Chapter Twenty-One

The beeping of the damn monitors all around Kate is making me crazy.

I hate the small silence between each blip because it could be the last time that I hear them indicating that she is alive.

She is desperately fragile, more dead than alive, supported by so many different machines that I can't count them all.

She certainly doesn't look alive, swaddled in wires and tubes and the scratchy hospital blanket.

The air conditioning clicks on, and the cold air pouring into the room makes me shiver. I cast my glance around idly, wondering where my jacket went, and then remember that I left it at the Baldini house. I ignore the cold and hunker down in the chair beside her bed.

Kate must be feeling a thousand times worse than me. I deserve to be too cold and uncomfortable in the hard hospital chair.

Brain hemorrhage,the doctor had said. The fall had caused her to suffer a brain bleed and then she had a stroke. They told me all of this in a rapid-fire discussion before rushing off to do an emergency surgery to try and mitigate some of the damage to Kate's brain.

I could tell that he thought that I pushed her down the stairs on purpose until Enzo and Luca came up demanding to know what her condition was.

He clearly recognized the Baldini boys and he had swallowed hard then said that he would try his best to save her life before he vanished into a surgical suite.

I had wanted to tear their throats out with my bare hands for doing this to her, for causing her to be injured so severely, but I had managed to restrain myself for Mateo's sake.

I had funneled all of my anguish into a litany of repeated prayers begging for Kate to be okay, begging for her to make it through this.

I kept remembering her jumping onto Luca's back with fierce strength, stabbing at him with the tiny knife. She had cut his cheek and I had felt a fierce surge of pride that she had been able to hurt him and that she had marred his pretty face.

All of my joy had been instantly erased the moment he had flung her off his back and she had vanished down the stairs.

I could still hear each thud of her body running into the stairs, the walls, and the railings of the staircase as she fell. The thought of the sounds her body had made as she tumbled down the huge staircase made me feel sick and dizzy.

"How is she?"

It's Enzo's voice, and I lift haunted eyes for a moment to glance at him before training my gaze on Kate's face again.

I have the crazy notion that if I look away for a single moment, her soul might slip by me and vanish, leaving her empty husk here in the frightening and depressing hospital room. Leaving me alone.

"That's a stupid question," I grind out, gripping my hands together in my lap.

Enzo sighs. "Yeah," he agrees. "Yeah, it is."

"I wish she had slit your brother's throat," I say to Enzo next.

I reach out and cautiously place my hand in Kate's. Her fingers are chilly, but I am relieved that they aren't cold like a corpse's hands.

For a moment, I hate that I know so well what the fingers of a dead body feel like. I wonder in an abstracted way, what it would be like to have never once harmed anyone, to have no idea what taking a life is like.

Enzo chuckles and I shoot him a surprised glance. He drives a hand through his unruly hair. "I have had the same thought from time to time," he admits. He shakes his head. "Luca is crazy. He can't be fixed."

"A bullet to the head would do that," I say harshly. "That's what you do to rabid dogs so they don't bite people."

Enzo levels a look at me. "I can't shoot my own brother," he says.

I scoff. "It's not easy, but sometimes it has to be done," I say.

Enzo's grey eyes go wide for a moment, as he puts the pieces together.

Like everyone in the crime world, he heard about my brother's untimely death. Now, he's the first person to know how he died. I don't care anymore.

I don't feel anything but a twisting anxiety about Kate. I would probably give him all of my business contacts, all of my connections in the government, everything I knew about my business, just to make him go away and leave us alone.

"This isn't over, Elio," Enzo says.

I sigh. I feel like an old man. The energy that used to drive me to want to compete for better business deals and for more money has drained out of me during the past twelve hours. "For me, it is," I say back.

"We still have the boy," Enzo reminds me.

I shoot him a gimlet stare. "If you harm a single hair on his head, I will murder you both with my bare hands and I will make your children watch, I promise and I mean it."

Enzo nods. "I believe that," he assures me. "For now, he's staying with us. I've called my sister to come stay with us for a while. She's the only one without kids, so she can help take care of him. Did they say how long…" his voice trails off.

I shake my head. "They didn't. It could be hours. It could be years. She could die between this breath and the next."

"I see." Enzo has the good grace to sound regretful. "Well, I'm going back to the house. You know where to find Mateo when you're ready to sign the deal."

I don't bother responding to him. I don't care about the deal or the business right now. I already called my brother and told him that he would have to take my place for the time being.

I didn't go into much detail, but I asked him to have the lawyers start working out what I can do to get custody of my son.

My mother had told me to update her about Kate when I knew something. That was hours ago, so I guess it's probably time to call her.

I take out my phone and dial my mother's phone number. I don't have the number saved as a contact in the burner phone that I brought with me to the Baldini house when I came to visit Kate, but I know her number by heart.

"Elio?" she says as she picks up.

"Mom," I reply. I squeeze Kate's fingers, willing her to respond, to react, to do something.

"How is she?" my mother asks me. Her voice sounds strained and concerned.

"She's….not good, Mom," I say and instantly I start sobbing.

My grief is uncontrollable, like the sound of my mother's concerned voice has reduced me to a child again. I hear her asking me different questions, but all I can do is sob and choke.

I drop the phone onto the bed and press my head into Kate's legs, a river of wrenching sadness pouring out of me.

***

"Elio?"

I lift my head from the hospital bed. My face feels puffy and sticky. I'm momentarily confused about where I am. I realize with a start that I am at the hospital and that I didn't imagine Kate tumbling down the stairs and falling into a coma.

"Here, let me watch her for a while," Esther La Rosa says to me as she comes around the bed. She presses me back into the hospital chair and hands me some tissues.

"I have to stay with her," I insist stubbornly.

My mother smiles softly at me. "I know you want to be with her, but she won't vanish if you go home and take a shower and get some rest."

"I have to protect her," I say, shaking my head. I blow my nose and make a face at the result. I realize that I must look a fright.

"I know," my mother says agreeably. She pulls up another chair and sits down beside me. "But you know me, I don't go anywhere unprotected." She pats her designer purse, and a grin lifts the corners of my mouth for a moment.

My mother has never left the house without her concealed carry weapon, a can of pepper spray, and one or two knives at least. They are often sitting side-by-side with crayons, cough drops, and tissues in her purse.

I know that she's right, that I need to go home and recover, but I have this irrational fear that if I leave Kate, she'll just slip away into the ether, never to return. If I'm being honest with myself, I'm not even sure that she hasn't already done that.

"What happened?" my mother asks.

I sigh and drive my hands through my thick hair, cradling my head. My skin feels sensitive, burned, and too tight for my body.

Every one of my nerve endings feels painful, like I've been treated to extensive torture.

"Kate told me she didn't want me to sign the deal that the Baldinis wrote up. She said it would put my life in danger and put the lives of all of my family at risk. I guess I just never intended to honor the damn thing, so I felt like if I signed it, we'd get her and Mateo out, and then I would rain down hell on the Baldinis."

I sigh, leaning back in the uncomfortable chair. "But then I thought, I'll add a clause to the contract that promises that I am signing it in exchange for the safety of Kate and Mateo. I let her come in and read the document. I wanted her to know what was going on."

My mother narrows her eyes at this, but she just nods for me to continue.

"She wanted to add a clause that would leave Mateo in Grazia's care if she died. All of us rejected that idea. The Baldinis knew this would remove the leverage that they have over me and Luca hates the idea of anyone that isn't a Baldini being sheltered in their home. Hell, he hates outsiders so much he almost chased Emelia off just because she wasn't family."

"Luca's crazy," my mother says with a sigh. "Everyone knows that."

I nod. "Anyhow, I got really angry," I admit sheepishly. "I thought she was threatening to take Mateo away from me. I thought she didn't want me to have custody of him. I didn't see that she was just trying to remove him from the equation; to keep him safe. I…threatened her."

My mother tsks and gives me a dark stare. "Elio, for shame," she says to me and the disappointment in her tone is like a knife to my chest.

I groan and close my eyes. "She kept saying over and over that she was a risk to me and to Mateo. That we would both be safe if she was dead.

She got a letter opener off the desk and held it to her own throat. She said she would kill herself if I didn't promise not to sign the deal and if I didn't promise to let Mateo go to be with Marco and Grazia."

My mother utters a curse, then crosses herself, turning her eyes to Kate's crumpled form in the big, sterile hospital bed.

"She went down the hall, trying to buy us time, I think. I realize now that she might have thought I could subdue Luca and Enzo if she was serving as a distraction. Luca and I got into a fistfight, and she jumped on him." I smile and say proudly, "She even cut his face."

"Brave girl," my mother says approvingly.

"In the scuffle, Luca flung her off of him and she fell down the stairs. You know how long and steep those staircases are at the front of their disgustingly posh house. She had a brain bleed and then a stroke, Mom. They don't know if she will wake up and if she does, what her condition will be like." My voice gets thick with emotion as I choke out the last words.

The thought of Kate unable to walk or talk, having to learn to take care of herself again, breaks what's left of my cold, black heart.

My mother is silent for a long time, then she rises and whispers something near Kate's ear. She comes to sit down beside me and stares into my face for a long moment.

The ringing slap that she delivers to my face comes out of nowhere, and I suck in a surprised breath, tamping down the rush of anger coursing through me in response.

"That is for your disrespect, as well as your negligence, for both Kate and your son," she tells me, her voice level, calm and devoid of emotion.

She leans forward and pats my clasped hands. "Now, go home and get some rest. I will watch over her while you are gone."

My cheek is throbbing and my eyes are watering. I blink rapidly and rise to my feet, looking down at the small form of my mother.

I bend forward and press a dutiful kiss to her cheek and then force my leaden feet to walk across the room and out the door.

I walk through the quiet hospital hallways, my cheek burning and my heart feeling like lead in my chest. A part of me wants to get in the car and just drive away. I could just drive until I found someplace where no one knew who I was and drink until I forgot all of this.

The hours since Kate's accident have felt like a prison that I cannot escape from and my inability to connect with my emotions is only making things worse for me.

I think of my father. He would have just gone back home, gotten roaring drunk, and then gone back to work.

Maybe he would have cracked a few extra heads while doing some deals to make himself feel better. Is that who I am turning into? Am I on a path that will lead to becoming the kind of man that my father was?

The thought is not a comfort and I quail a little at the idea of becoming a terror to everyone around me. A ruthless weapon honed for conflict and aggression and nothing else.

I think about Gabriel and his little family. He has always been able to separate business from family, but then again, he was never asked to do the terrible things that I did, in the name of securing deals and strengthening the family's reputation.

I climb into my car and sit for a moment, driving my hands through my hair. I sent my security team home hours ago and so I probably shouldn't sit here like a prime target, easy to attack. But I just can't even find the will to care that I am putting myself in danger.

Kate's uncertain future has made me feel like every single thing in my life is on hold. I can't even find the anger or desire within me to throttle the Baldini brothers anymore.

I sigh and turn the key in the ignition. Hopefully, I can get some sleep tonight.

While I would rather not leave Kate alone, I know that my mother won't let anything happen to her. And she's right; I need to figure out how to take care of Kate and Mateo, or they truly will be better off without me.