I looked down. A shock of red was spreading beneath me. Bright against the white tile. Impossible to mistake for anything else.
"Tomasso, my baby... our baby!"
He didn't turn around. He didn't even slow down. His soldiers parted for him in the doorway, and not one of them looked back at me on the floor.
"Giovanna, I've never been more disappointed in you. Get yourself home. I'll be staying at the hospital with Catarina and the baby for the next few days." He paused in the doorway. The light from the corridor caught the edge of his jaw, and I could see the muscle there working, tightening. "And you'd better pray her child is all right. Because if he's not, I won't let you off."
Every last one of them followed him out the door. The room emptied the way rooms empty after a Don has spoken. Completely. Without hesitation. Without a single backward glance.
I stayed on the floor. The blood kept spreading. The fluorescent light kept buzzing. Somewhere down the hall, I could hear Catarina's voice rising in fresh sobs, and the low reassuring murmur of Tomasso answering her, and the quick footsteps of a doctor being summoned.
No one summoned a doctor for me.