Chapter 3 - The First BreathOn the fourth night, the monitor beside Clara’s bed changed its rhythm.
The frantic, shallow beeping slowed. Deepened.
Inside the ICU, the automated pumps hissed softly, delivering oxygen to lungs that were slowly learning how to expand on their own.
Dominic sat in the chair beside the bed, his dark suit replaced by a simple black shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He hadn't left the room in ninety-six hours.
Clara’s eyelids fluttered.
A faint, pathetic sound escaped her cracked lips—a dry cough that made Dominic instantly reach for a cotton swab soaked in water, gently dampening her mouth.
Her gray eyes opened. They were cloudy, disoriented, and heavy with painkillers, but they focused on him with a sudden, startling lucidity.
She stared at the dark-haired man sitting beside her, tracking the severe lines of his face, the shadow of his stubble, and the heavy gold band resting on her own swollen ring finger.
Her lips parted.
“Are you... a hallucination?” she whispered, her voice like sandpaper scraping over stone.
Dominic didn't smile, but the tension that had gripped his chest for four days finally broke.
“No, Clara,” he said, his voice softer than anyone outside his mother had ever heard it. “You’re awake.”
Clara tried to move her hand, but the IV lines and bandages held her fast. She looked down at the heavy gold ring catching the dim hospital light.
“What... what is that?”
“It’s your wedding ring,” Dominic answered smoothly.
Clara stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “My... what? I was serving champagne four minutes ago.”
“Four days ago,” Dominic corrected. “And you got married.”
Clara blinked slowly, her brain fighting through the fog of morphine and exhaustion. “To who?”
May you like
Dominic leaned forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the mattress, his dark eyes locking onto hers with absolute, terrifying intensity.
“To me,” he said. “And I suggest you get some rest, Mrs. Rossi, because tomorrow morning, we’re going to have a long talk about the men who tried to kill you—and why they’re about to find out what happens when you make an enemy of your husband.”
