“Salvatore?”
“Our ninety-year-old barber?”
“All right, all right,” I broke in, tired of their distractions. “Quit yanking stupid theories from out of your ass and make yourselves useful. Savio, do a balance of the accounts and make sure everything’s up to date. Marcello, go connect with our contacts and see what you can learn. Maybe someone with their ear to the ground has heard something we don’t yet know.”
Yet hours later, all three of us came up empty-handed. My decryption software wasn’t finished, but what it’d brought up so far told us nothing. The offshore and legit accounts appeared untouched, and though Marcello had put feelers out, no one had responded with anything remotely useful.
Worst of all, we might have to halt shipments and lay low for a while until things settled back down, which meant our father’s tantrums would not be going away anytime soon. I stayed with the problem all day and half of the night, only to determine that we had no leads as to who it might be. The program had come up empty. So not only had we lost all those profits, since we didn’t know who’d been responsible for tipping off the feds, that same source could do it all over again without us being about to do anything about it.
At three in the morning, I remained in the headquarters, starving and my hip throbbing hard enough that I couldn’t stop rubbing it. I needed some food and sleep, but I knew my father wouldn’t allow me to regroup for long. Still, my eyes were shutting on their own, so I slipped into bed with Lucia, the tension in my body making the movement of laying down hurt. I’d just shifted back onto my pillow, twisting to get comfortable, when I felt something in my hip bone give way and I groaned.
Fuck, it was excruciating.
“Romeo?”
Great, now I’d awakened my wife. I attempted to shush her back to sleep despite the fact that it felt like someone was shoving an ice pick into my hip. “Shhh,farfalla. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
There was a gruffness in my voice I couldn’t hide, and since my luck had turned to shit, she detected it.
“Are you okay?”
Just peachy. No problem. “Yes.” It came out as a grunt.
“You don’t sound okay.”
“Lucia, just…” I snapped at her, then took a sharp inhale as the pain made me double over.
“You’re hurting. Badly.” I couldn’t deny it at this point. “It’s your hip, isn’t it?”
Giving up the pretense, I nodded. “I don’t know why it’s gotten so much worse.”
“You certain the bullet isn’t still stuck in there?”
“I’m sure. It’s not that.” Though what it was I had no clue.
Lucia slid from the mattress and brought back some pain relievers and a glass of water. I swallowed it down without question. Only after I’d done it did I realize how much I’d changed. I never would’ve taken pills anyone else might give me without giving them the third degree at least. Yet with myfarfalla, I had. She had far more power over me than she realized.
“What have you been doing for it?” she asked me.
Not much. “Sometimes, I apply heat in the shower.”
“Do you have a heating pad somewhere?”
“Not that I know of.”
She got up again, this time coming around to my side of the bed. “Tell me if this hurts, and I’ll stop.”
“What are you going to—” But before I could finish my query, she laid her warm belly against my hip. At first, there was no change, but whether from her touch or due to the pain relievers kicking in, the edge of the awful intensity of it started to diminish. I scooted over, tucking her in against me, basking in the alleviation she’d provided for me.
27
Lucia
Ipushed Romeo’s long hair away from his forehead. Perspiration had beaded there, and beneath the warm olive tones of his complexion, he looked pale. Fitfully, his head slanted back and forth, his features contorting periodically in obvious discomfort. I listened to the unevenness of his breath and his quick pulse, feeling worried. I’d peeked at his gunshot wounds—well, what I could see of them in his position—but they hadn’t ripped open. Whatever the damage was causing him to go through this, it must be internal.
Yet I knew he wouldn’t go to a doctor.
I’d known the moment I’d stirred that something was wrong. Not only had he been gone from our quarters for a day and a half, but when he came to bed, he hadn’t bothered to shower or discard his clothing. Even now he laid next to me in his dressy button-down shirt and slacks, sweating right through the fabric.
