The Sweetest Temptation
Chapter 293: Not dead

Chapter 293: Not dead

His words stuck in his throat when Matteo walked up to him and threw his arms over his shoulders. For the first time in his entire life as a Quinn, he had hugged his blood brother. And moments later, Remo was soothing his back with gentle taps of his hand.

"She’s not dead," Matteo whispered in a voice choked with tears. Despite using all of his strength to restrain from letting out his emotions, they had managed to break out anyway.

"I know." Remo replied solemnly. After a while, Matteo released him, keeping his head bowed in order to hide his face away. Remo who noticed what he was up to, tapped his jaw gently. "You don’t need that, I’m your brother. Come on, let’s go." He added, leading them both to the seat that he had been in earlier when he first came in.

"How long has it been since she got in?"

"Exactly twenty minutes."

"Have the doctors come out yet?"

"No, they’ve been in there since we came in. She’s not dead, Remo," Matteo added restlessly, tapping his heel against the tile at unusual speed. Since his teenage days, whenever he was anxious about something, he would resort to doing something to distract his mind from thinking about it.

But in times like this, where the occasion required his sobriety and his entire attention, he would struggle to live with it, easing his tension by either chipping away at his nails, or shaking his leg at measured tempo. The more tense the situation, the faster he’d tap away.

Remo, taking notice of this, brought his palm over his knee, immediately halting his movement. His gaze met his, stern and sincere.

"She’s not dead. She will come out of that operation room good as new. You hear me?"

Matteo stared at him, his gaze absent.

"Do you hear me?" Remo affirmed, tensing his grip on his knee. Matteo nodded slowly, turning his gaze once again, to the door.

Stella’s surgery had stretched on for an hour, a tense passage of time that seemed to drag on endlessly. With the procedure finally concluded, the doctor emerged from the operating room.

"The cut narrowly missed her organs," he relayed to the anxious pair. "It appears she must have made a deliberate effort to escape her assailant, resulting in a clean cut through her muscles. It’s fortunate, really. Nothing that won’t be able to heal within a few months."

Remo cut in with a touch of impatience. "Can we see her now?"

"Of course," the doctor replied with a nod. "She’s resting, so please be cautious not to disturb her. I wish you the best."

Taking their cue, the duo entered the ward where Stella lay, her form fragile amidst the sterile white surroundings. Matteo, heavy with a burden of guilt, moved with swift purpose to the chair positioned beside her bed. Gently, he clasped her cold hands within his own.

"She’s cold," Matteo remarked softly, his voice tinged with concern.

Remo’s gruff exterior softened briefly as he responded in his characteristically brusque manner. "She’ll be alright."

Seating himself in an armchair positioned strategically to oversee Stella’s condition, Remo’s watchful gaze never wavered. The room held a quiet tension, punctuated only by the rhythmic hum of medical equipment and the slow, steady rise and fall of Stella’s chest as she slept.

A few minutes slipped into hours in a steady passage of time marked only by the faint tick of a clock on the wall.

"Why isn’t she waking up?" Matteo finally voiced out.

"Are you serious right now? The surgery literally just ended. You can’t expect someone to bounce back instantly like you would. Especially not one as delicate as Ms. Rossi," Remo’s voice carried a mix of exasperation and sarcasm as he scolded Matteo.

"Yeah, you’re right." Matteo’s defeated sigh was almost a whisper as he withdrew his hand from Stella’s, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear with a tenderness that seemed to catch him by surprise.

What am I even doing?

Stella had been there, a constant presence, while he remained oblivious to her feelings. She had silently endured his callousness, standing by him even when her heart likely ached, seeing him every day when it was a constant reminder of what she desired but couldn’t have.

He had vowed never to inflict such pain on another person, yet he had done precisely that. He had pushed her away with the excuse that he was incapable of love, and in doing so, had left her vulnerable and exposed.

There was an undeniable certainty that if he had only accepted her, she wouldn’t be lying in this hospital bed right now. She would have been safe, shielded from the clutches of some deranged individual. But he had allowed her to slip through his fingers, unknowingly delivering her into harm’s way.

Please come back to me, Stella... I’ll love and cherish and take care of you with every fiber of my being. Just please, fight this—

His introspection shattered like glass at the sound of his sister’s frantic voice slicing through the hallway.

"Where is she?! Tell me where she is!" Beatrix’s panicked cry pierced the air, a plea edged with anxiety and worry.

Matteo jolted from his seat, his gaze snapping towards the door, an anticipatory tension tugging at his muscles. The question that slipped from his lips was more amusing to the universe than a directed query.

"How did she find out?" His voice carried a mix of incredulity and frustration, although Remo’s half-hearted response managed to break through.

"I might have dropped a hint or two," Remo admitted casually, a playful glint in his eye.

Matteo shot him a withering glare, a clear display of his disapproval for the sudden chain of events.

"Are you out of your mind? Beatrix despises everything about the Mafia. She’ll go berserk knowing her friend’s life had been endangered, fuck an explanation."

"But that’s precisely why she needed to know. Besides, I live for conflict," Remo retorted, his tone unwavering.

"God, you’re impossible," Matteo muttered under his breath, his impatience practically tangible.

The charged atmosphere thickened as the door swung open with force, Beatrix bursting into the room like a tempest. Her expression was wild, her eyes wide with distress—and unmistakably pregnant.

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