Page 106 of The Don's Secret Heir

“Thought I lost you,” he says finally in a croak, and hugs me to him, burying his face in my neck.

My arms slowly go around him. I can’t help it. He smells good despite the fact that I’m sure he hasn’t showered in days. He smells like something uniquely Dario that comforts me.

“Beth is...” I trail off, knowing she’s likely dead.

“Gone.”

“Sonny didn’t get hurt?”

“No. He was just a little scared. Not hurt. Me and Giovanni have been taking care of him.”

My breath catches in my throat and I search his face, wondering if he’s put it together that Sonny is his. It seems he hasn’t.

I nod slowly. “Thank you.”

“I really need to get the doctors, have them check you out.” There’s a pleading edge to his voice as he stands, and I nod.

He calls to the nurse’s station and in a few moments there are three doctors prodding me, doing tests.

“Follow the light.”

I do as they say and then they ask me a set of questions about what year it is, who the president is, that kind of thing.

I answer and they all look at me as if I’ve grown two heads.

“Were those the wrong answers?”

“No. No, I’m just... surprised,” one of the doctors said. “You were down a long time.”

“Down?”

“You died on the table, ma’am,” another, younger doctor pipes up. “Took us nearly twenty minutes to get you back.”

“O-oh.” Something like a spear shoots through my heart. Beth, who’s been my best friend for my whole life, is dead.

She tried to kill me and my son, and now she’s dead.

And I feel...

Nothing.

I don’t even feel fully present, don’t feel right. It feels like maybe Bethdidkill me and I’m just floating through the motions.

After the doctors finish, Dario paces around my room as if he’s nervous.

I follow him with my eyes until his pacing in a circle gives me a headache.

“You can sit down, you know. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

He stills and sits, but his leg still jiggles.

“Dario. What’s going on?”

“I almost lost you,” he says again, lower. “You said you were leaving and what did I do? Went out drinking with Rocco, tried to drown my sorrows. That’s why I wasn’t there, Li.”

“You couldn’t have known?—”

“But I did know,” he says fiercely, looking up me. “I knew that she betrayed our family, that she’d go after you next.”