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“No, no, no, he said, don’t let go. Don’t let gooo!”
I’m running out of air. It’s cold, and I need to surface. When I try to propel myself towards the surface, my wrist fires up, and I realize it must be broken.
Despite the agony, I kick and flail my way upwards, breaking through the surface with a gasp. Desperately, I search for Fiero amidst the frothing waves. But I don’t see him anywhere. The tides are rough, forcing me towards the rocks, and I try to swim against them, to no avail.
I turn around to see where the rocks are before I slam into them. And then, near their edges, I spot the green glow from the lifejacket’s emergency light.
"Fi- Fiero!" I scream through the thunder, my voice hoarse and trembling.
"Romola!" he calls back, his voice weak and strained.
He’s alive. Oh, thank god he’s alive. I fight through the pain in my wrist and swim towards him with my one good hand. I gasp for breath, spitting out saltwater, my eyes darting around the storm-tossed sea.
“Romola,” he screams again. Fiero's voice is like a lifeline, drawing me towards him. As I swim, a sudden realization hits me with the force of a tidal wave: I love him, and I need him to live. The thought of losing Fiero – now that I've finally admitted my feelings to myself – is too much to bear.
"Stay with me, Fiero!" I cry out as much for my own courage as for his reassurance.
"Romola, just keep swimming!" he coughs.
Ignoring the agony in my wrist, I press on. The waves batter me relentlessly, but I refuse to give up. Every second spent fighting the current brings me closer to Fiero, and that's all that matters now.
Finally, I reached him. He's holding on to a boulder, his face pale and drawn. Then I see the mangled mess of his foot, there's so much blood.
"Your foot," I whisper, horrified.
"We got caught on the rocks under the water when we jumped," he grunts through clenched teeth. "It's bad, Romola."
"Let me help." With trembling hands – one nearly useless – I pull off his soaked T-shirt and reach under the water. He holds my shoulders to help me stay in place, and I tie it tightly around his ankle to stem the bleeding.
"Thank you," he murmurs, his green eyes locking onto mine. “Now come, we need to get off these rocks and find the grotto.”
In the midst of all this, I’d completely forgotten about the diamond. With fear, I touch my coat’s outer layer, petrified I might have lost the diamond at sea. Fiero notices my panic, wiping water off his face, and he waits patiently. I feel it, the heaviness, the sharp edges of the stone.
“I have it,” I yell in joyous disbelief. “I have it!”
“Good!” he shouts back. “To the shore, now!”
“Your leg’s no good,” I frown and then cough as I swallow some water. “Listen, lie on your back, and I’ll drag you as close as I can.”
He nods and does what I say. He holds my upper arm, and I begin to wade towards the shore but freeze when I hear the sudden whir of an engine growing louder. I turn my head to see Rafaele's plane nosediving into the water not far from us, and my heart pounds in my chest.
"Rafaele!" I gasp, my eyes wide with terror. "His plane is going down! We need to move faster!"
"Damn it," Fiero curses through gritted teeth. He glances at the falling plane before looking back at me with steely determination. “He’s not in it,” Fiero tells me.
“Y…you mean?” I look around the water fearfully.
“He jumped. He’s in the water somewhere.”
“We must get to the shore now!” I scream, and I swim with every ounce of might I have.
The cold water surrounds us, chilling me to the bone. I focus on getting Fiero to safety and the reassuring rhythm of my strokes as I pull us through the raging sea. In this moment, I realize that my love for him is what keeps me going – it's a light in the darkness, a beacon guiding me through the storm.
But will our love be enough to save us from Rafaele's relentless pursuit? Or will our love be swallowed by the depths of the Tyrrhenian, lost to the world forever, just like the Heart of Italy?
Would our great romance become just another legend?
Chapter 47
