Chapter 298

Beeping. Rhythmic and insistent. The very first thing Val became conscious of was sound: the distant hum of medical equipment measuring heartbeats and respiration. And then pain, dull and throbbing low in her leg. Then the scent of antiseptic and clean sheets.

She opened her eyes, blinking in the bright hospital room. Everything was white and clean and safe.

Luca was sitting on a chair next to her bed. His left shoulder was wrapped up and his arm in a sling. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. He appeared to have not slept in days, his face lined with exhaustion and anxiety. He had those blue eyes still on her face, and when she finally opened them all the way relief passed over his face so clear it hurt.

"Val," he breathed. "Thank God. You're awake."

"Alecia?" The word was hoarse, her throat burned-clean by smoke. "Is she—"

"She's okay." Luca’s hand found hers and he gave it an encouraging squeeze. "Recovering two rooms down. Dehydrated, bruised, traumatized, but alive. Kennedy hasn't left her side."

Val closed her eyes, let relief rush through her. Alive. Alecia was alive.

"Roberto?" she said, though she knew the answer.

"Dead. Died at the scene." Luca's voice was flat, emotionless. “The entire warehouse collapsed on me from nothing to no time at all about 10 minutes after we got everyone out. His body was recovered from the rubble.”

"Bianca?"

Luca's jaw tightened. "Escaped in the chaos. But now, she’s a fugitive from the law — and from every mafia family in the area. She can't stay hidden forever. We'll find her."

"Matteo?"

"In custody. Bird singing to save his life. “He’s dropping a dime on Bianca’s whole operation to try for less time.” Luca's expression was grim. "It won't save him. But it will be easier to find Bianca.”

Val attempted to sit up but gasped as a burst of pain shot down her leg. Luca was right there, fluffing pillows, easing her into a better position with the gentlest of touches.

“You had a crushed leg,” he said. "Broken in three places. The doctors had to insert pins and plates. You will need physical therapy, but they tell you: You are going to be walking again. Maybe even run, eventually."

“Then someday,” Val repeated, trying the word out. She glanced at Luca’s bandaged shoulder. "And you?"

"Bullet went straight through. Missed anything vital. I'll be fine in a few weeks." His hand cupped her cheek, thumb grazing it. "You saved my life. You saw that beam going and you pushed me off to the side. You could have died, Valentina."

"So could you. You’ve been eating bullets for me since all this started.”

"That's different."

"How?"

"Because—" Luca's voice caught. "Because I'm used to violence. Used to risk. You're not. You shouldn't have to be. And watching you there, trapped under those rocks..." He broke off and swallowed hard. “I’ve never been that scared in my life.

Val reached with her free hand and touched his. "We're both alive. That's what matters. We are both alive, and Alecia is safe, and it’s over.”

"It's over," Luca agreed softly.

\---

It was morning light coming in through a hospital window. Val had dozed restlessly, surfacing again and again to the memory of burning and smoke and Roberto's burned face. And each time, Luca was there, by her side, holding her hand, talking her back down.

They both bristled when someone was rapping at the door. Antonio De Luca leaned in the doorway like a ghost of his presence. His hair had turned white, and somehow the stress of a whole life was etched in his shirt. The rims of his green eyes were red, but there was gray in them, and on all over his face haggard signs.

"Valentina," he said quietly. "May I—"

"No," Val said immediately. "Get out."

"Please. I just want—"

"I said get out!" Val’s voice rose, full of pain and anger. "You did this. All of this. Your options, your crimes, your cowardice. You almost got Alecia killed. I almost died because of you. So no, you don’t get to come in here and ask for forgiveness.”

Antonio's face crumpled. "I know. I know I don't deserve it. I only wanted to make sure you were alive. Both of you."

"We're alive. Now leave."

He nodded, crying, and walked away.

The door was hardly shut when it again was opened up. Alecia was wheeled in by Kennedy. Alecia was pale and drawn, a bandage on her temple, bruises darkening her jaw. But her hazel eyes were steady, clear.

"Was that Dad?" Alecia asked.

"Yes."

"Good. I'm glad you sent him away." Alecia wheeled the wheelchair a little closer to Val’s bed. “Kennedy, could you … give us a minute?”

Kennedy looked back and forth between the sisters, then smiled and nodded. Before she left, she gave Alecia a squeeze on the shoulder.

Luca stood. "I should—"

"Stay," both sisters said simultaneously. Then stared, in astonishment, at each other.

Luca leaned back in his chair, but remained silent, allowing them to speak.

The silence stretched between Val and Alecia, fraught with years of hurt and resentment and love spliced into complicated knots.

"I'm sorry," Alecia said finally. "For everything. For leaving the wedding. For the fact that I left you with a mess. For being mean, and sad, for making your life hell.”

“I’m sorry too,” Val spoke in a whisper. "For judging you. For believing that I was superior to you. For always trying to mold you."

“You were shielding me,” Alecia corrected. "I see that now. You’ve always had my back, even when I made that very hard to do.”

Tears scorched the back of Val’s eyes. “All I wanted was your approval. I even wished, when I hated you, that you could see me as an equal.”

“I always thought you were better,” Alecia confessed. "Smarter, stronger, more controlled. I was jealous of you, Val. Of how perfectly you slid into the life Dad wanted for us. I never could. I was always the disappointment."

"You were never a disappointment. You were just different. Brave in ways I wasn't."

Alecia laughed weakly. "Brave? I allowed a man to hurt me and did not say anything. That's not brave."

"You survived," Val said firmly. "You fought back. You saved yourself when no one else would. That's the definition of brave."

The sisters gazed at each other, really gazed for maybe the first time in years. Getting to see each other without the impediment of competition and resentment.

"We're survivors," Alecia said finally. "Both of us. We had outlived Dad, outlived Roberto, survived our own worst instincts. Perhaps that’s enough to start anew. Not to forgive it all, but to try.”

"I want to try," Val said.

Meanwhile Antonio was at the door window watching them, his hand against the glass. Tears streamed down his face. He had laid waste to so much, lost so much. And his daughters were healing now, moving forward now, as they should be — without him.

He walked off in the other direction, knowing he’d never be welcome back in their lives.

\---

Val and Luca returned home to the penthouse five days later. Val hobbled on crutches, her leg in a cast for at least six weeks. Luca’s arm was still in a sling, but he refused to let her manage on her own, hovering around as if she were about to crack.

"I am able to walk," Val objected as he arranged pillows on the couch.

"You can hobble," Luca corrected. "There's a difference."

Their grabbed whatever had remained in the room, Val's injured leg propped up and Luca careful of his shoulder. Naples was golden and shadowed with northeast sun, late afternoon beyond the windows.

“Antonio’s evidence,” Val said. “What happened to them?"

"Destroyed," Luca said simply. "I had them burned. All of them. The originals, the copies Bianca had made — everything.”

Val turned to look at him. “But that evidence also implicated you. You could have used it on Antonio, shielded yourself—”

“And ruined your family in the process,” Luca added. "I chose you, Valentina. I chose us. Whatever comes as a result of that, I’ll take.”

"Luca—"

"Besides," he interrupted gently. “”I’m sick of living in the past. We are all so tired of blood debts and old crimes. I’d like to make something new.”

“Something fresh,” Val echoed, toying with the concept. It felt strange, hopeful, terrifying.

“I have something to ask you,” Luca said, turning more fully toward her. “When you’re better, when all this is over, I want to do it right. Court you. Take you to dinner, bring you flowers, make you fall in love with me the way I should have from the start. And then get married to you all over again. Not because your father was in my debt. Not because you were coerced into it. But because we choose it. Because we want it."

Val looked at him and suddenly her heart was hammering. "We're already married."

“Not the way I’d like,” Luca replied, a fire burning in his blue eyes. "Not with love. Not with choice. I love you and I want us to get married because you want to, not me‖God help me! It’s not because you have to, but because you want to.”

Val was about to answer, dissolving as she did so at the openness in his tone, at the naked hope in his eyes—

Her phone rang.

Liv’s name lit up on the screen. Val almost blew it off, but something in her gut told her to pick up.

"Liv?"

“Val, come to Alecia’s apartment right now.” Liv's voice was panicked, breathless. "We found something. In a wall to the rear of where the men had broken in. They must have broken it during the kidnapping, and Kennedy saw the empty space and we pried off the drywall and–”

"Liv, slow down. What did you find?"

"Letters. Dozens of them. Made out to you and Alecia, from your mother. They were hidden there, Val. Hidden for years. And a few of them bring up Bianca. Your mother knew her. They were … I believe they were sisters.”

Val’s world reeled sideways.

"What?" The word was hardly above a breath.

"Your mother and Bianca. Sisters. Which means—"

“Bianca is our aunt,” Val concluded in an emotionless voice. "Bianca is family."

Luca was already up on his feet, snatching up his keys with his good hand. "We're on our way."

Val sat motionless, still gripping the phone to her ear, as everything she believed about her family was broken and reshaped into something new, darker, something that explained so much and yet nothing at all.

Why they were the ones Bianca had gone after. Why she’d appeared to know so much about their family. Why that hatred had felt to personal, so intimate.

Because it was.

Because she was blood.

And blood, Val was realizing, was the most dangerous weapon of all.