Chapter 4

Sera POV:

I woke to the sharp, sterile tang of antiseptic and the rhythmic, hollow beep of machines that measured the faltering mechanics of my body. I was in the Family's private hospital wing. My limbs felt heavy, alien, as if they were encased in lead.

I tried to move my legs.

I sent the command, a desperate, silent scream from my brain, but the signal found no purchase. Nothing happened.

A cold spike of panic clawed at my throat.

Matteo was sitting in the chair next to the bed, his head buried in his hands.

His usually pristine suit was rumpled, his hair in disarray.

He looked up instantly when my breathing hitched.

"Sera," he breathed, lunging forward to take my hand.

"Thank God."

"My back," I croaked, my voice a ruin.

"It's... it's a severe fracture," he said, his voice trembling.

"The doctors... they say with extensive therapy, you might walk again."

Might.

My dancing.

My freedom.

Gone.

"I want the police," I whispered.

Matteo stiffened.

He pulled his hand back as if burned.

"Sera, listen to me," he said, his voice taking on that steely tone of command, but there was a tremor of pain in it. "We can't call the police."

"She pushed me, Matteo," I said, hot tears leaking from my eyes.

"She tried to kill me."

"She was having an episode," he said quickly, defensive. "She thought you were an attacker. She doesn't even remember doing it. Sera, if it was anyone else, anyone, I would have them flayed alive for touching you. You know I would. But this is Bianca. She's fragile. If the police come, they'll arrest her. She wouldn't survive prison. Please don't be unreasonable."

I stared at him in disbelief.

He was prioritizing her hypothetical survival over my actual broken back.

"I want to press charges," I said, my voice rising with hysteria.

"No," he said.

It wasn't a request.

It was an order.

"I've already handled it," he continued, his words coming like cold, evenly spaced stones. "The security footage from the hallway has been wiped. It was an accident. You fell. That is the story. Omertà, Sera. We do not bring outsiders into our business."

Wiped.

He erased the truth.

He erased my pain.

He erased me.

"You chose her," I said, the realization settling over me like a suffocating shroud.

"I am protecting the Family," he said, standing up, his features settling into the hard, impassive planes of the Capo.

"And I am protecting you from a scandal."

"Rest now."

He walked to the door.

"Where are you going?" I asked, my voice breaking.

"She's sedated in the next room," he said, refusing to meet my eyes.

"She needs someone to be there when she wakes up. She's terrified."

Then, without looking back, he walked out.

He left his wife, paralyzed in a hospital bed, to hold the hand of the woman who put her there.

I closed my eyes.

And for the first time in five years, I didn't pray for him to come back.

I prayed for the strength to become a ghost.