Chapter fifteen

Dante pov

Pain woke me before the sun did.

It came sharp and sudden, a blade sliding beneath my ribs, stealing the breath from my lungs before I could even swear. My vision blurred as I forced myself upright, one hand digging into the mattress, the other pressed against my chest.

Not now.

I swallowed hard, reaching for the pills on the bedside table. They rattled as my fingers closed around the bottle.

The sound grated on my nerves. I had taken them less than four hours ago. They were supposed to hold me longer than that.

I dry-swallowed two anyway.

The bitterness coated my tongue as I stood, steadying myself against the headboard until the room stopped tilting. My heart thudded too fast, too hard, like it was trying to punch its way out of my ribcage.

I dressed slowly, deliberately.

Every movement took effort. Even breathing felt like work.

By the time I made it to my office, sweat had dampened the collar of my shirt.

Luca was already waiting.

He looked up when I entered, his jaw tightening the moment his eyes met mine.

“You look like hell.”

“I feel worse,” I muttered, lowering myself into the chair behind my desk.

He didn’t sit. He paced, restless, hands clasped behind his back. “You skipped your morning injection.”

“I didn’t.”

“You took half the dose.”

I leaned back, closing my eyes for a brief second. “It makes me sick.”

“You’re sick either way.”

“At least this way I can function.”

Luca stopped pacing. “You can’t keep doing this. The doctor”

“The doctor isn’t the one running a criminal empire while dying,” I snapped.

Silence fell.

My pulse thundered in my ears. I hated that he was right. I hated that my body had become something I had to negotiate with, something fragile and unreliable.

“I don’t have time,” I said more quietly. “Not anymore.”

Luca’s gaze softened, just a little. “We can slow things down.”

“No, we can’t.”

I stood again, moving to the window. The city stretched below, cold and sharp, a world that would keep turning long after I was gone.

“My son is coming,” I said. “And I won’t leave him in chaos.”

Luca didn’t reply.

“Everything needs to be in place,” I continued. “The succession. The money. The alliances. I won’t let vultures tear apart what I built while my child is still learning how to breathe.”

“And Elara?”

My jaw tightened.

“She will be protected.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

I turned slowly. “She carries my heir. That is enough.”

Luca studied me. “You’re lying.”

I didn’t respond.

A sudden wave of nausea rolled through me, strong enough to make my knees weaken. I gripped the edge of the desk.

“The drugs are poisoning you,” Luca said quietly. “They’re buying you time at the cost of your organs.”

“I don’t need organs. I need months.”

“And what if you don’t get them?”

“I will.”

Before Luca could answer, the door burst open.

“Elara?”

She stood in the doorway, breathless, hair loose around her shoulders, eyes wide and bright with something that looked dangerously close to hope.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

Luca glanced between us. “I’ll give you a minute.”

He left, closing the door behind him.

***********

“Elara”

“I found something.”

She crossed the room quickly, stopping in front of my desk. Her hands were shaking. There was a folded stack of papers clutched in her grip.

“A hospital. In Thailand. They specialize in rare cardiac failure. They’ve treated patients worse than you. They have survival rates you wouldn’t believe.”

I stared at her.

“They can help you,” she said, voice breaking. “They can fix this. You don’t have to die.”

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

“Where did you get this?”

“I’ve been searching for weeks,” she whispered. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to give you false hope, but this is real. You have to go.”

I stepped back slowly.

“You don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t,” she said fiercely. “You think you’ve already lost. But you haven’t. Not yet.”

“You want me to leave now?” I demanded. “When everything is unstable?”

“When you’re dying,” she shot back.

The word hit harder than any bullet.

“You need treatment,” she said. “Not more pills. Not more pretending. You need to fight.”

I looked at her really looked at her. Her rounder face. The faint curve of her belly beneath her dress. The life growing inside her because of me.

“Thailand is halfway across the world,” I said. “I can’t just disappear.”

“Yes, you can,” she replied softly. “For your son.”

The room fell silent.

My heart beat too loud.

Outside, thunder rolled.

And for the first time since this sickness had claimed me, something unfamiliar flickered in my chest.

Hope.

But hope was dangerous.

And if I reached for it, everything could change.

************

The word Thailand stayed with me long after Elara left my office.

It followed me down the hallway, into the elevator, into the private bathroom where I locked the door and leaned over the sink while another wave of sickness tore through me. My hands shook as I gripped the porcelain, knuckles white, sweat sliding down my spine.

Hope was a cruel thing.

It made a dying man imagine mornings he would never see.

I straightened slowly, staring at my reflection. My face looked sharper than it used to, shadows carved beneath my eyes. The man in the mirror was still powerful, still feared… but he was not strong.

A knock sounded on the door.

“Dante.”

Luca.

I opened it.

He took one look at me and swore under his breath. “You took more pills.”

“I had to.”

“You’re destroying your liver.”

“I won’t need it long if this works.”

His brows furrowed. “What works?”

“Thailand.”

The word landed between us like a loaded gun.

“Elara told you,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And?”

I walked past him, back into my office. “I need to know everything about that hospital. Their doctors. Their funding. Their failure rate. If I’m stepping into someone else’s hands, I need to know who they are.”

Luca exhaled slowly. “So you’re considering it.”

“I’m considering not dying.”

“That’s new.”

I sat behind my desk, staring at the papers Elara had left behind. Her handwriting was neat, careful. She had highlighted names, circled statistics. She had done this not like a desperate girl, but like someone protecting what mattered.

My child.

“She believes it,” Luca said quietly. “That it can save you.”

“She shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because if it fails, it will destroy her.”

“And if you stay here and die?”

“That will destroy her too.”

He didn’t argue.

Alicia’s face flashed through my mind. The empire. The enemies circling. The fragile balance I’d spent a lifetime building.

Leaving would be dangerous.

Staying would be fatal.

“I can’t leave everything,” I muttered.

“You don’t have to,” Luca replied. “You can go for the treatment while I run things here.”

I looked up sharply. “You?”

“You trust me.”

“I trust you with my life,” I said. “Not with my throne.”

“You won’t have a throne if you’re dead.”

Silence stretched.

I leaned back, pressing my fingers to my temples. My heart skipped, then raced. The room tilted.

Luca was beside me in an instant. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I lied.

He didn’t look convinced.

“Elara is carrying your son,” he said. “If you die, he grows up in this world without you. If you live, you can change it.”

I closed my eyes.

For the first time, fear wasn’t about power.

It was about not seeing a child’s face.

“Book the flight,” I said.

Luca froze. “You’re sure?”

“No,” I admitted. “But I’m going.”

A sharp breath left him. “I’ll start making arrangements.”

“And keep this quiet.”

“From Alicia?”

“From everyone.”

He nodded and left.

I sat alone in my office, heart pounding, as the reality of what I’d just decided settled in.

I was going to leave.

I was going to trust strangers with my heart.

I was going to gamble everything on a woman who had walked into my life in chains… and now held my future in her hands.

And the worst part?

I wasn’t afraid.

I was hopeful.

Which meant I had something to lose.