Chapter 232 Before She Wakes

Chapter 232 Before She Wakes
Matteo POV:

I didn’t sleep. I couldn't.

I tried once. Sat back in the chair, closed my eyes, told myself five minutes. Just enough to let my head stop ringing.

Didn’t work.

Every time my eyes shut I saw smoke where walls should be. Heard her coughing. Saw her face bloodied and bruised. Felt the way her body went slack in my arms when we got outside.

So I stayed awake.

The room was quiet in the way hospitals always are. Machines doing their jobs. Soft footsteps passing by the door. No voices raised.

She was still. Too still.

They told me it was normal. Smoke inhalation. Trauma. The body shutting down because it finally could.

Forty-eight hours, they said. Maybe less. Maybe more.

“She needs rest,” Luca had told me.

I nodded like I knew how to accept that.

I didn’t.

Her face was bruised. Yellow starting to bloom around the worst of it. One cut stitched clean along her lip. Her hands lay open on the sheets, IV taped in place, pulse steady.

Alive.

I kept coming back to that word like it was a lifeline.

Alive didn’t mean fine. Alive didn’t mean whole.

But it meant possible.

My shoulder throbbed every time I shifted. One of my ribs was cracked. They wanted to keep me overnight too, for observation.

I told them no. They tried to convince me and I stared at them until they stopped.

I wasn’t leaving the room.

Adriano came in first. Didn’t knock. Just opened the door, checked the corners out of habit, then relaxed when he saw it was only us.

He looked wrecked in a way he’d never allow anyone outside this room to see.

“You should be in a bed,” he said.

“I'm fine,” I replied.

He huffed once, almost a laugh, then came closer. Stood at the foot of the bed. Didn’t say anything for a long minute, just watched.

“She’s strong,” he said.

“I know.”

Silence stretched again. Not awkward. Just heavy. After a moment he spoke again, quieter.

“When I thought I lost Isabella,” he said, eyes still on Ivy, “it hollowed me out. I kept functioning. Building the empire. Making decisions.”

He swallowed.

“But everything good felt… pointless.”

I didn’t look at him. I didn’t need to.

“If you don’t hold on to her,” Adriano continued, voice low, “that emptiness will eat you alive. I know it because I lived it.”

He straightened before I could respond. The moment was over as soon as it existed.

“She’s one of us now,” he added, already turning toward the door. “Make sure she knows it.”

Then he was gone.

Luca and Aria came later. Together, like they always did when it mattered.

Aria checked Ivy’s monitors without asking. Luca read the chart at the foot of the bed, jaw tight, eyes moving fast.

“She took a lot of smoke,” Luca said. “More than the reports suggested.”

My chest tightened. “Is she...”

“She’s stable,” he cut in quickly. “Her lungs are healing, not failing. It’ll take time.”

Aria glanced at me. “And you?”

“I’ve been worse.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re bleeding through your bandage.”

I shrugged. She sighed and fixed it anyway.

Luca stayed quiet longer than usual. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t clinical.

“I knew who she was,” he said.

I looked at him sharply.

“Not everything,” he continued. “But enough. Her family. Why she chose to work for me.”

My jaw clenched. “You didn’t tell me.”

“No,” he agreed. “Because it wasn’t my story to tell.”

He paused.

“She wasn’t trying to infiltrate us. Or manipulate anything, I knew that. She was paying a debt. The only way she knew how.”

Aria rested a hand on his arm.

“She carried guilt that wasn’t hers,” Luca said. “And she never once used it as leverage.”

I stared at Ivy’s face. At the quiet rise and fall of her chest.

“She was my responsibility,” Luca added softly. “Long before she became yours.”

I nodded. It felt like a vow being passed, not taken away.

Isabella came later, hair pulled back, coat still on like she hadn’t planned to stay but clearly would.

She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t look at Ivy like a problem to solve, but like family already lost and found again.

“You look terrible,” Isabella told me gently.

“Good,” I said. “I earned it.”

She smiled faintly, then sat in the spare chair across from me.

“You love her,” she said, like it wasn’t a question.

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Good,” she replied. “Because she’s already chosen you. Even unconscious, she’s still fighting her way back.”

My throat tightened. I looked away.

Isabella leaned closer, lowering her voice. “She doesn’t need you to save her now. She just needs you to stay.”

“I can do that, I will always.” I said.

“I know,” she replied. “Just don’t disappear into guilt. It helps no one.”

After she left, the room felt bigger. Quieter.

Night bled into next morning without ceremony. I talked to Ivy when no one was around.

I told her where she was. That the building was gone. That Elio was contained and would never touch her again.

I told her Luca was being unbearable. That Adriano pretended not to worry but stood guard anyway. That Isabella called her family without blinking.

I told her I was afraid of losing her again. That one felt important. I told her I'd be staying however long it takes for her to come back to me.

When her fingers twitched once, barely, I froze.

“Hey,” I said quietly, holding her hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to come back yet.”

She didn’t wake. But she stayed.

I took her hand again. Same way as before. No claiming. No promises I couldn’t keep.

Just presence.

When the nurse came in at dawn and checked her vitals, she smiled.

“She’s healing,” she said.

I nodded, because trusting my voice felt risky.

I sat back down, and didn’t move. Just stayed...