A nurse passed close to me, glanced at my swollen belly, offered a polite smile. I didn't return it. I couldn't. My face had gone still, the way faces go still when the muscles beneath them are holding something back that the body cannot afford to release. Not here. Not yet.
With a heavy heart, I held my belly and slowly shuffled out of the hospital. My back ached. The baby shifted, pressing against my ribs in a way that made each step feel deliberate, earned. I moved through the automatic doors and into the night, and the scene outside was no less cruel.
The rain had started.
Not a gentle autumn mist but a real rain, cold and committed, the kind that turned the parking lot into a field of small explosions where each drop hit the asphalt. The cold autumn wind blew against me, cutting through the thin fabric of my coat, and the rain felt like it was trying to drown the world in its chill. The parking lot lights cast long orange smears across the wet ground, and through the mist, through the blur of water on my eyelashes, I watched.
Dante emerged from the hospital entrance. He shrugged off his coat in one smooth motion and draped it over Cara, shielding her from the rain. His arm wrapped around her shoulders. He guided her across the lot with the same careful authority he used when escorting someone under the Family's protection, his body between her and the weather, his stride shortened to match hers. He opened the front passenger door of his black sedan and helped her in, one hand on the door frame, one hand hovering near her head so she wouldn't bump it.
The tenderness in the gesture was precise. Practiced. Familiar.
Cara smiled up at him from the passenger seat. The interior light caught her face, and I saw the expression clearly: satisfied, proprietary, warm. She reached up and grabbed his tie, the silk dark with rain, and pulled him down toward her. My husband cupped her face with both hands and kissed her deeply right there in the rain. The water ran down his back, flattened his hair against his skull, and he didn't notice. He didn't care. When they finally pulled apart, he tapped her nose playfully, and she tugged on his tie again, biting his lip hard.
To my surprise, instead of getting upset, he just smiled. Like he was thrilled. Like the small pain of her teeth on his lip was a gift.
Then he walked around to the driver's side and got into the car.