"Salvatore!" my mother cried out, dropping to her knees beside him, her hands shaking as she tried to hold him up. Her fingers found the crucifix at her neck and closed around it so hard the chain bit into her skin.
The room erupted into chaos. Relatives surged forward from every direction. Someone lifted his head. Someone else tried to pour water into his mouth. Another pressed desperately at his pressure points, calling out instructions that no one could fully follow. Two of the old guard soldiers who had served my father for thirty years pushed through the crowd without asking permission, their faces grey.
Panic spread like wildfire, swallowing everything.
I looked at him. His face pale, his lips trembling, his breathing shallow and uneven. His heart had always been weak. Fragile. He had nearly suffered a stroke when I chose to undergo the hysterectomy for Nico, when the family doctor had told him his daughter would never produce a blood heir and the Valente line would end with her.
This… this might be the moment that finally broke him.
And Nico?
He just stood there, watching.
No urgency. No concern.