Chapter 7 - NICU ROOM 4
At 8:00 PM, a nurse wheeled me down the long, quiet hallway of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
The room was low-lit, filled with the gentle humming of monitors, small blue phototherapy lights, and the soft ticking of ventilators.
Vincent walked beside my wheelchair, his hand resting reassuringly on my shoulder.
We stopped in front of Incubator 4.
Inside lay a tiny, fragile little girl. She was covered in wires, a tiny nasal cannula supplying oxygen to her lungs, a small heart monitor taped to her chest. Her skin was pink and smooth, her tiny head covered in a fine layer of dark hair.
The sight broke my heart and filled it to bursting all at once.
“Oh, baby...” I sobbed, reaching through the small porthole opening of the incubator.
My fingers touched her tiny arm. She moved slightly, her little face scrunching up before her eyes opened—tiny, dark brown almond eyes that looked just like Vincent’s.
She let out a soft, squeaky little cry, and her tiny hand reached out, instinctively catching my index finger.
“She knows you,” Vincent whispered, kneeling beside my wheelchair so his face was level with mine.
I looked at Vincent, seeing tears spilling over his dark eyelashes.
“What are we going to name her?” I asked, my voice trembling with love.
Vincent looked at our daughter, then back at me. “During those six months when I thought I’d lost you, I used to go to the botanical gardens near the river just to remember the smell of the jasmine flowers you used to grow on our terrace.”
He touched the tip of our daughter’s nose gently. “Jasmine. Jasmine Caruso.”
“Jasmine,” I repeated, the name feeling perfect against my lips. “Jasmine Ellis Caruso.”
Vincent reached out, placing his large hand over mine as both of us held our daughter’s tiny fingers inside the incubator.
“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Vincent said softly, looking into my eyes with complete honesty. “I spent years thinking I could keep you safe by keeping you outside my world. I didn't realize that by keeping secrets, I was leaving you vulnerable to the snakes around me.”
May you like
“You hurt me, Vincent,” I said gently. “It’s going to take time to fix what was broken.”
“I have all the time in the world,” Vincent replied. “I don't care about the syndicate anymore. I don't care about the business. All I care about is earned trust—and keeping you two safe.”
