Page 104 of The Don's Secret Heir

We pull up at the hospital and Giovanni screams for help.

Nurses and doctors run out and they rip Liana from the car. I pick Sonny up, carrying him silently into the hospital.

The police show up in about an hour but I’m not much help at all. Giovanni deals with it, paying them from his personal funds. He knows I’ll pay him back.

If Liana makes it through this, I’ll do anything.

Sonny looks up at me, his skin pale and white, cool to the touch. He might be in shock.

“Is Mama okay?” he asks, a crack in his voice and I lose it, managing just barely to look away before a sob rips through my body.

“Let’s go get a snack, okay?” Giovanni says gently.

I’m grateful. I can’t even look at the kid without breaking down. He looks so much like her, all gray eyes and dark hair.

It’s hours before the doctor comes out, and when he does, he calls for “the family of Liana Rossi.”

“I’m her husband,” I say gruffly as he walks toward me. I don’t realize my hands are shaking until I clasp them in my lap, looking up at him. “How is she?”

“It’s...” he hesitates, and my heart drops into my stomach. “It’s touch and go. We had to use three rounds of Narcan on her and well... to be frank, she died on the table.”

My breath catches in my throat and he must see something terrible on my face because he continues quickly.

“But we got a rhythm back. She won’t wake up for a long while, and when she does.... we just... we don’t know if she’ll be her old self.”

“But she’s alive?” I ask. It’s all I care about. I’ll accept any version of her, as long as it’s her. As long as she’s still breathing.

“She’s stable, for now?—”

“Can I see her?”

“Like I said, sir, she won’t wake up?—”

I wave my hand. “I don’t care about that. I said can I see her?”

“Of course. She’s in room two-twenty-four.”

He’s barely gotten the words out before I’m rounding the corner. I see her lying there in the hospital bed, IVs hooked up to her, a monitor measuring her respiration, her heart rate.

Her hair cascades across the pillow and I put my hand in it, feeling how soft the strands are between my fingers. I crouch next to her bed, my face in her stomach, and let myself cry.

After a few moments I feel her fingers twitch in my hair and I sit up, sniffling, watching her face.

She’s still out cold, but maybe the movement is a good sign. Should I tell someone?

I brush her hair back from her face.

I don’t want to leave her. Not even for a moment.

“There’s likely to be deficits,” the doctor says, a different one from earlier.

I nod.

“She might not remember you. She might not remember anything.”

I nod again.

“I don’t care,” I say finally when the doctor just keeps staring at me. “I don’t care how she comes back as long as she comes back.”