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The doctor hesitated. Ezio was beginning to hate hesitations.
“Unfortunately, we can’t say when. I’m going to be straight with you, sir. Your brother is fighting for his life right now.”
Nausea rolled through Ezio’s system. “You’re saying he could die?”
“I want to prepare you for the worst,” the doctor said in a solemn tone. “The next few hours are critical, but yes, it’s possible he might not make it.”
Ezio’s head spun, but when he was on the brink of giving in to despair, he heard a feminine cry that brought him back to himself. He looked to his right to find his family had arrived, and Shakarri had heard the doctor’s prognosis. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she covered her mouth and ran toward the observation window for viewing Cason.
Ezio moved into her path and let her crash into him. He brought his arms up around her. “Hold on, baby.”
“Let me go, Ezio,” she pleaded. “He needs us by his side to call him back to us. This can’t be happening! Not Cason.”
He held onto her and looked above her head to his mother. She wouldn’t have understood the doctor’s words, but she could interpret Shakarri’s reaction. He saw fear in her eyes.
“Dov’è il mio bambino, Ezio? Dimmi adesso!”
As she had done all their lives, she was calling Cason her baby. It didn’t matter how old he got, and right now his mother was probably thinking of Cason as that small little boy who was as wild as a child as he was now.
“Mamma, Shakarri, it’s going to be okay. Cason is going to be fine.”
He spoke with as much firmness as he could drudge up despite the pain in his heart. In rapid-fire Italian, he did his best to calm his mother’s fears while keeping his wife in a tight embrace. Sonya stood silent and tense, but she and Cason weren’t very close, so he didn’t have her emotions to battle with like his wife and mother. All the same, from what he had learned of Romy’s baby mamma, she was strong enough to deal with this situation.
“I’m going to take you inside to see him. He looks worse than he is,” Ezio lied. “Just a little bruising.”
Sonya cut a look of disbelief at him, but she didn’t say anything. He ushered his mother and wife into the room, and Shakarri and his mother both fell to their knees, gently holding onto Cason’s left hand, the only place not bandaged.
Ezio’s world tilted upside down, and just when he felt hopelessness taking hold, Sonya inched closer to his side and laid a small hand on his back. They had had countless fights, and she knew he advised Romy never to marry her, but in this dark hour, she offered her support. He wouldn’t admit it, but her presence helped, and he began to order his thoughts.
“Stay with them for a minute?” he asked.
She nodded.
Ezio left the room and walked down the hall. Once he was a safe distance from his family and away from all the machines, he began making phone calls. After the first, his cell phone rang, and he recognized the foreign number and knew it was Romy.
“Ezio, what’s happening?” He heard the tightness in his oldest brother’s voice. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Ezio lied again. “Catch the next plane out.”
“If he’s fine why are you asking me to come home? Tell me the truth.”
“He will be fine.” Ezio’s voice cracked a bit, and he coughed. “I need help with Mamma. Shakarri is taking it hard, and Mamma needs you here.”
Romy swore in Italian. “This isn’t happening. Not Cason.”
“Like I said, he’ll be fine. Fratello, come home. I need you here.”
Romy’s voice when he spoke was a whisper. “I’ve never heard you sound so vulnerable or so pained. Tell me the details.”
“Not over the phone.”
“Promise me he’s alive.”
“He is.”
“Promettimi!”
“E’vivo.”
