Chapter 577: I’m So Excited

Love humbled even monsters.

"Come on, come have breakfast and get ready. We have to be there early. I’m so excited."

He smiled at her. "I am too."

Matteo made a small sound, and her attention diverted instantly. "Matteo, would you like some eggs?"

She moved back to the dining table with him, murmuring nonsense to the baby as if he could respond with a full breakfast order.

Luca exhaled slowly. He hated lying to his wife. He really hated it. There were too many moving pieces, too much danger, too much heartbreak waiting behind Valentina’s name.

But excuses had begun to sound thin, even to him. He checked his phone once more.

Nothing yet.

He was supposed to receive a text from Marco once he boarded. He hoped to God Marco would not turn around.

Because if Marco went back to Valentina, then Luca did not know how he would save him.

*****

When Valentina came to, it was with a throbbing headache. She lay on the bed, waiting for her mind to decide whether she was alive. Her throat hurt. Her lungs ached. The side of her head pulsed with a deep, vicious pain that seemed to beat in time with her heart.

Then memory returned. Her eyes flew open. She tried to sit up too quickly and nearly vomited from the pain that split through her skull. A strangled gasp tore from her throat, and she fell back against the pillow, blinking through the dizziness.

She pressed her hand to her head, feeling the bump that had grown in her hair. She hurried to pick up her phone. Her fingers shook so badly she nearly dropped it before she managed to unlock the screen. She pressed Marco’s number.

Switched off.

Valentina stared at the screen.

No.

She called again. Still switched off. Her stomach dropped so sharply she had to grip the edge of the bedside table.

Then she saw the message waiting.

I took Matteo to see his aunt.

Luca.

Val rushed into Matteo’s room, because Luca could be lying. Luca enjoyed getting inside people’s heads. Perhaps this was another sick trick. Perhaps Matteo was still there, asleep in his crib, safe and warm.

The crib was empty. Valentina stopped in the doorway. A tiny blanket lay folded near the corner. One of Matteo’s soft toys sat on the chair. It was unbearable how loudly an empty baby’s room could speak.

She dialled Vee. her sister answered. Valentina squeezed her eyes shut and forced calm into her voice. If she sounded panicked, Vee would know. If Vee knew, everything would fall apart faster than she could breathe. "Hey, sis... Luca says Matteo is with you." Val listened, nodding though her sister could not see.

"Oh... okay. I’ll stop by and pick him up." Her throat burned. "Let me know how it goes at the doctor’s... sure..." She hung up. She stood there in the nursery, phone pressed to her palm, chest heaving. She tried Marco again.

Still not reachable.

She hurried back into the bedroom, ignoring the ache in her throat and the pulsing bruise in her hair. She changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt with clumsy movements, grabbed her car keys, and rushed out.

The drive to Commissioned blurred. She parked badly and did not care. Since she was already known as Marco’s wife, no one stopped her entry. No one seemed to understand that her life was unravelling thread by thread and every second mattered.

She went straight down to Marco’s office.

Empty.

She hurried back out and stopped one of the men in the corridor. "Have you seen Marco?"

The man frowned. "Yes, he left earlier."

"Left where?"

"I don’t know, ma’am. Didn’t he come home?"

Valentina shook her head. She could not form words. Defeated, Val returned home. The house felt empty. She dragged herself back to her bedroom.

Then she screamed. She screamed until her throat burned, until tears blurred her eyes, until her chest ached and her head pounded and her body shook with a rage too big for her skin.

She cursed Luca like a madwoman. Monster. Bastard. Devil. Murderer. Disease. Every filthy thing she could think of.

When she was finally spent, she picked up her phone and called Voss.

*****

Luca had no idea when his eyes began to well up, hearing the heartbeat of his child on the monitor. Veronica held on to his hand as they both stared.

The doctor droned on about the baby being healthy and strong. At least, Luca assumed that was what the man was saying.

He caught words in pieces. All the important things slipped through the fog of his emotion and lodged somewhere inside his chest, but the rest became background noise. The doctor could have started explaining crop rotation or the economic decline of small European countries, and Luca would have nodded with the same grave attention. His entire world had narrowed to the monitor.

Their child was there. A miracle moving beneath Vee’s skin. Luca stared at the screen like he was trying to memorise every blurred shape. The image was not exactly clear. But to him, it was perfect already.

Veronica lay beside him, gel shining on her stomach, her face turned slightly towards the monitor.

Then came the moment of truth.

The doctor smiled, glancing between them. "Mr and Mrs Genovese, congratulations. You are having a girl."

Luca could not breathe.

A girl.

His daughter.

His heart kicked so hard he honestly thought it might leap out of his chest, land on the floor. He looked at Veronica, and she had the biggest smile on her face. This one was pure, shining joy.

If he could have knelt at Vee’s feet right then, right there, he would have. He would have knelt and thanked her. Thanked her for surviving. For loving him. For carrying this child. For allowing him this impossible thing after everything his hands had done. For giving him a future.

he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers.