He sounds so calm. How can he sound so calm?
I look down at Maggie again. There’s a lock of hair lying across her face, spattered a darker red by her own blood. Carefully, I lift it off her cheek and set it back in place.
“We have to go, baby bird.”
That composed voice again. A hand tugs at my arm and I let him pull me up, pull me away from Maggie. Tara can barely walk, so Luca sweeps her up in his arms.
“The guards are still around,” he reminds me. “We need to be careful. I’ll draw them away from the front, and then…”
He goes on, telling me the plan while we start up the stairs, being careful to keep Tara’s head from banging against the walls.
When we get into the Green Room I see she’s passed out. I wish I could do the same. Let go and slide into oblivion for a while.
I don’t.
I do what Luca tells me.
I follow him out the front door when he says it’s time to go, and I wait with Tara in the bushes while he hotwires a Jeep parked in front of the house.
He takes Tara to the car where it purrs quietly, no headlights.
There are shouts from inside the house, running feet.
I think I’m in shock, or having PTSD flashbacks or some shit, because my head’s spinning and the only reason I’m upright again is because Luca’s pulled my arm around his neck, his other hand tight around my waist, and he’s pulling me out of the shrubs and toward the car.
“She was going to shoot you,” I say as he packs me into the back seat next to Tara.
“Stay down, like this,” he says. “Don’t put your head up. You hear me, Finch?”
“She was going to shoot you,” I say again.
“I know. And now we need to go, angel. If you want your surviving sister to stay that way, we need to get her to a hospital. They’ve really done a number on her.”
“Okay,” I breathe. “Okay.”
I slump back against the car seat as Luca slams the door and jumps into the driver’s seat. As he pulls away, I let my fingers creep of their own accord across the leather car seat, and take Tara’s slack hand in mine.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Luca
Life goes on.
This is something that seems to surprise Finch, that life simply continues on for us in New York, once we get back there. Everything settles down, despite Vegas, despite Chicago, despite Boston.
While Maggie Donovan's death is remarked on in the press in Boston, inourcity there are other stories that take over the public imagination faster. Louis Clemenza’s release from hospital, for example, only to be immediately arrested right outside and taken into custody on racketeering charges. Courtesy of Salvatore Rossi and Joe Alessi, to hear them tell it—and they are most anxious to tell it, making sure I know that they’re open and available for discussions.
I have more pressing concerns before the other New York Families, though. By the time we got back from Boston, Finch was exhausted—mentally, physically, spiritually. I made him shower and then put him to bed while I cleaned up myself. When I came back into the bedroom, he was asleep, and stayed that way until mid-afternoon the next day.
While Finch slept, I met with Angelo in my study and told him to get the word out to the crews that Don Luciano Morelli was alive and well.
“And coming for his enemies?” Angelo suggested, as though we were writing a press release.
I thought it over. “Say nothing about vengeance for now,” I said at last. “Let them wonder. Let themsweat.”
Angelo gave an appreciative smile at that.
But still, my mind wasn’t on the job. It was on Finch, upstairs, asleep, and dreaming of who knew what. I went straight back to him after Angelo left, got carefully under the covers and curled up around him. Watching. Waiting.
