Chapter 6 - The Girl the City SawThe story broke two days later.
No one knew who leaked it.
Everyone knew who benefited.
By breakfast, every gossip site in New York had a photo of Dante carrying Emily through the hospital entrance, his tuxedo jacket wrapped around her shoulders.
THE DON’S SECRET CHILD?
BILLIONAIRE ROMANO HIDES DAUGHTER?
MYSTERY WOMAN RETURNS FROM THE DEAD.
Sarah saw the headlines on a nurse’s tablet and turned white.
Emily saw only the picture.
“That’s me,” she said softly. “I look like a wet mouse.”
Dante took the tablet away.
“You look brave.”
“Do brave people have messy hair?”
“The best ones do.”
Sarah did not smile.
“This is what I was afraid of.”
Dante stood by the window, phone in hand, giving orders that sounded calm enough to terrify everyone receiving them.
“No statement without my approval. No photos of Emily. Remove the hospital entrance footage. I don’t care what it costs. Buy the agency if they refuse.”
Sarah watched him.
This was the world she had run from.
Power moving at the speed of money.
Doors opening because Dante Romano wanted them open.
But fear did not disappear just because the room was expensive.
By noon, reporters stood outside St. Aurelia. By evening, a woman from a morning show offered Sarah “a chance to tell her side.” By night, someone had posted a picture of the building where Sarah and Emily had lived.
Sarah broke when she saw that.
“They know where we lived,” she whispered.
“They don’t know where you are now,” Dante said.
“For how long?”
Dante had no answer.
That night, Sarah’s fever spiked.
Dr. Reed, whom Dante had brought in as a private consultant despite St. Aurelia’s offended specialists, ordered more tests. The infection had moved deeper than anyone hoped. Sarah needed an aggressive procedure to drain fluid around her lungs.
Emily understood only one part.
Mommy had to go away behind doors.
She stood in the hallway, small hands clenched.
“Can I go too?”
Sarah tried to smile from the rolling bed.
“Not this time, bug.”
Emily looked at Dante.
“Can you stop them?”
The question shattered him.
“No,” he said gently. “But I’ll be right here when she comes back.”
Emily’s face crumpled.
Sarah reached for Dante’s wrist.
“If something happens—”
“Don’t.”
“If something happens, promise me Emily won’t become a fight.”
He leaned close.
“Nothing is happening.”
“Promise me.”
Dante looked at the woman he had loved, lost, hated, mourned, and found again too late to pretend time was generous.
“I promise she will never be alone.”
Sarah nodded.
They wheeled her away.
Emily did not cry until the doors closed.
Then she turned into Dante’s chest and sobbed like the child she finally had permission to be.
Dante held her.
Awkwardly at first.
Then fiercely.
Hours passed.
Marco brought food. Emily refused it.
Frank brought a blanket. Emily wrapped it around Dante’s arm instead of herself.
At 2:03 a.m., while Sarah was still in surgery, Dante received a text from an unknown number.
Enjoy fatherhood while it lasts.
Attached was a photograph.
Emily asleep in the hospital chair.
Taken from inside the building.
Dante stood so fast the chair struck the wall.
Marco read the message once and reached for his weapon.
“No,” Dante said.
His voice was deadly soft.
“Find the camera. Find the phone. Find the person.”
Emily woke.
“Is Mommy okay?”
Dante looked down at her and forced his face to become something safer.
“She’s still with the doctors.”
“Are you scared?”
He wanted to lie.
Instead, he sat beside her.
“Yes.”
Emily leaned against him.
“Me too.”
The doors opened at dawn.
Dr. Reed emerged, exhausted.
May you like
Sarah was alive.
For the first time since Emily had knocked on his limousine window, Dante Romano closed his eyes and thanked God for something he had not bought.
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