Chapter 150

The first thing I felt was the cold. Not the cold of my soul, but the icy cold of hospital sheets. A persistent buzzing was ringing in my ears, and my eyes felt heavy, as if each eyelid weighed tons. Everything hurt. My mind, especially.

I opened my eyes slowly, the white light of the room blinding me for a moment. The sound of the heartbeat machine next to the bed made me understand the obvious: I had fainted. And now I was in the hospital.

I tried to sit up, but dizziness pushed me back. That was when I saw him. Vincenzo. Sitting next to the bed, elbows resting on his knees, his face in his hands. The shadow that the window cast over him made him even more somber, more of a man, more… indecipherable.

“Vincenzo…?”

He looked up and, for a moment, I saw something in his eyes that I had never seen before. Fear. Not because of the dangers of life. Vincenzo was a former mafioso, the man who could face everyone and everything with a look. But at that moment... he seemed afraid of me. Afraid of what that could do to us.

“You’re awake,” he approached, his warm hand sliding over mine. “Grazie a Dio.”

We were silent for a few seconds, just listening to the beating of my heart racing on the monitor. Until everything came flooding back.

“What you said… before… was it true?”

My voice came out shaky. As if I didn’t want to hear the answer. As if my body knew that the truth that was coming had the power to shatter everything we had.

He sighed deeply, adjusting himself in his chair. His broad shoulders tensed. Vincenzo never ran away from anything—but now, he seemed to choose each word carefully.

“Veronica came to me when I went to the prison. She said she had something important to tell me... something that, according to her, could change my life.” I shook my head, trying to stay focused.

“And what did she say?”

“She said…” he hesitated. His hand ran through his hair. “She said we have a son.”

The silence in the room was absolute. Only the heart monitor could be heard, each beat faster than the last. My mouth went dry.

“A… son?”

Vincenzo nodded, his eyes fixed on mine.

“A boy. She swore he was mine. That he was before everything… before I met you. But she hid it because she was afraid. Because she thought it could be used as a weapon against me.”

I laughed. A short, bitter laugh. The kind that comes out when the ground disappears beneath your feet.

“And only now, out of nowhere, she decides to tell you?”

He leaned forward, his eyes pleading for something—understanding, maybe.

“Rachel… she showed me a picture. It’s a boy. He’s eight years old. And… he looks like me.” I felt my stomach churn. The kind of nausea that starts in your heart and spreads through your veins. My skin crawled.

“Are you sure?”

He shook his head.

“No. And that’s what destroys me. Because if it’s true…” he sighed, “it changes everything.”

I wanted to scream. Throw the pillow at him. Hit his broad chest with my fists. I wanted to run. Escape. But all I could do was stare at him, trying to understand where this story was going to take us.

“What does she want? Money? Attention? You?”

Vincenzo frowned.

“She said she doesn’t want anything. She just wants me to know. For the boy to know who his father is.”

I hit my head lightly against the pillow. The pain in my chest was real now. As real as the possibility of a child existing in the midst of our chaos.

“And you? What do you want?”

He didn’t answer right away. He stood up, took a few steps across the room and turned his back to me. The sun filtered through the crack in the curtain, painting his silhouette with an almost sad gold.

“I don’t know, Rachel. I’m trying to understand what’s true in all this. I don’t want to fool myself. Or fool you. But if this boy is mine… I need to be there for him.”

A tear ran down my temple. Silent. Tired. Thick.

“And us? What’s left of us after this?”

He turned, walked over to me and crouched down next to the bed, his hand on my face, his thumb wiping away the tear.

“You’re everything to me, Rachel. That doesn’t change. But I need to know the truth. And… if it’s true… I won’t turn my back on a child who carries my blood.”

I closed my eyes. Each word he said was a carefully stabbed knife.

The door opened slowly. Nancy walked in slowly, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers and a nervous smile on her face. That smile she always gave when she wanted to ease tension, even without knowing if she was helping or making it worse.

“Hello, favorite couple of chaos,” she said, as if trying to brighten up a funeral.

Vincenzo stood up, making room for her to approach.

“Nancy…” I whispered, almost voiceless.

“You scared me, you know? I’ve never seen someone faint so dramatically since Beyoncé fell off the stage.” She placed the flowers on the table and held my hand. “But if you want, I can pretend nothing happened and just ask if the doctor is handsome.”

I let out a weak laugh, wet with pain. Nancy looked from one to the other, and her expression softened.

She understood. As always, in a crooked but accurate way, she understood.

“I’m going to leave you two alone. But I’m in the hallway. And if you need me, Rachel… you don’t have to shout. I’ll be right back with chocolate.”

She blinked and left. The room fell silent again.

“I need to meet him, Rachel,” Vincenzo said softly. “The boy.”

“And me?” My voice was low, fragile.

He came closer again, leaning in until our faces were inches apart.

“I’m not going to leave you. But you need to be with me in this. Even if it hurts. Even if it seems impossible. Because I… I love you. And if that boy is my son, he’ll know who I am. But he’ll also know who you are. Because you’re everything that’s good in me.”

The tears flowed freely now. My fingers intertwined with his.

“This feels like the beginning of a new war, Vincenzo.”

“Maybe so,” he replied, with that restrained smile that disarms me so much, “but we’ve survived worse things.”

We stood there in silence. He had his head resting on my belly, his arms around my waist. The world outside kept spinning, but inside that room, it was as if everything was on hold. A silence before the next storm.

And I knew, deep down, that nothing would be the same again.

Nothing.
The Slave of Pleasure
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