“He should never have goaded Dominic like that. He’d sworn never to do it.”

I turned to Roman. “What are you talking about?” I hadn’t been in the room, not until it was almost the very end.

Roman glanced at me. “Franco isn’t Dominic’s father, but he loved my sister. Loved her enough to keep it hushed. To act like Dominic was his son all along. He had no right to tell him like this.”

“You’re worried about Dominic? He deserves to be the one in there, not Salvatore.”

He met my gaze. “No one should be in there. Period.”

“I may be a horrible person, but I don’t agree.”

He sighed. “You’re nowhere near a horrible person.”

He got up and left the room. I remained where I was. Isabella stayed with me until, almost four hours later, a doctor finally came out, looking for next of kin.

“That’s me,” I said, although it wasn’t quite me. “Lucia DeMarco.”

He checked his sheet of paper. Satisfied, he looked back at me. The space of that second stretched to an hour, and I dreamed the worst, thought I should prepare myself to hear it, but how did one prepare to hear something that terrible?

“Mr. Benedetti is an incredibly lucky man. And his will to live is tremendous.”

I smiled, feeling a thousand pounds lift from me. “He’s going to make it?”

“He shouldn’t have, not given the route the bullet took, but he is. He’s asking for you.”

“I can see him?”

“Only for a few minutes. He needs to rest. We’ll sedate him, but he’s insisting on seeing you first.”

“He’s pigheaded,” I said, wiping away fresh tears. I followed the doctor, a joy filling me that I’d never in my life felt before. Never knew possible.

I walked into the private room, where machines beeped and doctors and nurses worked around the bed where Salvatore lay, eyes closing, then opening, turning his head away from the nurse who tried to attach yet another tube.

“Salvatore!” I hobbled over to him and took the seat someone pushed behind me.

He opened his eyes and gave me a weak smile. He kept opening and closing his hand, and I placed mine inside it. He stilled then, lay back, and shut his eyes. I sat there and watched, not sure if he held my hand or I held his, not sure it mattered anymore. I watched him sleep, counted the needles in his arms, watched them inject something into the tube of one of the IVs.

“He will be out for a while. You can go home and get some rest. We’ll call you when he’s awake.”

“No,” I said, not taking my eyes off him. “I’m staying here.”

“Ma’am…”