Chapter 6

The hospital air was thick with the chemical bite of bleach and the metallic tang of impending death.

It was a scent I knew intimately. I had spent half my life in trauma centers just like this one, stitching up bodies broken by cars, by bullets, and by sheer, rotten luck.

But tonight, I wasn't the surgeon.

I was the wife.

The wife of the man currently lying on an operating table with a collapsed lung and internal bleeding.

I stood at the nurses' station, my knuckles white as I gripped the counter. My leg throbbed inside its fiberglass cast-a dull, rhythmic echo reminding me of my own recent dance with mortality.

"Mrs. Cavallaro?" the nurse asked tentatively.

She clutched a clipboard to her chest, her eyes darting nervously to the waiting area behind me.

I didn't need to turn around. I knew exactly what-and who-she was looking at.

Sofia was there.

She was perched in a wheelchair she didn't need, weeping into a lace handkerchief. A small, pristine bandage covered a cut on her forehead. It was barely a scratch, yet she wailed loud enough for the entire floor to hear.

"My Dante! Oh God, please save him! He swerved to save me! He saved me!"

The nurses behind the station exchanged hushed whispers.

"That is the mistress?" one murmured, scandalized.

"She seems devastated. Look at the wife. She is just standing there. Like a statue."

I reached out and took the pen from the nurse.

My hand didn't shake.

"This is the consent for the thoracotomy?" I asked, my voice clinically detached.

"Yes, Ma'am. We need to open him up to stop the bleeding immediately."

I stared at the signature line.

If I didn't sign, he might die.

If he died, I would be a widow. I would be free.

The thought floated through my mind, seductive and dark, offering a release from the agony of the last few months.

Then, I looked at Sofia. She was performing her grief like it was the final aria in a tragic opera, soaking up the attention.

If he died, she would become the tragic love of his life. The martyr. The grieving survivor.

I wouldn't give her that satisfaction.

I pressed the pen to the paper and signed.

Elena Vitiello.

Not Cavallaro.

"Save him," I said simply, shoving the clipboard back at the stunned nurse.

I turned on my heel and walked toward the VIP waiting room, ignoring the murmurs. I sat as far away from Sofia as the walls would allow.

Five agonizing hours dragged by.

Sofia slept for three of them, curled up on a loveseat like a contented cat. I didn't sleep. I watched the clock, counting every second of my husband's survival.

At dawn, the double doors swung open.

"He is stable," the surgeon announced, looking exhausted. "He is asking for family."

Sofia shot up from the loveseat as if electrified.

"Dante!" she cried out.

She sprinted toward the doors without a backward glance.

I grabbed my crutches. I followed, my pace slow and deliberate.

When I finally entered the recovery room, Sofia was already staged. She was draped over his bed, sobbing theatrically onto his chest.

Dante looked pale, a ghost against the white sheets. Tubes snaked from his arms, and a ventilator hissed a rhythmic, mechanical breath beside him.

His eyes were open-groggy, unfocused, searching.

He blinked, trying to clear the anesthesia fog.

He looked around the room.

His gaze passed right over me. I was standing at the foot of the bed, visible, present.

He didn't stop.

He looked down at the woman weeping on his chest.

"Sofia," he rasped. His voice sounded like broken glass grinding together. "Are you... safe?"

"Yes, Dante! I'm here!" Sofia sobbed, clutching his hospital gown.

"Thank God," he whispered, closing his eyes in relief.

A sharp, phantom pain twisted in my womb.

The baby I had lost was only ten weeks old. He hadn't asked about me. He hadn't asked about the child he didn't even know existed.

He checked on his mistress first.

A sound escaped me. A cold, bitter scoff.

Dante's eyes snapped open. He finally focused on me.

"Elena," he said, the relief vanishing from his tone.

"You are alive," I said flatly. "Good. The paperwork would have been a nightmare if you had died."

Dante frowned, his brow furrowing in pain and confusion.

"Is that all you have to say?"

I looked at Sofia. She was picking a grape from a fruit basket the hospital had provided for VIP guests, popping it into her mouth between sobs.

"She is eating fruit, Dante," I said, gesturing with my chin. "She is fine. Your bond must be magical indeed if it heals scratches instantly."

"Elena, be quiet," Dante warned. His voice was weak, but the command was unmistakable.

Suddenly, Sofia froze.

The grape slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.

She screamed.

It was a high, piercing shriek that made the heart monitors spike in panic.

"My hand!" she screamed, staring at her arm. "I can't feel my fingers! My left hand!"

She held up her limp hand, shaking it violently.

Dante tried to sit up, triggering a cascade of blaring alarms.

"Sofia! What is it?"

"I can't move it!" she wailed, terror distorting her face. "I'm paralyzed!"

Dante ripped the pulse oximeter off his finger. He clawed at the IV in his arm, trying to tear it out.

"Help her!" he roared at the nurses rushing into the room. "Get a doctor! Now!"

He didn't look at me.

He was tearing his own life support apart just to get to her.