CHAPTER 98
NONNA POV
Sleep never came. Not after a night like this.
I'd left Katya's room and stayed beside ragazzomio in the infirmary long after the nurses stopped moving, long after the lamps dimmed and the house fell silent.
Watching him breathe. Watching the boy who once clung to my skirts now lie still beneath white sheets, his chest rising slow, fragile.
"Even now, you fight in silence," I whispered, brushing my wrinkled hand across his hair. "Just like your father."
He didn't stir. He only slept — the kind of sleep that felt like distance, like a place too far for a grandmother's prayers to reach.
When the faintest sign of dawn touched the window, I finally wheeled back from his bedside.
My hands trembled on the armrests, not from weakness, but from the weight pressing on my chest. I'd told the nurse I'd only rest a little.
Just a few hours before returning again. I had nothing to do so why not stay with the only person I live for.
