Chapter 12 : the reawakening

Dante’s POV

“She shouldn’t have survived that impact.”

I stop walking.

The doctor’s voice is quiet, professional, like he’s stating a statistic instead of talking about a woman lying twenty feet away behind a locked door. I turn back toward him slowly. He’s holding a clipboard against his chest, eyes flicking between me and the ICU room like he’s suddenly aware of who he’s speaking to.

“She’s stable,” he adds quickly. “But the damage to the vehicle, the angle of the collision…it doesn’t line up with her outcome.”

I look through the narrow glass window in the door.

Serena is not fully conscious , monitors blinking steadily beside her. Her face is pale against the pillow, bruising darkening along her cheekbone and jaw. Tubes and wires surround her, machines doing the work her body nearly failed to finish.

“Are you saying she’s lucky,” I ask, “or that someone made a mistake?”

The doctor hesitates. “I’m saying she beat odds she shouldn’t have.”

“Lucky?”

The word irritates me more than it should.

He clears his throat. “We’ll keep her under observation for another twenty-four hours. After that…”

“Call me if anything changes,” I say.

He nods and steps away without argument.

I stay where I am.

I should go back inside. I should sit beside her bed, let her see me when she wakes. Instead, I stand in the hallway and watch her chest rise and fall through reinforced glass like she’s something dangerous that needs containment.

I replay the sound of metal folding in on itself.

The screech of brakes. The impact. The moment my men froze because no one expects someone to step directly into traffic like that unless they’re desperate or done.

She wasn’t careless.

She was finished.

That realization sits heavy in my chest.

“You don’t get to disappear,” I mutter under my breath.

The words surprise me.

I’ve seen death up close more times than I can count. I’ve caused it , I’ve Ordered people to be killed and Lived comfortably beside it. This shouldn’t affect me.

And yet it does.

I rub a hand over my jaw and turn away from the door, pacing once before stopping again. My thoughts drag me backward, somewhere I haven’t allowed myself to linger in years.

Gunfire.

Not distant, it’s was close and Loud enough to make the walls shake.

I see it clearly..the Black estate in chaos, guards shouting, children screaming, the smell of smoke and blood choking the air. Orders being barked, Boots pounding marble and Panic layered over precision.

Fernandez Black on his knees.

He’s shouting something. A name of someone who could be a threat.

The shots come fast. Too fast to be mercy.

His body jerks, then collapses, blood spreading across the floor. Someone keeps firing anyway. Overkill.

I remember standing there.

Watching and not doing anything to stop it.

That was my sin, not the bullets.

A child screams.

Small hands reach toward a body that will never move again.

I force myself back to the present, jaw tight, breath controlled.

I look through the glass again and focus on Serena’s neck.

The mark is partially visible even from here. Just beneath her jaw. Crescent-shaped. Old.

I’ve seen that scar before.

On another girl everyone insisted was dead.

The report had been too clean. DNA matched and Case closed. Fernandez Black’s bloodline erased in one violent night.

Except scars don’t lie.

And coincidences don’t repeat themselves like this.

My thoughts shift sharply to Antonio.

My son’s marriage never sat right with me. The speed and the secrecy. The lack of advantage. Serena had nothing our world values. No money, No protection, No leverage.

And yet Antonio married her anyway.

Then discarded her just as quickly.

Then Isabella appeared…. She looked perfect

I exhale slowly.

Serena was never random.

Someone put her in Antonio’s path. Someone ensured she survived long enough to be bound legally, then destroyed quietly. Someone patient enough to let the pieces move themselves.

If she leaves this hospital unprotected, she won’t survive a second attempt.

Not from Antonio. Not from men who still owe Victor favors. Not from my own council, who will see her as a liability the moment questions start forming.

She has no shield.

No name that scares people.

No one willing to burn the world for her.

Except me.

I straighten my jacket and finally open the door.

The machines hum louder inside the room. Serena shifts slightly, brows pulling together like she’s waking from something unpleasant.

I step closer to the bed.

Her lashes flutter.

Then her eyes open.

She looks at me, unfocused at first, then sharper as recognition settles. Fear flashes across her face before she controls it.

“You’re still here,” she says quietly.

“Yes.”

She swallows. “I thought maybe I imagined you.”

“You didn’t.”

Her gaze drifts to the door behind me, then back to my face. “Did you talk to the doctor?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“You’ll live.”

She exhales, relief cutting through her tension for just a second before reality crashes back in. Her fingers curl into the sheet.

“You didn’t answer my question from before,” she says.

I step closer, close enough that there’s no mistaking the shift in air between us.

“You asked what you would give up,” I say evenly.

She nods.

I meet her eyes and don’t soften my voice.

“You’ll give up your old name, your privacy, and the illusion that anyone else will protect you.”

Her throat moves as she swallows again.

“And in return?” she asks.

I lean down just enough that she can’t look away.

“In return,” I say, “you’ll live.”

She stares at me, fear and understanding colliding in her eyes.

I let the silence stretch.

Then I say the words that change everything—

“So, Serena, tell me now… are you ready to say yes?”