ll call them,” I say. “But you should know that Piero didn’t make it, and Mirko and Liz are in intensive care. A couple of the men who came with the backup were killed as well—John and Matteo.”

Gabriel closes his eyes, as though feeling the pain of their deaths through the fog of the morphine. My heart breaks for him. He has seen so much death. I hope that this was the final battle and that an era of peace will follow. In fact, I intend to do everything I can to make sure that happens.

* * *

Gabriel has been allotted a larger than average hospital room, but even so, it is much too small a venue for an assembly of husky mobsters. Antonio somehow folds himself up in a chair in the corner, and the rest pack in around Gabriel’s bed like sardines, though they leave space around me. Silvano slips through the crowd and asserts himself at Gabriel’s other side.

“I’m on pretty powerful pain medication,” Gabriel says by way of greeting. “If I start muttering nonsense, I expect one of you to tell me.”

Some of the men chuckle. It’s nice to have even a sliver of lighthearted banter amidst what has been a truly hellish day.

Gabriel’s eyes skim over everyone in the room, as though he is grateful just to see them alive again. He takes in a great breath, and then sighs.

“It’s not over yet,” Gabriel says solemnly. “Antonio and Silvano, I want you to coordinate a blitz of the remaining Cartel members. I want the city wiped clean of them.” He looks at Dom, whose bulky form is towering over the end of his bed like a gargoyle. “Dom, do a sweep of O’Neill’s. If there’s any Irish Mafia still around, make it known in no uncertain terms that we will not tolerate any attacks on our people or businesses. They will either accept peace or they will die.”

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