But I remember the cold. How it clung to my bones. I remember hearing muffled voices, someone shaking me, calling my name—but I didn’t care enough to answer. Maybe I thought if I didn’t open my eyes, the pain would finally leave me behind. Maybe part of me hoped I wouldn’t wake up at all.
When I did, it was to fluorescent lights and the low beep of machines. The bed was too soft. The sheets too white. My arm had an IV line taped down and my body felt like it’d been hit by a truck.
I stared at the ceiling for a long time before I turned my head. No Zeus. No Zoraya. No guards.
Just me.
Alone, like I always really was.
I reached for the hospital phone with shaking hands, my fingers numb and clumsy. I dialed the number Dominic gave me. It rang twice before a voice answered.
“Savannah?”
“P-papa…”
It slipped out like breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“Papa,” I whispered again, weaker this time. “I’m pregnant… and I’m dying.”
Silence. Then a sharp inhale, followed by something I never imagined hearing from a man like him—my father, the feared and whispered-about Mr. Moretti.
He cried.
Softly. Like a man who didn’t know how to be weak, but just found out he had no choice.