The Marriage He Must Keep

“Obviously dispatch didn’t log Primo’s request,” Alessandro stated tightly, deeply disturbed that his wife had suffered needlessly. “I’ll follow up with them. None of us would be here if the ambulance had come when ordered and taken her to the correct hospital.”

“Sir?” A wiry technician invited them into a control room. It was small and hot, as these types of stations usually were, and a tight fit for all of them. They were quickly shown an image of Primo trying to accompany Octavia’s stretcher into a locked-down area. The nurse shook her head, pointed at her cap and scrubs, then indicated something down the hall.

“She’s telling him to wait in the lounge,” the administrator provided.

Seconds later, the staff was clearly under pressure, moving quickly as the emergency deliveries were stacked up. People came and went through electronically controlled doors, leaving the doors hovering open again and again. Primo took advantage and stepped into the restricted area directly outside the theaters.

Everyone looked to Alessandro.

He shrugged jerkily, wanting to explain his cousin’s trespass as concern for Octavia, but finding himself holding his tongue and watching, waiting to see what Primo did next.

The technician flicked screens and a moment later they could see the interior of the restricted area. An administration desk was set up with a computer and printer. The surgeon walked out of one theater, peeling scrubs as she went. She threw them into a bin and quickly began to wash her hands. There was no sound, but the way she pointed toward the door with her elbow suggested she was ordering Primo to leave, but she was being urged into the other theater and hurried to put on fresh scrubs and comply.

When a nurse came bustling from the first theater, she halted with surprise, but Primo pointed to the room labeled Theater Two. Whatever he said seemed to alleviate the nurse’s concern. She was in a hurry. She grabbed a tiny striped cap from a cupboard, then quickly began preparing two trays with papers and pens and...

“Name tags?” Alessandro guessed as he saw a printed strip go onto each tray.

“With the mother’s name and the bar code that matches her file,” the administrator clarified. “They print them ahead when they can and add the time of birth in the theater.”

Another nurse came out of Theater Two. She examined both trays, drew one closer to herself, then was pulled into a hunt for something with the other nurse.

That was when Primo glanced at the closed-circuit camera eye, shifted his back to block the line of sight to the trays and made a furtive movement.

“Stop it right there,” Underwood ordered.

Alessandro was aware that they were all looking at him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the frozen image. He shook his head, unwilling to believe what they were suspecting. What he suspected.

“He wouldn’t,” he told them, but doubt had arrived as irrevocably as the stork.

Knowledge, really. Cold recognition that all the small steps he’d taken to keep the Ferrante family cohesive and successful had snapped at its weakest link: his determination to believe in his cousin’s unwavering loyalty.

The tape was restarted and each nurse briskly took her tray into the separate theaters.

“You said it was procedure to check them against the mother’s in the delivery room,” Alessandro recalled, trying to remain rational while adrenaline ballooned in his system, pressing him to go on the attack.

The hospital administrator flattened his lips into a grim line. “Normally, I’d guarantee it would be read aloud and checked by two nurses, but there was a lot of pressure on the staff last night. Those are the sorts of conditions when corners are cut and oversights happen.”

“He couldn’t have known they’d both be boys, though,” Underwood said. “If one had been born a girl...”

“He knew Octavia was having a boy,” Alessandro said tightly. Deep in his subconscious, Primo’s assurance that he would look after Octavia while she was in London took on a malevolent undertone. Alessandro had spent a lifetime trying to be understanding, elevating Primo to the highest position beneath him as recompense for not holding this one, but Primo’s consistent acts of competition now rose with snaking heads of acrimony and envy and treachery.

“The Kelly baby was already born. The first nurse took out a cap for him,” he heard the administrator say through the pounding in his ears.

The truth was pummeling like stones against Alessandro’s chest and shoulders and between his eyes. Primo had betrayed him.

While deep down, a part of him wondered if Primo’s treachery was justified. The guilt of causing his own father’s death had never left Alessandro. He’d always taken Primo’s challenges as his due. His punishment. He believed he should be constantly tested to prove his worth.

He had tried to make up for the terrible actions that had cost his father’s life, though. The patriarch would still have been running things if not for Sandro’s burst of temper. As reparation, he always set the family’s needs above his own. He would lay down his life for the Ferrantes.

To be attacked so gravely from within, through his wife and child, was a greater penalty than he was willing to pay, however.

“I’d like to talk to your cousin,” Underwood said.

In a deadly tone, Alessandro said, “So would I.”

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_b49eba4a-34a1-5265-9081-a43010618754)

ALESSANDRO CAME BACK wearing a look she’d never seen, as if he was a warrior cast in bronze. On the surface he seemed remote, but he radiated such danger Octavia closed her arms protectively around their baby.

“Did you learn anything?” she asked, already overwrought, but needing to know. The sense of threat he projected tightened her throat, as if her body knew on a visceral level that he was in a lethal mood and she should be very still and quiet and not risk drawing his notice.

But he knew exactly where she was. His gaze caught at hers and drilled. The banked ember of fury in his eyes pushed her back in her chair.

It’s not my fault, she wanted to cry.

“They’re still questioning everyone.” His voice was both devoid of inflection, yet terrifyingly harsh. “I’ll be leaving with the administrator to see Primo.”

Good luck, Octavia almost said, but she always kept her opinions about Primo to herself. Even if he’d seen something, he would only speak up if he saw a benefit to his own situation. More likely he’d somehow turn this into her causing trouble for nothing. Fear of what he might say layered atop her exhaustion and despair, crinkling her brow and making her bite her lips.

“What are you thinking?” Alessandro demanded.

She started at the caustic edge on his tone. Since when did he notice she had any thoughts at all?

“Nothing.” She had to work to meet his eyes, disturbed to see he was watching her so closely. She didn’t want him seeing her animosity toward his cousin, though. She knew how close he and Primo were and didn’t want to create even more of an obstacle in their marriage.

Not that she lived with Alessandro. She lived with his mother and, quite ironically, thought Ysabelle was rather nice, despite all her gushing displays and disregard of propriety. Octavia wished the woman spent more time at her home in London, rather than hunting husbands on the Côte d’Azur.

So much left unspoken. It was disheartening if she thought about it, and made the future seem very bleak.

“Try to relax,” Alessandro said gruffly. “You’re safe here.” His hard voice and flat mouth belied what he was saying. “The hospital is bringing in extra security for the entire floor. So am I. Each baby will have a guard of his own until this is sorted out and so will you and Sorcha.”

Sorcha looked up at her name and Octavia wondered whether Enrique’s father was capable of this kind of dispassionate lockdown of lives. Did he also bury frightening news in the guise of comfort? Octavia was introspective, not stupid.

“You think this was deliberate.” Her limbs drained of feeling and her heart slowed to clumsy, disjointed bumps. “Who—?”

She looked to Sorcha, thoughts flying to who could possibly want to attack such a nice woman in such a subversive, evil way?

But the grim way Alessandro kept his gaze on her and Lorenzo told Octavia that Sorcha wasn’t the target. She was. They were.

All the air in her lungs dried up, leaving her sipping for oxygen.

“We have your blood types,” the administrator said, glancing up from a clipboard as he addressed both mothers. “I’d like to give you the results, even though they’re not conclusive.”

Not conclusive? Octavia instinctively cradled Lorenzo closer. The babies now wore additional tags reading Baby One and Baby Two, but this was her son.

“Ironically,” the administrator said, “we should have labeled the boys A and B, since that is the blood type they’ve come back with.” He smiled faintly.

“I’m a B. That was confirmed, si?” Alessandro said swiftly. His hawk-like gaze swooped onto Lorenzo with an avid light, making Octavia wonder if he’d been holding back attaching to his child until he knew irrefutably that this boy was his.