Page 74 of Claimed Through Deception

"No, no, no, don't you dare leave me!" I scream, pressing my entire body weight onto the wound, ignoring the blood soaking into the crimson silk of my slip. I press my cheek against his throat, begging the universe to let him keep breathing.

Combat boots pound down the corridor, crunching over the splintered wood, and Enzo bursts into the suite with his weapon raised. The Consigliere takes in the shattered windows, the dead mercenary, and his Don bleeding out on the floor, and his usually stoic facade shatters into unfiltered panic. Alessio is right behind him, his face covered in soot, freezing in the doorway as he registers the sight of his brother on the ground.

"Medic!" Enzo roars into the tactical radio clipped to his belt, dropping to his knees on the opposite side of Niccolò. "Get a fucking trauma team to the master suite right now! We have a critical gunshot wound to the chest! Move, you bastards, move!"

Enzo shoves his hands over mine, adding his strength to the pressure I am applying to the wound, his icy blue eyes meeting mine over Niccolò's unconscious body. "Keep the pressure steady, Livia. Do not let up for a single second. Alessio, secure the perimeter and clear the route to the medical bay!"

Alessio snaps out of his paralysis, a string of vicious Italian curses leaving his lips as he turns back into the hallway, shouting orders to the surviving guards to lock down the estate. The chaos continues to swirl around us, but my entire universe is reduced to the erratic, fading pulse beneath my blood-soaked hands.

I nod frantically at Enzo, my tears mixing with the blood smeared across my skin.

For twenty-two years, my brain associated male authority with cowardice and abuse. I carried that paralyzing fear like a suffocating shroud, projecting the sins of a pathetic drunk onto every man who tried to get close to me. When I found out I was pregnant, that trauma hijacked my logic, convincing me that Niccolò's violent environment would inevitably destroy our child. I believed his power was synonymous with cruelty, a poison that would infect our family from the inside out.

But staring at the man bleeding out on the floor, the man who literally threw his own body into the trajectory of a speeding bullet to protect me, that generational curse shatters into a million irreparable pieces. My father hurt the woman he claimed to love to elevate his own fragile ego. Niccolò Severato just sacrificed his own heartbeat to ensure the survival of his.

He is a predator to the outside world, yes, a man who orchestrates violence to maintain his empire, but inside these walls, he is a shield forged from impenetrable steel. He didn't hesitate. He didn't flinch. He looked at a loaded gun and decided his life was a fair trade for mine. The monster I was so terrified of just proved his devotion with his own blood, completely overwriting the toxic fear patterns that governed my existence.

"Hold on, Niccolò," I whisper fiercely, leaning down to press my lips against his pale, cold cheek, tasting the salt of my own tears. "You owe me a lifetime, you arrogant bastard. You do not get to die on me today. I am not letting you go."

30

Niccolò

The cold seeps into my bones from the marble floor, chasing away the burning agony tearing through my chest. The edges of my vision blur into a static gray haze, muting the blaring security alarms and the suffocating stench of gunpowder filling the ruined suite. I can feel the frantic, slippery pressure of Livia’s hands pressing down on the bullet wound, her desperate sobs vibrating against my collarbone.

"Hold on, Niccolò," she begs, her tears dropping onto my skin, mixing with the blood rapidly draining from my veins. "You owe me a lifetime, you arrogant bastard. You do not get to die on me today."

Her voice is the only tether keeping me anchored to the earth. I try to speak, to tell her to take the hidden cash from the safe and run before the rest of the Falco mercenaries breach the second floor, but my lungs refuse to expand. A wet, metallic cough rattles past my lips instead.

Boot steps thunder into the room, shaking the floorboards. Enzo’s hands goes over Livia’s exhausted hands with his own bruising grip to stem the bleeding. Over the ringing in my ears, I hear Alessio barking commands in the corridor, orchestrating the lockdown with a violent efficiency.

"Lock the western gates and flush the servant corridors!" Alessio roars, the sound accompanied by the unmistakable racking of a shotgun slide. "If you find anyone not wearing our crest, you blow their fucking heads off! Nobody touches this wing!"

I want to commend my brother, to tell him to protect the woman kneeling in the rubble, but the gray static finally swallows the remaining light. The agonizing burn in my chest fades into a numb, creeping frost, and I let the shadows pull me under.

I claw my way back to consciousness through a thick, suffocating fog of medical-grade narcotics. The transition is brutal, my brain is struggling to connect the fragmented sensations bombarding my nervous system. The sharp, sterile stench of bleach and rubbing alcohol replaces the sulfuric smoke of the exploded suite. A rhythmic, obnoxious beeping echoes near my right ear, tracking the sluggish, painful thud of my own heart.

I force my eyelids open, blinking against the harsh, unforgiving glare of fluorescent overhead lights. I am not in the ruined bedroom. The pale gray walls and the stainless steel medical equipment surrounding my bed confirm I am secured in the subterranean trauma wing beneath the estate.

A dull, throbbing ache radiates from the center of my chest, constrained by tight layers of thick gauze and surgical tape. I try to shift my weight, intending to pull the IV needle from the back of my hand, but a voice halts the movement immediately.

"Don't be a fucking idiot, Niccolò. You rip those stitches, and Dr. Evans will have an aneurysm."

I turn my head toward the foot of the bed, the motion sending a spike of nausea rolling through my stomach. Alessio is leaning against the metal doorframe, his leather jacket coated in dried mud and soot. He looks like he hasn't slept a single minute since the ambush, his jaw is covered in rough stubble and his eyes are bloodshot. Enzo sits at a nearby stainless steel table, typing relentlessly on a laptop, his torn suit jacket draped over the back of his chair.

"What is the status?" I croak over the heart monitor.

Enzo pauses his typing, glancing up to meet my gaze. "The estate is secure. We eradicated the Falco strike team, scrubbed the perimeter, and locked down the city. The remaining heads of the Falco family have gone to ground, but we are hunting them."

"How long?" I wheeze, trying to swallow the sandpaper dryness in my throat.

Alessio pushes off the doorframe, walking over to inspect the digital chart hanging at the foot of my bed. "Seventy-two hours. You spent the first twelve of them on an operating table while Evans dug a hollow-point bullet out of your chest cavity, and you have been floating in a morphine-induced coma for the last three days. We honestly thought you were going to check out on us a few times."

Three days.

"The western gates," I force the words out, fighting the agonizing pull in my chest. "They blew the service entrance. The security grid was compromised."

"The grid was practically non-existent for the first six hours after the blast," Enzo confirms grimly, closing his laptop. "The explosion severed the primary fiber-optic cables. The gates were wide open, the cameras were blind, and the estate was crawling with emergency personnel and cleanup crews. It was a logistical nightmare."