I laugh, which makes my shoulder protest. “Too bad. You’re stuck with it now.”
“Am I?”
The question carries weight beyond the immediate conversation. We’re not just talking about his protective instincts anymore. We’re talking about what happens when I’m healed, when the immediate crisis passes, when we have to figure out what we are to each other.
“Do you want to be?”
Instead of answering, he leans down and kisses me. Soft, careful, like I’m made of glass. When he pulls back, his eyes are darker than usual.
“I want you safe. Everything else we can figure out later.”
A knock interrupts whatever I was going to say. Maria enters with a lunch tray and her usual cheerful efficiency.
“How are we feeling today, Mrs. Moretti?”
“Restless.”
“That’s a good sign. Means you’re healing.” She sets the tray on my bedside table and starts arranging items. “Mr. Benedetto is here to see you both. Should I tell him to come back later?”
Alaric glances at me. “Feel up to a visitor?”
“God, yes. I’m desperate for adult conversation that doesn’t involve medical updates.”
Benedetto enters with his usual grave expression, but I catch the relief in his eyes when he sees me sitting up and alert.
“You look better than expected,” he says.
“Thanks. I think.”
“Any word on the Russian situation?” Alaric asks.
“That’s why I’m here.” Benedetto pulls up a chair. “Boris Petrov is making noise about retaliation. Word is he’s planning something bigger than a restaurant ambush.”
“What is it this time?”
“We don’t know, but our contacts in Brighton Beach say he’s been meeting with other families. Trying to build a coalition.”
I process this information, my mind automatically working through possibilities. “He’s consolidating power. Using our conflict as an excuse to absorb smaller operations.”
Both men look at me with expressions I can’t quite read.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re thinking like one of us,” Benedetto observes.
“Is that bad?”
“Depends on your perspective,” Alaric says. “From a business standpoint, it’s valuable. From a personal standpoint…”
“It means I’m becoming part of this world instead of just surviving it.”
“Yeah.”
The realization should disturb me more than it does. Who’d have thought that I’d be analyzing criminal power structures and planning defensive strategies against Russian syndicate leaders?
“The women from Dante’s files,” I say. “Are they protected?”
“Yes,” Benedetto confirms. “Funds have been disbursed to all of them.”
