Semua Bab The Don's Daughter: Bab 71 - Bab 75

NIKOLAI’S POVThe second night in New York felt colder than the first.The penthouse was silent in a way that irritated me. Italy had never been silent. There had always been noise bleeding in from somewhere—voices in hallways, traffic below balconies, distant music, the hum of life pressed too close together.New York was different.Thirty floors above the concrete, the city looked muted behind soundproof glass. Controlled. Contained.I sat in my study, the floor to ceiling windows stretching across the entire wall behind my desk. The skyline glowed in front of me, towers of steel and light piercing the dark like monuments to ambition. Headlights streamed below in endless rivers. The city did not sleep.Neither did I.A glass of whiskey rested in my hand, the amber liquid catching the reflection of the city lights. I had not touched my paperwork. The files lay open but ignored, numbers and reports blurring together into irrelevance.All I could think about was her.Vittoria still had

NIKOLAI’S POVThe first night should have been the last.That was what I told myself.After Ava left my study, after the silence returned and the penthouse swallowed the evidence of weakness, I stood alone in the dark and swore it would not happen again.It meant nothing.It was a mistake.A lapse in judgment born from exhaustion and a mind too crowded with guilt.Down the hall, my wife lay unconscious.And I had chosen distraction over devotion.I did not sleep that night.I went to Vittoria’s room instead.I stood beside her bed in the early hours of the morning, watching her breathe. The city lights painted faint patterns across her skin. She looked peaceful. Detached from me. Detached from everything.“Wake up,” I had murmured.She didn’t.The doctors came the next morning.More tests.More quiet conversations.“She should be conscious by now,” one of them admitted carefully. “Physically, she’s stable. There’s no medical reason for the delay.”No medical reason.The implication li

NIKOLAI'S POVI have faced men with guns pressed to my skull and felt less fear than I do standing outside this bedroom door.Twice, I knock.Not because I need permission.But because I no longer felt that I had the right to just walk in uninvited.Silence answers me.On the other side of this door is my wife, who is alive and awake.And colder than I have ever seen her.For six nights, I stood over her sleeping body, waiting... no praying she would wake up soon.Six nights listening to machines beeping around her. Watching numbers on monitors as if my will alone could keep them steady. Six nights bargaining with a God that I do not believe in.I talked to her when no one else was in the room.Told her what the doctors said. Told her about the penthouse. Told her I moved her because I couldn’t lose her. Told her I would explain everything properly when she opened her eyes.Told her how much I missed her, how much I love her. I imagined her waking up constantly.She would wake up con