Chapter 9 - The Softest Question
Dante Russo did not roar. He did not slam his fist into the mahogany molding, nor did he reach beneath his tailored black jacket for the custom Kimber .45 resting in his shoulder holster.
He moved with an agonizing, gentle reverence that tore the heart out of everyone in the corridor.
Slowly, his heavy leather shoes making no sound against the marble, Dante closed the four feet of distance between himself and his trembling wife.
As he stepped into her personal space, Emily instinctively recoiled, her back pressing hard against the doorframe, her shoulders hunching inward as if anticipating a blow. Her left hand gripped the molding so tightly that her fingernails tore, while her right arm wrapped entirely around the white lace apron, shielding the twin bellies from his reach.
Dante stopped instantly.
Seeing her flinch from his approach caused an audible, agonized gasp to slip from his chest. He slowly raised both of his large, scarred hands, palms open, fingers relaxed, holding them at chest height in the universal gesture of a man surrendering before an armed adversary.
"Emily..." he whispered.
The name was spoken with a devastating, trembling tenderness that shattered the sterile clinical air. It was the voice he had used only in the dark of their private bedroom in Lake Forest, before the wars, before the blood, before the crown of Chicago had turned his soul to stone.
He slowly, carefully sank to one knee on the polished hospital floor.
The Don of Chicago knelt at the feet of a woman wearing a cheap maid's dress.
He did not care that Dr. Harrison was watching. He did not care that two armed guards stood twenty paces down the hall at the security checkpoint. He knelt in his five-thousand-dollar suit, his broad shoulders bowed, looking up at her with eyes that were swimming with unshed tears and an ocean of devastating, soul-crushing guilt.
He slowly reached out his right hand. He did not touch her stomach—he did not dare assume he had the right to touch the children he had failed to protect. Instead, his fingers hovered inches above her bare, swollen ankle, waiting for her permission.
"Emily, forgive me," he choked out, his deep voice fracturing completely. "Look at me, tesoro mio. Look at Dante."
Emily’s breath caught in her throat. Her gaze, wild and terrified, slowly lowered from the ceiling sconces down to the kneeling giant. She saw the raw, naked agony carved into his rugged stubble, the wet sheen in his piercing brown eyes, the complete and total absence of the cold mob boss who ruled through slaughter.
She saw her husband.
A fresh, torrential wave of tears broke from her eyes, her lower lip trembling so violently she could barely keep her jaw closed. A small, broken whimper escaped her lips—the first sound she had made since his arrival.
Dante slowly lifted his hand, his trembling fingers gently, reverently closing around the edge of her raw, chafed wrist, avoiding the purple ligature bruising left by the house staff. His touch was warm, solid, and impossibly gentle.
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He looked up into her swollen, bloodshot eyes, his voice dropping into a register that was at once heartbreakingly soft and vibrating with an ancient, lethal promise of annihilation.
"Who did this to you, Emily?" Dante whispered.
