Chapter 63 CHAPTER 64

Chapter 63 CHAPTER 64

Marta returned with Ernesto in five minutes.
Ernesto came down the hallway in long strides, his tie still loosened from the conference room, his eyes fixed on the nurse at the desk. From her chair, Julieta straightened.
“Her?” he asked without greeting anyone, pointing at Julieta with his chin.
The nurse looked up.
“Sir, she isn’t listed in—”
“She is now. Add her. Julieta Carrasco. She can visit the room whenever she wants, every day, at any hour, until I say otherwise. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if you ever call security on a pregnant woman in this hallway again, call Human Resources too, because you’ll be leaving with security.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ernesto turned to Julieta.
“Come on.”
He held out his hand. Julieta took it, pushed herself to her feet with effort, and adjusted her coat. Marta picked up the suitcases. The three of them walked toward the automatic door.
The door slid open.
And on the other side, coming out from the patient corridor, wearing her pearl necklace, a structured handbag, and the low heels of mourning that wasn’t mourning, stood Donatella Rossi.
Donatella saw Ernesto. She saw Marta. Finally, she saw Julieta.
She saw her belly.
And her expression completed itself.
“You.”
She said it quietly, almost to herself, but the hallway was small and everyone heard it.
“Donatella,” Ernesto said. “This is not the time.”
“You,” the woman repeated without looking at him. “You have some nerve showing up here. Today. Like that.”
Julieta didn’t answer. She placed a hand on her stomach, not as a gesture, but because Lucio had woken up again.
“What?” Donatella took a step forward. “No tongue now? Back at the mansion, I heard you just fine.”
“Donatella,” Ernesto repeated, louder.
“Let her answer me, Ernesto. Let her explain. I spend two months not knowing where she is, and she appears today, of all days, with a belly nobody ever saw before she left. Do you know what that looks like, girl? It looks exactly like what it is. An opportunist. A scheming little whore.”
Marta set the suitcases on the floor.
She didn’t step in.
But she set them down to free both hands, which, in an older woman, is a way of giving warning.
Julieta inhaled once through her nose.
“Donatella.”
“Yes, dear?”
“I’m not going to answer what you just said.”
“Oh? How lovely.”
“I’m not going to answer because your son is at the end of this hallway connected to a machine, and because your granddaughter is at your mansion asking about her father, and because I do not have five minutes this afternoon to waste on you. I don’t have five minutes, Donatella. If I did, I would spend them. But I don’t.”
“Girl, don’t speak to me like that.”
“I’m speaking to you like this because you called me a whore in front of a reception desk, in front of an older woman who doesn’t deserve to hear that, and in front of a man who respects you more than you deserve. I think the tone is appropriate.”
Donatella opened her mouth.
Ernesto closed it for her.
“Donatella. Look at me.”
The woman turned toward him. She looked surprised, like someone who never gets used to a nephew speaking to her that way.
“I’m going to say this once. And I’m going to say it in front of the two nurses at that desk, in front of Marta, in front of Julieta, and in front of anyone who walks through this hallway in the next fifteen seconds, so there’s no confusion later about who said what.”
“Ernesto, I’m your—”
“No, Donatella. Today you are not my aunt. Today you are the woman who just insulted the mother of my cousin’s next child in the hallway of the hospital where my cousin is lying in a coma. That’s who you are today. And that woman is the one I’m speaking to.”
Donatella fell silent.
“As long as my cousin is in that bed, I make the decisions. Vladimir left me the company, the house, and his daughter. And starting today, I make decisions about you too. This woman can visit my cousin whenever she wants. If you run into her in this hallway, at the Rossi mansion, at my house, or anywhere else where my cousin or I have any say, you will say good afternoon and keep walking. That is the only thing that comes out of your mouth. Good afternoon. Did you hear me, Donatella?”
“Ernesto—”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I ever hear another word like the one you just used against her, even once, I swear by my father—your brother—that I will put you in a nursing home. And not one of the good ones in this country. A good one in another country. Far away. Somewhere there won’t be a single Rossi to visit you. Paid for by me until your last day, of course—I won’t throw you out on the street. I’m not like you. But far away. Do you understand me?”
Donatella’s neck had turned red. Her jaw was clenched.
“You dare speak to your aunt that way?”
“I do. Test me.”
The woman stared at Ernesto for five long seconds.
Looking for something. A crack. A flicker of doubt.
She found none.
She tightened her grip on the structured handbag.
Then she turned.
“I’m leaving.”
“For that, I thank you.”
Donatella walked down the hallway toward the elevators, her heels clicking against the linoleum. Before disappearing around the corner, she turned one last time.
She didn’t look at Ernesto.
She looked at Julieta.
Julieta held her gaze.
“Good afternoon, Donatella,” she said, with the crooked smile of an exhausted woman who still has one bullet left in the chamber. “Take good care of yourself. The weather in those faraway nursing homes can be unpredictable.”
Donatella parted her lips.
Nothing came out.
She turned the corner.

Marta exhaled through her nose.
“Child, that woman is going to resent you for the rest of her life.”
“Marta, that woman already resented me before I opened my mouth. The difference is that now she has a reason.”
Ernesto rubbed a hand over his face.
“Juli, I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize for something you didn’t do. And thank you.”
“For what?”
“The nursing home part. That was exactly the right detail.”
“I’ve been carrying that one around in my pocket for months. It was bound to come out someday.”
“You picked the right day.”
Ernesto half-smiled.
Barely.
Three days in a hospital didn’t leave much room for more.
“Come on.”
The nurse at the desk didn’t look up as they passed. She pretended to be typing something on her screen, deeply focused, while the three of them walked by toward the patient corridor.

Before they reached the room, Ernesto stopped.
“Juli.”
“Yes?”
“Ten seconds. What you’re about to see isn’t pretty. He’s on a ventilator, connected to monitors, with tubes everywhere. He’s clean. He’s being cared for. But he’s hooked up to everything. I’m not telling you to scare you. I’m telling you so you walk in prepared.”
“All right.”
“Ready?”
Julieta took a breath.
She nodded.
Ernesto opened the door.