Chapter Twenty-Three

"What are you doing here?" I manage to say to Grazia.

Did someone call Marco and tell him that he might get custody of Mateo because Kate got hurt? Did Luca and Enzo send her here to try and put pressure on me to sign the deal?

I can't think of any positive reason that Grazia would be here and yet, my mother seems perfectly content with her presence.

Grazia glances at Kate's still form in the hospital bed. "I called my brothers a few days ago to invite them to our house for a visit and they told me what happened to Kate." Her lips turn down into a frown. "I had some pretty choice things to say to them about all of this." She sighs.

I eye her cautiously. I'm reminded that poisonous creatures are almost always colorful and attractive. Grazia's apparent kindness might only be a cover for something far more sinister.

"Grazia might have a solution that could help Kate get better," my mother says, snapping me out of my moody contemplation of Grazia.

"I see," I say cautiously. I wander closer to Kate's bed, reaching out to touch her hand.

She doesn't respond, but I didn't expect that, not really. "Is there some reason that you think that she isn't in good hands here?" I ask, my tone flat.

Grazia smiles gently at me. "This is a regular hospital," she says to me. "They've done their best for her, but they don't have the specialists that she needs if she's going to get better."

I eye Luca and Enzo's sister for a moment. It went without question that I wouldn't trust her brothers if they told me that this hospital wasn't the right place for Kate to recover.

I would suspect them of trying to hide her from me. However, now that Grazia is married she is less tied to her family's business. And she doesn't earn any money from the deals that her brothers negotiate, so she can't be here to try and collect money from me.

"I don't gain anything by helping, Elio," she says, reflecting my own thoughts back at me. "I don't know Kate, but I feel terrible about the way that my brothers have treated her since the wedding. She was gracious to me even while they were kidnapping her and Mateo is a sweet little boy. It's the least I can do to try to help."

I sigh and glance at my mother. "I assume that you two have already discussed all of this while I was on my way back here."

My mother smiles a little and nods. "We have."

I nod. "And?"

"I think we should send her to the hospital that Grazia suggested," she tells me.

I glance back at Grazia. "I assume that you're a Baldini through and through, which means that you already have her transfer set up and a bed waiting for her at the hospital that you have come here to recommend."

She grins at me, and I soften toward her in spite of myself. "You assume right," she answers me. "You just have to agree and I will put things in motion."

I look down at Kate. The beeping sounds of all the machines keeping her alive are the only things that tell me that she hasn't slipped away.

It might be my imagination, but I think she looks even paler than she did yesterday. I draw in a breath and I say, "Do it."

***

"We have a family property nearby," Grazia says to me, "but I assume that you wouldn't want to stay at one of our houses, so I got you and your mother hotel rooms nearby." She passes me a couple of hotel room keys.

"What about Mateo?" I ask.

"I brought him with me," she says with a grin. "He's at the house right now, but I can bring him over to your hotel room whenever you are ready."

I drive a hand through my hair. The trip to the new hospital wasn't that long. It's only an hour from my house, but the process of moving someone out of ICU to another care facility was not an easy one.

I feel like I've aged a year over the past day.

"I assume that you'll want to sit with her," Grazia is saying. She pulls out her phone and glances at it. "I'm having dinner brought over from the house. Our chef is excellent. I assume you like Italian?" She winks at me and I smile back. I can't help it. Grazia is as charming as her brothers are brutish.

"Grazia, it's good to see you," a doctor says as she comes into the room. She walks over to Grazia and presses a kiss to each of her cheeks.

"Doctor Gregory," Grazia says, squeezing the other woman's hands. The doctor towers over Grazia's petite form. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and a spare, slender frame.

"I'm glad that we had a bed for your friend," Doctor Gregory says to Grazia, lifting her chart out of the slot at the foot of the bed and walking over to look at the IV machine that is dispensing God knows what to the woman that I love.

"There's no better place for someone with a brain injury," Grazia says.

"Agreed," Doctor Gregory says. "Is the fiancé here?"

"Present and accounted for," I say from my place on the other side of the bed.

The doctor turns toward my voice and gives me a welcoming smile. "So sorry. I didn't see you over there."

"It's a big room. Easy to lose a little fellow like me in here," I jest, surprised that I can do so. Something about the posh and tidy private hospital has immediately improved my mood, however.

Grazia was right. This place is significantly nicer than the hospital by the Baldini home.

Doctor Gregory laughs, the sound throaty and somehow professional-sounding. "We try to make sure that patients aren't stuffed into tiny little rooms around here. It's much easier to treat them when there's some room to breathe."

Room to breathe, I think. That's something that Kate hasn't enjoyed since she was kidnapped by Grazia's brothers.

"So, what do you think?" I ask. I look at Kate again, wishing that there was more color in her face.

"I'm not going to lie to you," Doctor Gregory says, looking at the chart again. "She's not in great shape."

My heart squeezes in my chest so hard that it actually hurts. I think wryly that if I'm having a heart attack, at least I'm in the right place to get help.

"However," the doctor goes on. "There are some new treatments available for those with significant head trauma and we also have a stroke unit here that is the best in the country."

"None of that matters if she's in a coma," I remind her.

Doctor Gregory gives me a smile again. "True enough," she agrees.

Her expression grows more serious and she puts the chart back into the slot. "I want to change her medications before we do anything else. There are some new drugs that can help with swelling of the brain and which might also help to reverse the damage from the stroke. We will start there and see how things go."

"Will she need another surgery?" I ask, my heart beating roughly in my chest.

The doctor sighs. "I can't rule it out." She turns back to me with another professional, yet welcoming grin. "But let's cross that bridge when we get there."

I thank the doctor as Grazia leaves the room with her to go and collect the food that is being dropped off at the front doors of the hospital.

Alone with Kate again, I close my eyes and try to feel some hope. Certainly my spirits have been lifted by my surroundings, but Kate still has a long way to go.

"I'm sorry that I hurt you all those years ago," I say to Kate quietly. The machines here beep more pleasantly and they don't drown out my voice even at its softest. "I'm sorry that you felt that you had to run away from me to be safe." My mouth twists. "It seems like even now, you would be far safer if you were nowhere near me. And maybe that is what we will have to do to protect you. Even though it kills me to think it, maybe it's not safe for you and Mateo to live with me."

"Oh, that's nonsense," Grazia says to me as she bustles back into the room with my mother.

They are both carrying sacks of food and utensils. "My brothers are very dangerous men, is all. And they can't be trusted for a second. She will be safe with you so long as you stay away from us after this." She laughs like she has told a very funny joke and I chuckle along with her even if what she said was a bit macabre.

"This smells amazing," my mother says as she starts to unwrap all the various containers and platters that were tucked into the insulated bags sent by Grazia's cook.

"All of these dishes are made with my Nonna's recipes," Grazia says proudly, inhaling the aromas coming from the food and smiling.

I remember hearing about how huge the wake was for her grandmother. She was clearly an influential person in Grazia's life.

"It still feels like yesterday that your Nonna passed away," my mother says gently. She has a little smile on her lips. Clearly she's remembering the other woman as she dishes up a plate of food for herself.

Grazia swallows and nods. "There's little things every day that remind me of her," she agrees. "Sometimes it's hard, but then I think about how lucky I am, to have loved someone so much, that I"m missing her like this."

"A wise attitude," my mother says approvingly, grabbing herself a fork and sitting down.

I look over at Kate in her hospital bed, my chest feeling tight, the need to serve myself some food completely forgotten as I ponder Grazia's words.

I don't want to have to figure out how to miss her each day. I don't want to be reminded of her presence each day over and over with sadness because she's gone.

"Don't give up on her yet," Grazia says to me kindly, placing a hand on my wrist. "She's young, strong and she wants to be here."

I nod and sigh. I look down at the spread of delicious food and force myself to get interested in eating.

"Any woman who thought she could jump on Luca's back and kill him with a letter opener won't be dying in a hospital bed," she says with a light laugh.

I manage to chuckle as well. She makes a good point about Kate's fierce determination. She is not the kind of person to give up in the face of a challenge, but this isn't the kind of challenge that she has a significant amount of control over.

My phone pings and I glance down at the screen. My brother has sent me an email. I open the message and scowl.

The Baldini boys have sent him a demand for him to surrender the trade routes that they have been demanding because they allowed Mateo to leave the house and come to be with his mother here.

I clamp down on my anger. It's not Grazia's fault that her brothers are despicable and I don't want to give this mess energy when I have much more important things to worry about.

I'm typing back a short note to my brother to just ignore them, when Grazia pops up at my elbow. "I know that look," she says. "That's the look everyone on earth wears when they are trying to deal with my idiot brothers. What have they done now?"

I'm too tired to explain anything to her, so I just pass her my phone. She scrolls through the message, opening the documents and looking at them.

She mutters something under her breath in Italian, and hands me back my phone.

"Where are you going?" I ask her as she starts marching toward the door to leave Kate's room. She glances back at me, her expression intense.

"To deal with this. I was going to go get Mateo, but I'll have the staff drive him over here. I'm sure you'd like to see him and he's been asking about his mother."

"Thank you," I manage to say despite my surprise.

She nods, her phone already pressed against her ear, and then she leaves. I glance over at my mother, knowing that my expression is a little shocked.

"All of you think you're running the business singlehandedly," she says to me. "But we women take care of a lot of work that you never even know about."

I smile at my mother, realizing just how true her words are.

Grazia has made so many things possible for Kate and she has helped protect our business from her brothers ever since she arrived in town.

She's a formidable woman, just like my mother. Just like Kate.