Red Card to Your Heart: You Don't Deserve My Love Extra Time novel Chapter 27

That night, I hemorrhaged severely, the bullet and miscarriage draining my body of blood until the sheets beneath me turned crimson.

I hovered between life and death for eighteen hours while Salvatore paced the hospital corridors, alternating between threatening the surgeons and promising millions to anyone who could save me. The doctors finally pulled me back from the void, but I remained hospitalized for weeks, my body too broken to proceed with our wedding.

The official narrative was constructed carefully: my assailant had come seeking vengeance against Carina. Our fortress-like villa in the hills above Milan was protected by electrified fencing and armed guards, but the torrential rainfall had shorted the security system, creating a blind spot the gunman had exploited.

Carina maintained her innocence with practiced desperation. The man was merely a victim of her father's financial schemes, she claimed—someone who had lost everything when her family's empire collapsed. Her connection to him was circumstantial.

But the precision of the attack—the exact moment when I was most vulnerable, when Salvatore was distracted—suggested meticulous planning. The kind that required inside knowledge and substantial payment.

Three days after I regained consciousness, Carina appeared at my bedside, her eyes artfully reddened, clutching a bouquet of white lilies—funeral flowers. She grasped my hand between hers, tears spilling perfectly down her cheeks.

"Isabella, I'm so sorry," she whispered, her voice breaking on cue. "If Salvatore hadn't been protecting me instead of you... if I hadn't distracted him..."

"Shut your fucking mouth and get out." Salvatore's voice cut through her performance like a blade. He stood in the doorway, unshaven, eyes bloodshot from three sleepless nights. The suit he wore was immaculate—his armor against the world—but underneath it, he was unraveling.

Carina rose from her chair, moving toward him with the careful steps of someone approaching a wounded predator. "Are you sending me away?" Her lower lip trembled precisely. "After everything we discussed? You know about my condition... my suicidal thoughts... are you abandoning me now?"

Salvatore's face remained expressionless as he stepped into the hallway. "Come outside. I need to speak with you privately."

Before following him, Carina turned back to me, a flash of triumph visible beneath her concern. "Don't be angry with him for taking care of me, Isabella. I'm not well." She touched her wrist where the self-inflicted cuts were prominently displayed. "He can't bear the thought of what I might do if left alone."

"I'll come see you tomorrow," she added, loud enough for Salvatore to hear her presumption of continued access.

She hurried after him, deliberately leaving the door ajar—ensuring I would witness what followed.

Moments later, a violent impact echoed from the corridor.

Through the gap in the door, I saw Salvatore's hand wrapped around Carina's throat, her body pinned against the sterile hospital wall. The veins in his forearms stood out like ropes as he applied steady pressure. His face had transformed into something I'd only glimpsed before—the true face of the man who had built his empire on blood and bone.

"Let's be fucking clear about something," he growled, each word precise and lethal in its delivery. "You know exactly how that shooter got past our security."

Salvatore lit a cigarette, despite the hospital's prohibitions, the flame of his gold lighter illuminating the terrible emptiness in his eyes.

"She orchestrated the murder of my unborn child," he stated with unnerving calm. "She nearly killed my wife." He took a long drag, letting the smoke escape slowly. "What would you suggest is an appropriate response, Enzo?"

The consigliere glanced toward my room, then back to Salvatore. "Perhaps the Signora should decide once she's recovered," he suggested carefully. "The mother who lost her child deserves to determine the punishment."

Salvatore stared down at Carina, who remained huddled at his feet. For a moment, something flickered across his face—a ghost of the boy who had once loved this woman enough to nearly destroy himself when she betrayed him.

He bit down hard on his cigarette, his silence giving tacit approval to Enzo's suggestion.

I knew then that despite everything—despite his rage, despite his declarations, despite the child we had lost—some small part of him couldn't bear to order her execution himself. The wound of first love, no matter how toxic, leaves scars that never fully heal.

Fortunately for us both, I had no such hesitation.