The hospital had learned to live in silence, but that morning the air felt heavier than usual. A tension that everyone could feel but no one wanted to name. Estrella's monitors beeped softly in the background, steady but fragile—too fragile. Damiano hadn't slept in almost two days, sitting half-collapsed in a chair beside Aaliyah's bed as she lay unconscious again, her heartbeat slow but stable.
He rubbed his face with trembling hands.
He could handle the hate, the press, the attacks, the career collapse—
but not this.
Not losing the two people he loved most.
A sudden knock broke the fragile quiet.
Winona stepped inside first, her expression severe, followed by the protector, the powerful figure whose identity had turned the world upside down. And behind them… Dylan, silent but alert, eyes fixed on his daughter.
Winona: "Damiano, we need to talk. Right now."
Damiano: exhausted "If this is about the press, I don't care. Not today."
Protector: "It's not the press. It's internal."
Damiano straightened at that word.
Internal.
The same word Winona had used the day she warned him about the danger inside Italy—inside the label—inside the system that had tried to manipulate him.
Damiano: "What do you mean? What happened?"
Winona: "We uncovered something. Someone inside the hospital leaked information about Aaliyah's condition. A staff member."
Dylan: "And they tried to access Estrella's reports."
Damiano froze.
Damiano: "You're telling me someone tried to get my daughter's medical files?"
Protector: "Not tried. They almost did. My security stopped it."
Damiano stood so fast his chair slammed backward.
Damiano: "WHO? Tell me who."
Winona: "We can't give the name yet. But we know who they work for."
The protector exchanged a look with Winona.
Protector: "Your mother."
The room seemed to tilt.
Damiano felt his pulse hammering in his temples, rage igniting so violently he had to grip the bedrail to stay grounded.
Damiano: "She's behind this?"
Winona: "She was the source feeding the tabloids. She hired someone to break confidentiality. She wanted a scandal big enough to destroy Aaliyah permanently."
Damiano's voice came out hoarse, broken.
Damiano: "My own mother… wants to ruin the mother of my child?"
Winona stepped closer, her tone softening.
Winona: "She thinks she's protecting you. But she's destroying you instead."
Before Damiano could respond, Estrella's monitor suddenly spiked—
a rapid beeping, frantic, sharp.
The three adults whipped around.
Dylan: "What's happening?!"
Damiano: "ESTRELLA—!"
Nurses rushed in, moving quickly.
Nurse: "Her oxygen saturation just dropped—calling NICU now!"
Damiano pressed his hand against the incubator, tears already burning his eyes.
Damiano: "Baby, please—please hold on—"
Then, as fast as it began…
the monitors slowly stabilized again.
The nurse let out a shaky exhale.
Nurse: "She's okay. But we need to keep her under close watch. That was too close."
Damiano nearly collapsed in relief.
The protector placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
Protector: "This cannot continue. You're being attacked from the inside. And now it's reaching your daughter."
Damiano: "Then what do we do?"
Winona exchanged a look with Dylan.
Winona: "You choose whether to stay in Italy… or leave before someone crosses a line we can't undo."
Damiano's throat tightened.
His voice was barely a whisper.
Damiano: "I'll do anything to protect them."
The protector nodded.
Protector: "Then the time has come to end this. Completely."
Damiano looked at Aaliyah—motionless, pale, fighting for life.
He looked at Estrella—tiny, fragile, fighting even harder.
And in that moment, something inside him snapped into place.
He wasn't the boy who sang on stages anymore.
He wasn't the celebrity they could manipulate.
He wasn't the scandal they tried to destroy.
He was a father.
A partner.
A man ready for war.
And Italy was about to feel it.