THE MAFIA'S NEW BRIDE

NOT ALONE ANYMORE

"Marco."

Her voice came out strangled. He turned from the window fast, the phone still pressed to his ear, and whatever he saw on her face made him drop the call mid-sentence.

"What is it?"

She turned the screen toward him with shaking hands. He read it once. Read it again. His whole body went rigid, the careful control shattering in an instant.

"Get your coat," he said, already moving. "Now."

They didn't talk in the elevator. They didn't talk in the garage, or the first two minutes of the drive, the city smearing past the windows in a blur of light Nora couldn't focus on. Her heart was slamming so hard it hurt, a fist against her ribs, over and over, the same four words looping in her head. He's not alone anymore.

"Call the hospital," Marco said finally, tight, controlled in the specific way that meant he was one wrong word from not being controlled at all. "Ask for the nurse's station on his floor. Now."

Her hands shook so bad it took two tries to unlock her phone. The line rang twice before someone picked up, brisk, professional, completely unaware that the world might be ending on the other end of the call.

"Mercy General, fourth floor."

"I need you to check on a patient." Nora's voice cracked. "Manuel Alvarez. Room, I don't know the room number, he was admitted a few hours ago—"

"One moment."

The moment stretched into an eternity. Nora could hear her own pulse in her ears, could feel Marco's eyes flicking to her every few seconds, jaw tight, foot pressing harder on the gas.

"Ma'am? I'm showing him in room four twelve. Would you like me to send someone to check on him?"

"Yes. Please. Right now."

"One moment."

Another eternity. Marco ran a red light. Neither of them said anything about it.

"Ma'am, I've got a nurse heading there now."

"Please hurry."

The seconds crawled. Nora pressed the phone so hard against her ear it started to hurt, straining for any sound, any word, anything at all.

"Ma'am? The nurse is at the room now. He says your father is resting comfortably. No visitors logged since you left."

Relief hit her so hard she nearly dropped the phone.

"Are you sure?" Her voice came out small, disbelieving. "Please, are you completely sure?"

"He's right here, ma'am. Sleeping. Everything looks fine."

Nora let out a breath she felt like she'd been holding for ten minutes straight, her hand pressed flat against her chest like she could physically hold her heart together.

"Thank you," she managed. "Thank you so much."

She hung up, and for one full second, she let herself believe it was over. That maybe Vittorio had been bluffing. That maybe this was just another threat with nothing behind it, the way bullies sometimes talked bigger than they acted.

Then her phone buzzed again.

A photo this time. No words.

She opened it with hands that had started shaking all over again, and the relief from thirty seconds ago curdled instantly into something so much worse.

It was her father's hospital room. Room 412, the number clearly visible on the door in the corner of the frame. Taken from the hallway, through the small window in the door.

And standing beside her father's bed, just out of reach of the sleeping man, was a figure in dark clothes, face turned carefully away from the camera.

The photo had been taken four minutes ago.

"Marco." Her voice came out barely in a whisper. "Marco, look."

He glanced over at a red light, and whatever color was left in his face drained out completely.

"That's not hospital security." His voice had gone flat, deadly calm. "That's one of his."

"But the nurse said—"

"The nurse checked on a sleeping man in a room that looked fine." Marco's hands tightened on the wheel, white-knuckled now. "He wouldn't have seen someone standing in the corner by the door. Not if they didn't want to be seen."

The light turned green. Marco didn't wait for it, already accelerating hard, weaving through traffic with a precision that scared her almost as much as the photo had.

"Why would he do this?" Her voice shook. "Why show us a picture and not just, I don't know, do something?"

"Because this isn't about your father." Marco's jaw was tight, eyes fixed hard on the road. "This is about proving a point. Showing us he can get to anyone, anywhere, anytime, no matter how many people I have watching. He's not threatening your father right now."

"Then what is he doing?"

"He's threatening me." Marco's voice cracked, just slightly, just enough for her to hear the fear underneath the control. "Showing me exactly how little my protection is actually worth."

They made it to the hospital in eleven minutes. It should have taken twenty.

Marco was out of the car before it had fully stopped, moving fast through the sliding doors, Nora half a step behind him, her whole body running on pure adrenaline now, fear sharpening everything into painful, hyper-focused clarity.

The fourth floor nurse's station looked exactly like it had hours ago. Calm. Ordinary. Completely unaware anything was wrong.

"Room four twelve," Marco said, voice hard, already moving past the desk without waiting for permission.

Nora ran to keep up, heart in her throat, terrified of what they'd find.

The door was closed. Marco didn't slow down to knock. He pushed it open hard, stepping inside fast, body angled like he was braced for a fight.

Her father lay exactly where they'd left him. Sleeping. Peaceful. The IV still taped to his arm, the machines still beeping at their same steady rhythm.

Alone.

Nora's knees nearly buckled with relief.

"He's fine." Her voice came out shaky, disbelieving. "Marco, he's fine, there's no one here."

Marco didn't relax. He moved around the room instead, checking the closet, the bathroom, the space behind the curtain, methodical and fast, the way someone moves when they've done this exact search before and know exactly what they're looking for.

"Marco?"

"Someone was here." He crouched near the small visitor's chair in the corner, the one angled just slightly, just enough that someone could've stood beside it without being visible through the door's window. "Recently."

"How do you know?"

He held up something small between two fingers, and Nora's stomach dropped straight through the floor.

A single black button, the kind that might have come off a dark, unremarkable jacket. The same kind two men had worn on her doorstep weeks ago, delivering an offer she'd never been given the choice to refuse.

"He wants us to know," Marco said quietly, turning the button slowly in his fingers, "that he was standing exactly where I'm standing right now. And that nothing I do is going to keep either of you safe unless I give him what he wants."

Nora stared at the small black button in his hand, at her father sleeping peacefully, completely unaware how close danger had just stood beside his bed, and felt something cold and final settle into her chest.

"Then give it to him," she said quietly. "Whatever it is. Give it to him and make this stop."

Marco's eyes came up to meet hers, dark and torn and exhausted in a way she'd never seen from him before.

"I can't," he said. "Because the truth is, Nora, I don't actually know what he thinks I have."

He paused, jaw working, something breaking open behind his careful control.

"But I think I might know someone who does."