But I clear my whole fucking plate.
And when I walk out again, every single Crow standing and following in my wake, all I leave behind me is silence and death.
Chapter twenty-eight Caterina
“Tell Gio I want a meeting.”
My throat still burns, and I’m not sure if Dom hears me. He continues packing away the medical kit, tossing the used alcohol pads into the trash. I stare at the plain white ceiling from my position on the couch, my fingers prodding at the ligature burns on my neck.
“Stop that,” he says gruffly. Capturing my hand with his, he keeps hold of it as he settles down on the floor beside me, his head leaning against my stomach.
Slowly, my other hand reaches down, brushing across his soft, inky hair. His sigh is closer to a shudder.
“I thought I’d lost you today,” he murmurs. “When they called me, I heard the shouting in the background… I thought you were dead, Cat.”
I let my fingers delve into the softness of his cropped hair, trace the shaved edges. “Still here. I’m not quite that easy to kill, you know.”
His hand tightens around mine. “I can’t lose you. It was too close.”
Something dangerously close to vulnerability fills his voice.
The door knocks, and he closes his eyes with a groan. “Fucking V’Arezzo.”
He gets up with a grumble. But it’s not Dante at the door.
My eyes widen when Luc strides in, his hazel eyes landing on mine. He scans my face, my neck, and his face tightens. “Little crow.”
I try to lift myself up, but his hand lands on my shoulder, gently stopping it. “Don’t get up. You look halfway to dead, in case you hadn’t realized.”
“Oh, I realized.”
Dom catches my eye, tilting his head towards the door in a silent question, and I shake my head. He lifts his eyes up, as if he’s asking the heavens for patience, before he disappears into the kitchen.
Luc raises his eyebrows as an irritated bang sounds. “Domenico Rossi is very protective of you, you know.”
“That goes both ways. Why are you here, Luc?”
He twists one way, then the other. Then he shrugs. As if he’s not quite sure himself. “You’ve had a fucking shit few days. I just wanted to check in. Make sure you’re still the savage little crow I enjoy verbally and physically sparring with.”
My snort of amusement fucking hurts. “No changes here, you’ll be glad to know.”
“Good.”
I blink as he drops an envelope on my stomach. “Another gift?”
“Not quite,” he says softly. “There is something to be said about privacy in our line of work, Caterina. Complete, utter privacy. There is one, single place on campus that nobody else knows about. Aside from me, that is. There is a key anddirections in the envelope. I thought you might appreciate the notion of somewhere you can’t be disturbed because technically, it does notexist.”
His words wash through me. “Why would you share this with me?”
Because this is a gift.
Everywhere we go, we are watched. People always want something from the heirs. A moment of our time, a question, a complaint, a proposal. To have somewhere nobody knows about, to know that the door isn’t being watched, that nobody is waiting outside to hurt me—
Yes, that is a gift.
His face turns serious. “Because I know you will not betray it. And I find that I wouldn’t mind sharing this space with you, little crow. Just lock the door behind you, and I’ll know that it’s occupied. The same applies.”
Nodding, I pick up the envelope, studying my name, written in a flawless script on the front. Steel myself to ask a question, one of many on the tip of my tongue. It takes me longer than I thought it would. “Luc… about the daggers.”
