Chapter 7 - The Shot That Wasn’t FiredLucia moved before anyone else.
For a woman everyone had mistaken for fragile, she crossed the room with shocking speed, grabbed a metal instrument tray, and slammed it into the man’s arm just as he aimed toward the neonatal warmer.
The gun hit the floor.
Nico tackled him a breath later.
Adrian reached for Isabella’s warmer, pulling it back with one hand while shielding it with his body.
The nurses screamed, but none of them ran.
That was what I remembered later.
The nurses stayed.
Rebecca stood over me, one hand pressing where blood had begun to move too quickly, shouting for more gauze, more units, more help.
The man on the floor fought like a soldier.
Not a street thug.
Not one of Adrian’s usual enemies.
Disciplined. Silent. Focused.
Nico and another guard dragged him into the hallway. Adrian stayed beside Isabella, his face transformed into something terrifyingly calm.
“Is she hit?” he asked.
“No,” a nurse said, shaking. “No, she’s okay.”
“Then move.”
They ran.
Adrian went with them.
And I stayed behind, bleeding under surgical lights while Lucia Moretti held my hand.
It would have been funny if it had not been so terrifying.
The woman whose family had ruined my life became the one whispering prayers over me as doctors fought to keep me alive.
“Sienna,” she said. “Stay awake.”
“I’m tired.”
“I know.”
“My baby…”
“She is alive.”
“Adrian…”
“He is with her.”
I turned my head toward Lucia. “Did you love him? Vittorio?”
Her face changed.
Not because the question offended her.
Because the answer still hurt.
“When I was young, I loved who I thought he was,” she said. “Then I spent the rest of my life surviving who he became.”
“I don’t want that for Isabella.”
“You will not have it.”
“You don’t know that.”
Lucia’s eyes sharpened. “Yes, I do.”
I tried to laugh, but it became a groan.
Rebecca leaned over me. “Sienna, we need to control the bleeding. Stay with us.”
The ceiling blurred.
Voices stretched.
For a moment, I was back in Adrian’s penthouse six months earlier, standing barefoot in the hallway with divorce papers in my hand. I remembered reading my name beside his. Sienna Moretti. As if a signature could erase the nights we had built a life in whispers because his world was too loud.
I remembered touching my stomach two weeks later after the test turned positive.
I remembered laughing.
Then crying.
Then locking the bathroom door because I did not know who was allowed to love that child.
A loud crash pulled me back.
The surgical doors flew open.
Adrian entered with blood on his sleeve.
Not his.
I knew because he was standing too straight.
“The NICU is secured,” he said.
Rebecca snapped, “You cannot be in here.”
“She asked for him,” Lucia said.
“I did not,” Rebecca said.
“I did,” I whispered.
Adrian was at my side instantly.
His eyes moved over my face, then to Rebecca. “What’s happening?”
“She’s hemorrhaging.”
The word landed like a sentence.
Adrian went pale.
“No.”
Rebecca did not soften it. “Her blood isn’t clotting properly. We need the antidote profile for whatever she was exposed to.”
Adrian looked at Nico, who had appeared behind him.
“The woman from the clinic,” Adrian said. “Make her talk.”
“She won’t.”
“Then find someone who will.”
Lucia lifted her head.
“The townhouse safe,” she said. “Vittorio kept records of every compound his men used. He was proud of his poisons. He called them elegant.”
Adrian’s face twisted with disgust.
“Where?”
“I told Sienna. Behind the chapel painting.”
Adrian turned to Nico. “Go.”
Nico hesitated. “I should stay with you.”
“You protect my daughter by saving her mother.”
Nico left.
The bleeding continued.
Rebecca’s team worked. Machines beeped. Someone hung another bag of blood.
I watched Adrian’s face and knew he was trying not to fall apart.
“I need you to listen,” I said.
“No.”
“Adrian.”
“You are not saying goodbye to me.”
“I’m saying what matters.”
His eyes burned.
“I should have found you.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “You should have.”
Pain crossed his face.
“But I should have trusted that the man I loved would never poison his own child.”
He bowed his head until his forehead touched my hand.
“I gave you reasons to fear my name,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I will spend the rest of my life making sure she doesn’t.”
That promise felt different from every promise before.
Not grand.
Not romantic.
Not impossible.
A vow made by a man finally seeing the full cost of his world.
The doors opened again.
A young nurse rushed in with a phone. “Dr. Sloan, a call came through on the secure line. They said it’s urgent. They have the compound profile.”
Rebecca took it. “Who is this?”
The voice on speaker was calm.
Old.
Male.
My blood went cold before he even said his name.
“Hello, Rebecca,” the man said. “Tell my son congratulations.”
Adrian froze.
Lucia’s hand tightened around mine.
The voice continued.
“And tell Sienna if she wants the antidote, she will sign over guardianship of the child.”
No one breathed.
Adrian took the phone slowly.
“Father.”
May you like
Vittorio Moretti chuckled softly.
“My boy,” he said. “You finally gave me something worth coming back for.”
