Chapter 35

Aldo

The harsh, too-sterile smell of cleaning chemicals clung to my clothes as I paced the hospital waiting room. How long had I been here—an hour, a day? I couldn’t remember. Time had lost its meaning since Carlo and I had brought Layla in.

I kept replaying those last moments—Marco rising from behind the couch. Layla diving to protect Eli. Me, frozen by an instant of surprise that, clearly, hadn’t affected Layla.

I’d promised to protect her.

I’d failed.

My shoes clicked against the tile flooring, and bleach burned the inside of my nose. I hated this place, hated every uncertain minute I had to spend here.

“Mr. Marcello?”

I spun at the sound of the low male voice. A tall, pale man in a long white coat stood at the door to the waiting room, a clipboard in hand. He hovered in the doorway, like he was uncertain whether he should approach.

I supposed I was a bit like a stalking predator, prowling through enemy territory. Ready to attack.

I tried to soften my expression into a smile. I wasn’t sure if I succeeded. “How is she?”

“She’s stable,” the doctor replied. His nametag read Dr. George. “The bullet missed anything major. She should make a full recovery.”

Relief flooded me in a wave, hard enough to make me dizzy. “When can I see her?”

“She’s asleep now,” said Dr. George. “A few hours, maybe.”

More waiting. But I nodded, gave him my most grateful smile. “Thank you, Doctor.”

I called Carlo first—so he could deliver the news to Eli, Layla’s grandmother, and the rest of the family. I’d received a surprising number of concerned texts in the last handful of hours.

But even after I’d reassured everyone their doctor would be fine, I couldn’t seem to find my own inner peace.

So I abandoned any thoughts of sitting down to wait and approached the nurse’s station instead.

The older woman seated behind the counter leaned out around her computer to offer me half a smile. “How can I help you?”

“I’d like to review any medical information you have on Layla Bennett,” I said, keeping my voice as pleasant as possible. In some distant part of my mind, I thought that if I were Marco Ricci, I could have charmed my way into its possession.

As it stood, I’d likely wind up having to drop my family name to get ahold of information I definitely wasn’t legally permitted to see.

The nurse, clearly, must have known who I was—must have been sifting through the same thoughts. “Sir—”

“Just do what he says, Malorie.” Another woman slid up behind the first. From her dark Mediterranean skin, I guessed she was Italian. That and her clear knowledge of who I was—what I could do. Her lip curled in disgust. “While he’s still asking nicely.”

I let the barbed words glance off me like arrows on stone. I knew what I was, what kind of monster I was.

Malorie rose to open a filing cabinet at the back of the station, while her nameless Italian friend glared me down like she suspected me of leaping behind the counter to steal the files for myself.

Malorie returned to hand over a slim file folder. I offered her a nod and a murmur of gratitude, and took the files to the back corner of the waiting room.

I spread the files over the coffee table to sift through. There wasn’t much to find; it seemed Layla Bennett hadn’t had much more than regular checkups since she was admitted to the hospital for labor.

There was one final document in the folder, from nine months before her birthing admittance. It’d been transferred over from a small hospital in Alaska.

My eyes tore across the page.

She’d suffered a near miscarriage with Eli, it seemed. A near miscarriage that had left her highly unlikely to ever bear any more children.

For some reason, the news settled heavily in my stomach, in my bones. They were like a sign from the universe—as if I’d needed any others—that Layla was not right for me.

She couldn’t bear any more children, so even if she were willing, she could never produce an heir.

I almost closed the file there. Closed it to wallow in my self-inflicted self-pity and sorrow. But something stopped me. The date … the date on that first medical record.

That date was forever burned into my brain. Because it was the day I’d stood beside our mantle and asked Layla for a divorce.

She’d signed.

I’d left.

And she … She’d suffered. She’d suffered more than I could have possibly imagined. She’d been pregnant, but she hadn’t managed to tell me before I ran. She’d suffered a near miscarriage.

Meaning she hadn’t miscarried. She’d birthed that baby.

Eli.

The truth hit me like lightning.

Eli was my son.

I’d left her on the altar. Abandoned her to single motherhood. Abandoned my son … without ever knowing he existed. And for eight years, I’d fed myself lies. That she didn’t belong in my world. Didn’t belong with me. That she was better off without me.

I’d thought I was protecting her. Saving her.

Instead, I’d abandoned her. At the most vulnerable moment of her life. I’d left my own goddamned son to grow up without a father.

The memories surged back, unbidden and merciless. The way I’d watched her heart shatter across the broken lines of her face. The way disbelief and shock and pain had warred for control as she’d watched Aurora stride from our bedroom.

The way she’d crumpled to her knees, furious and ruined, to etch her name into the divorce paperwork.

I’d told myself I was giving her her life back.

In reality, I was taking it away.

I’d been blind to her pain—and to her joy. And yet, she’d found the strength to rise again. Stronger. More beautiful than ever before. She’d made a career for herself. Given Eli a safe and comfortable home.

And then I’d marched back in and taken that all away.

Again.

“Mr. Marcello?” Dr. George’s familiar voice jerked me out of my downward spiral. “You can see her now.”

“Is she awake?” How long had I been lost to the truth of those files—to my own truth?

“Not quite yet,” said the doctor. “But it would be nice for her to wake up to a familiar face. If you’re interested.”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes of course.”

He led the way down the hall. We walked in near-silence, the only sound the tap of our feet on the tile, the occasional murmur or cough or low hum of a machine from behind the doors.

At long last, he paused beside a plain, white door, labeled simply, “Bennett.”

“You can go in.”

I slipped through the door without a sound. Layla lay in the narrow cot pressed into the corner of the room. Her head tilted sideways in sleep, lashes splayed against pale cheeks.

And I? I took my rightful place beside her. Where I should never have left. Where I should have always been.

I wound my fingers into hers. And I waited.