Page 115 of I Would Beg For You

I nod back, then turn to Renata and extend my hand. “Please?”

She gets to work removing the IV and putting a small plaster in place. “I’ll get you some clothing and also something to eat.”

“No need for food,” I say, then start reeling as I stand up. Franco catches me with an arm around my waist. I can’t do this on an empty stomach. The IV kept me hydrated, but I probably haven’t had any food since the wedding dinner after which I was kidnapped. I don’t even know which day it is. “How long…?”

“You’ve been here for over twelve hours,” Franco tells me.

Which means Valentino must’ve been in the hospital for just as long. And if he hasn’t woken up yet— No, I refuse to think of this. He’ll make it. He has to. We have our whole lives ahead of us, and we also have a daughter coming. A miracle, a blessing, given everything that’s happened in the past few months since she was conceived.

“Renata? A smoothie to drink in the car?” I ask, conceding.

“Pronto,” she says as she exits the room.

I glance at the two hulking men with me. “Okay, none of you is helping me change.”

A slash of color appears on both their cheekbones, then Franco quips, “Val would kill us if we were to see you undressed.”

I can’t help but laugh a little at this. Valentino is not a prude, but he is a very possessive man. No other man but he will be allowed to see me in my underwear or wearing less than that.

Val… My heart squeezes. Against the wall of my abdomen, I can feel the baby. Is she moving? Kicking? I don’t even know exactly how far along I am. I need to see a doctor asap, for sure, but I can find out some more information in the meantime. The priority right now is being with my husband.

Renata comes back a few moments later with a smoothie in a travel cup and a flared maxi dress which she helps me into. I thought I’d need a shower, but seems she also cleaned me up before getting me into a pair of satin pajamas last night.

It’s painful to move; there are kinks all over my body, and my back is on fire with every pull and stretch of the muscles. No wonder given how hard that asshole kicked me when I wasdown. Renata hands me some ibuprofen, but I eye it warily. Same way I know glutathione helps in healing—I read a lot—I know this type of painkiller is not recommended during pregnancy.

“You wouldn’t have some Tylenol, would you?” I ask.

She raises her eyebrows, but comes back with a couple pills I down with a sip of the strawberry and whey powder smoothie.

I get into the car, again moving gingerly, with Victor behind the wheel and Franco beside me on the back seat, and we’re off to the hospital. I have no idea where exactly Val’s been taken, and it surprises me when we enter a leafy area with no building taller than three stories. I don’t know when, but my hand has crept toward Franco’s, and he clasps it in his warm palm as we pass through big iron gates into a lavish property surrounded by acres of lawn and very old trees along the drive.

When we emerge in front of a Neo-classical dwelling that reminds me of the White House but with terracotta-colored walls, I can’t help but gasp.

“It’s a private hospital,” Franco tells me.

He doesn’t add for Mafia Dons, but I hear it. Valentino is swimming in a totally different, entirely separate pool from where he came from, let alone uncharted waters. Looking at this place, it’s obvious confidentiality is the name of the game here. There’s not a sound to be heard outside aside from the chirp of little birds.

We alight, and my hand sneaks into Franco’s hold again. I love Luciano and Victor, but Franco, he was always special, the kind of person you can’t help but gravitate to because he’s a safe space. He’s open in his manner and ways, unlike Victor who embodies stoic, whereas Valentino and Luciano both have a certain prim and proper comportment to them, like reserved and polite gentlemen of old. I’m glad to have him here with me.

The interior looks nothing like a hospital, at least not at first. The rooms, though, there’s no way to hide those beds and all those machines, all these beeping devices my husband is hooked to.

That’s the first thing I register when I get to peep at him. Not the fact he’s lying there immobile, or the thick tube going into his mouth and down his throat that is keeping him breathing, or the pallor of his usually golden skin. No, it’s the many screens with colored lines and blinking numbers. That’s what his life has been reduced to.

Luciano’s in the room, and he doesn’t seem surprised I’m here. Francesca was in an armchair, and she jumps up and comes over to hug me tight as soon I cross into the space. I feel the despair in her hold, the relief I’m here, yet also how fragile she is right now, clinging to hope, not wanting to give in to the darkness. I feel all of this, an echo of mine as she all but crushes me. The painkillers are working, though, somewhat. Right now, we’re united in our love for this man, and that’s all that matters.

When she releases me, Luciano pulls me tenderly to him in a one-armed hug. I lay my head for a moment against his solid chest, then tear myself away, taking hesitant steps to Val’s bedside.

I stop next to him, and it’s as if time stops. I want to will him to wake up, but I know he won’t, not just because I ask him to. He can’t. There’s a pouch of blood hanging on the metal pole, not a bag of fluid, which tells me how dire his condition is. After all this time, he’s still getting transfused.

Valentino… My beautiful Val, the man I have loved since I didn’t even know what love meant concretely. The only one who’s snuck into my heart and held it. I know there’s a place for my daughter in there, for our future children, but that part he holds? It will eternally be his.

I reach out and gently run my fingertips over his cheek, brushing a lock of unruly black hair at his temple. “Hey, my love.”

I’m hoping he can hear me, that somehow, he knows I’m here.

The others are still in the room, despite this probably being an ICU unit or something—you don’t throw a Don’s entourage, much less his family, out. I can feel them behind me, yet they give me my space, let me commune with their brother in this moment.

Val. He’s in this state because he had to come rescue me. Again. All because of the bastard who gave me half his DNA only as a ticket to steal my fortune, and I don’t mean just my money. He took my mother from me first, and today, he’s responsible for my husband hanging between life and death like this. It’s a miracle after all he’s done and has had done to me that my child is still clinging on inside my womb, alive and kicking.

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