He Chose My Copy I Became The Law Chapter 04
When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a VIP suite at the Family’s private hospital.
Adrian was leafing through the folder I had nearly died to rescue. The singed marriage certificate slipped out from between the pages.
“This useless scrap of paper? You almost got yourself killed over this?” Disbelief strained his voice. “Valentina, you have a hairline fracture in your left calf and an infection in your lungs. The doctor said another ten minutes would’ve cost you your life!”
I stretched out my hand and tore the folder away from him.
The lawyer couldn’t fast-track the divorce without the original document.
Adrian watched me shield the folder, his eyebrows drawing together sharply.
“If you’d simply stepped back, everyone could’ve escaped alive. Instead, you turned it into some sick test and forced me to choose. Do you really need that badly to know what place you hold in my heart?”
“Our rivals were behind the attack. I got Sofia out first because she’s a civilian and knows nothing about this world. You knew better than anyone how to stay alive on the streets.”
My eyes remained fixed on the surgical lamp overhead. “Yeah,” I murmured.
“Baby.” His voice gentled as he bent closer. “I told you long ago that I was ready to settle down. But Sofia… her family is buried under gambling debts, and her mother has a heart condition. I’m only giving her a hand. It’s the least I can do.”
He insisted that I mattered to him as his wife, yet everything he did exposed his obsession with her.
At last, I looked at him. My eyes were as still and lifeless as standing water.
“I know. I understand perfectly.”
My icy detachment pushed him past his limit. He shot to his feet, then noticed the furious red burn marks striping my shoulder.
“Valentina, wasn’t losing our baby punishment enough for me? Did you really have to ruin your own body just to hurt me too?”
“You’re imagining things. I won’t ever do anything that foolish again.”
He parted his lips to respond, but his phone began to ring.
Crossing to the floor-to-ceiling windows, he took the call.
I couldn’t distinguish the words coming through the phone, though Sofia’s frail, helpless sobs carried faintly across the room.
Adrian spent a moment soothing her in a hushed voice. When the call ended, he faced me again. “We’ve got a rat inside one of our operations, and I need to handle it. I have to return to the office. Stay here and concentrate on getting better.”
With that, he marched out of the room without once glancing behind him.
I spent the following days recuperating silently in the hospital.
Adrian had his men deliver cartons of costly supplements and bouquets of red roses. Every day, the room’s landline rang with clockwork regularity.
Each time, I asked the nurse on duty to answer on my behalf: “Her condition is stable. No visitors.”
When discharge day arrived, I forced myself through the intense pain and went alone to the pharmacy for my pain medication.
The instant I passed my prescription through the window, a middle-aged woman shoved me aside and barged ahead.
“My son-in-law runs this district! Why the hell should I stand in line?”
I knit my brows. “Please wait your turn.”
She swept a contemptuous gaze over me. “And who are you supposed to be? My son-in-law is Capo Adrian! Are you prepared to face the consequences if you hold up my medicine?”
As if summoned by her words, Adrian and Sofia hurried toward us from the far end of the hallway.
He drew me toward the wall and spoke under his breath. “Sofia’s mother has a bad heart. She can’t cope with emotional strain. You’re the Capo’s wife. Letting a civilian go ahead is the right thing to do.”
Red-eyed, Sofia hastened to steady the woman as she panted heavily.
“Mrs. Romano, I’m terribly sorry… Whenever my mother gets agitated, her condition flares up. I worried she wouldn’t accept such expensive medicine, so I told her Adrian was my fiancé.”
“And please don’t blame the Capo. Loyalty has always been his weakness, and he can’t bear watching decent people suffer.”
Without a word, I studied the three of them.
The second Sofia’s mother said she felt ill, he had been able to desert his own wife—alone in a hospital room with a fractured leg and serious burns—without giving it another thought.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered to me now.
I nodded and headed for the elevators. I had gone only two steps when Sofia’s quiet sniffling reached me from behind.
“Adrian, is Mrs. Valentina upset? Is she going to lash out the way she did before? I’m terrified I’ll damage your position…”
Though Adrian answered softly, every syllable traveled clearly to my ears.
“Pay no attention to her. Stop worrying. She grew up in an orphanage. She wouldn’t recognize compassion if it struck her in the face.”Â