Chapter 4 - THE VOICEMAIL
Z
Vincent listened to my voicemail alone.
Luca later told me he made it through fourteen seconds before having to stop.
I didn’t remember exactly what I had said.
I remembered pain.
A nurse asking me to breathe.
Someone mentioning an emergency C-section.
And me pressing Vincent’s name on my phone because, despite everything, fear had stripped me down to instinct.
I had wanted my husband.
“Vincent…”
My recorded voice trembled.
“Please answer. Something’s wrong. They said her heart rate keeps dropping.”
There was breathing.
Then my voice again.
“I know you’re angry about the divorce, but please… please come. I’m scared.”
That was the message Sophia deleted.
There were three others.
In one, I cried.
In another, I asked him to choose our daughter, even if he couldn’t choose me.
Vincent listened to every second.
Then he locked himself in a private waiting room and punched the wall until his knuckles split.
Luca didn’t stop him.
Eventually Vincent sat on the floor, blood running over his fingers.
“I left her alone.”
Luca remained by the door.
“Yes.”
Vincent looked up sharply.
Most people would have lied.
Luca didn’t.
“I need you to keep telling me the truth.”
“Even when you don’t like it?”
“Especially then.”
Luca nodded.
Vincent stared at his ruined hand.
“Why didn’t Claire tell me Sophia was doing things like this?”
“She tried.”
The answer came too quickly.
Vincent looked up.
Luca exhaled.
“Mrs. Moretti spoke to me twice.”
“What did she say?”
“That Ms. Reynolds was interfering in the marriage.”
“And?”
“I told her you would handle it.”
Vincent laughed once.
It sounded miserable.
“I handled it.”
The following morning, I was moved from intensive care to a private recovery room.
Vincent had not slept.
I knew because he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes.
His knuckles were bandaged.
I noticed but didn’t ask.
“Isabella?” I whispered.
“Stable.”
“I want to see her.”
“The doctor said maybe this afternoon.”
“I’m going now.”
“Claire—”
I looked at him.
He stopped.
Old Vincent would have ordered me to stay in bed.
New Vincent pressed the nurse call button.
“I’ll ask them.”
It should not have mattered.
One small act of respect should not have felt revolutionary.
But it did.
An hour later, they wheeled me into the NICU.
Nothing prepares a mother to see her baby inside a plastic box.
Isabella was so small that the diaper seemed enormous.
Her skin was pink and delicate.
A tiny cap covered her head.
I reached through the opening and touched one finger.
She wrapped her entire hand around the tip of mine.
I cried.
Not gracefully.
Not silently.
I bent forward as much as my body allowed and sobbed.
Vincent stood behind me.
I could feel him there.
But he didn’t touch me.
“Hi, baby,” I whispered. “Mommy’s here.”
Isabella moved.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe a little longer.”
“Claire.”
Vincent’s voice cracked.
“That wasn’t your fault.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“You don’t get to decide what I blame myself for.”
He lowered his eyes.
“You’re right.”
Again.
No argument.
No command.
No correction.
It almost made me angrier.
“Stop agreeing with everything.”
He looked confused.
“I don’t know how to talk to you anymore.”
“That’s because you never listened before.”
That one landed.
A doctor approached before the conversation could continue.
Isabella had a heart condition.
Not catastrophic.
But serious.
A vessel that normally closed after birth remained open, making it harder for her tiny lungs to work efficiently.
Medication might fix it.
If not, surgery would.
I stared at the doctor.
“Surgery?”
“It’s a possibility.”
Vincent moved forward.
“Get the best pediatric cardiologist in the country.”
The doctor remained calm.
“We already have an excellent team.”
“I want the best.”
“Vincent,” I said.
He stopped.
I knew what he was doing.
The same thing he always did.
A problem appeared.
He crushed it with money.
Influence.
Force.
“I want her doctors to decide what she needs.”
“They will.”
“Not you.”
His face changed.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
The doctor glanced between us.
Nobody in Chicago told Vincent Moretti no twice in five minutes.
I had done it three times.
And survived.
Later that afternoon, Elena returned.
Vincent was still there.
She opened her briefcase.
“Mr. Moretti, these require acknowledgment of service.”
Vincent stared at the divorce papers.
He did not pick them up.
“I want forty-eight hours.”
“No,” I said.
His eyes lifted.
“I nearly died last night. I’m done postponing my life.”
“I’m not asking you to change your mind.”
That surprised me.
“What are you asking?”
“Forty-eight hours to review them properly.”
Elena answered before I could.
“That’s reasonable.”
I glared at her.
She gave me the look attorneys use when emotion is about to make a bad legal decision.
“Forty-eight,” I said.
Vincent nodded.
Then Luca entered.
He looked grim.
“We traced Ms. Reynolds’s outgoing calls.”
Vincent stood.
“To whom?”
“A man named Adrian Cole.”
Vincent frowned.
I didn’t know the name.
He did.
His entire body changed.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
Vincent looked at me.
For the first time since I woke up, I saw fear in my husband’s eyes.
“Adrian Cole isn’t his real name.”
“Then who is he?”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Marco Ricci.”
My stomach went cold.
Everyone in Chicago knew the Ricci name.
May you like
The Moretti family and the Ricci family had been enemies for almost twenty years.
And Sophia had called one of them less than ten minutes after Vincent ordered her away from my hospital room.
