Chapter 5
The next few days after I “died” didn’t feel like anything at all. I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’ hinking. I wasn’t floating or reaching for light or any of that spiritual crap people talk about when they cheat death.
There was just… nothing. Black. Still. Heavy.
And then pain. Real pain.
‘ain like my ribs were cracked open and every breath was being ripped out of me with a hook. ouldn’t scream. Couldn’t move. I wasn’t even sure if I was alive.
urns out, I barely was.
They told me later-once I could process full sentences again-that something went wrong afte he surgery. Maybe it was the stress. Maybe it was my body giving out for real this time. Bu ght after Sam and Lothario got me out of the hospital and into the underground clinic, my hear topped again.
latline.
nd not the staged kind. The real kind.
am had to defibrillate me. Twice. Broke my ribs doing it.
othario said he nearly threw a chair through a wall when the monitors screamed again.
She flatlined,” Sam told him. “Real this time. She’s crashing-”
hen silence. Panic. Wires everywhere. They brought me back, somehow.
ut not all the way. I slipped into a coma. Not faking. Not hiding. Just… gone.
he clinic they brought me to was hidden beneath a sleek, state-of-the-art medical center, all lass and steel, humming quietly with power. The walls gleamed white, too clean, almost sterile nd the ceiling lights pulsed softly like a heartbeat.
here was one bed. One lamp that adjusted its glow with my vitals. A digital clock on the wall nat blinked 3:00 AM, like time itself had flatlined. The air smelled of ozone and antiseptic-like omeone tried to cleanse trauma with technology.
othario stayed. Every day.
le didn’t leave my side. Sam begged him to go rest, to shower, to eat something that didn’t come out of a sealed nutrition pack. Lothario just shook his head and said, “She might wake up.
need to be here when she does.”
Sometimes, I could hear them. Distant, like underwater echoes,
‘She’s fighting. Her vitals are weak, but stable,” Sam would say, voice low.
Then Lothario’s rough whisper, close to my ear. “You always were stubborn.”
He would talk to me like I was listening. Maybe some part of me was,
‘I shouldn’t have let you go,” he said once. His voice cracked when he said it. “I should’ve fought harder. Should’ve taken you and run when we had the chance.”
2/3 39.7%
12:00 am P P P P
There was this one memory that kept replaying in the back of my mind, like a movie loop I
couldn’t turn off.
Me and Lothario, on the roof of his apartment building. I was sixteen. He was seventeen. We were wrapped in his jacket because I’d snuck out of my house without one. The city lights below us looked like stars that had given up and fallen.
“I want to marry you someday,” I told him. My voice was shaking because I meant it. “I want out of all this. The family, the blood deals, the cold stares.”
He kissed my forehead and said, “Then we’ll run. Just say the word.”
But I never said it.
My father found out.
They dragged me home the next morning. Broke my phone. Changed my school. Had his family
hreatened.
remember Matteo standing in the hallway, calm and cruel.
If you ever see Lothario again, we’ll ruin him,” he said. “His parents. His sister. Everyone. You’r
à Rossi. Act like it.”
didn’t see him again after that. Until now.
Lothario would hold my hand when he thought Sam wasn’t watching. I felt it once. Barely there Like a ghost brushing skin. He’d whisper while I was sleeping.
You were my whole world. You still are. I should’ve never let them take you.”
And then quieter, almost like he didn’t want me to hear:
I love you. I never stopped.”
don’t know how long I was out. Days. Weeks maybe.
But something inside me… clung to his voice. That warmth. That regret. That love.
That was the only thing pulling me back.
And maybe that’s why, when my eyes finally fluttered open and the world came into blurry focu -dim lights, peeling ceilings, Lothario passed out in a chair beside me-I whispered the first word that came to mind.
Not “help.”
Not “water.”
Just… “You.”
Then I’m gasping. No, not gasping-choking. Like my lungs had forgotten what air was supposed to taste like.
There was a mask strapped over my face, tubes down my throat, wires in my arms. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even scream. My body felt… foreign. Like I was wearing skin that didn’t belong to me anymore.
I tried to sit up, and that’s when the fire hit.
Chapter 5
2/3 39.7%
12:00 am PPP
My back. My legs. My stomach. Everything burned like I was being cooked from the inside out.
I don’t know how long I thrashed before someone ran in.
“Vanna-stop, stop. It’s okay. You’re okay,” Lothario’s voice. Close. Desperate. “Breathe. Jus breathe, baby, breathe.”
He yanked the oxygen mask off and cradled my face. His hands were shaking. I saw his eyes before anything else. Red-rimmed. Glassy. Exhausted.
‘Lothario…?” My voice cracked like glass. It hurt just to say his name.
He let out this sound half-laugh, half-sob and dropped to his knees beside the bed.
‘You’re awake,” he whispered, like he couldn’t believe it. “You’re really awake.”
tried to speak again, but no sound came out. My throat was too dry. My lips were cracked. He caught my hand in both of his. Kissed my knuckles.
You were gone for a year, Vanna,” he said quietly. “And I stayed because I had nowhere else t Jo… except back to you.”
A year?
The word didn’t even land properly. It just hovered, unreal. When Sam came in, he almost dropped the tray he was carrying.
No freaking way,” he muttered, blinking hard. “She’s actually-holy shit. Her vitals are climbing ‘ulse is strong. Jesus Christ, I thought you’d be a vegetable forever.”
.othario glared. “Watch your mouth.”
Sorry,” Sam mumbled. “Welcome back, Ivanna.”
didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
Not until they helped me sit up a little. Sam held the IVs in place, and Lothario slid an arm ehind my back to lift me. The room spun. My neck couldn’t even hold up my head.
But then I saw it. A mirror. Leaning against the far wall.
caught my reflection and froze.
12:00 am PPPP.
t wasn’t me.
