Prologue
FINCH
I’m sitting in the most non-denominational hospital chapel I’ve ever seen, my best friend next to me praying harder than I’ve ever heard him, while some surgeon cuts into my husband, and the only thought in my head is how foolish I was to spend my life teasing Death.
Before I met the man of my dreams, I lived most of my days trying to find my way into Death’s arms. Death was my closest friend, my companion, the comfort that followed me around as I lived large, trying to find the right accident to step in front of.
And then one day, Luca D’Amato stepped in front ofme.
Today, he stepped in front of Death.Forme.
I’m not religious. I’m not particularly superstitious, even. But I still can’t shake the feeling that tonight is the result of all that flaunting and flirting with Death that I did in my younger years. That Death hung around, even when I rejected him. That he’s been stalking me like a crazy ex who just can’t let go, and now—
Now Death is looking to claim the person who means more to me than anyone else.
Aidan is praying. My sister in Boston, I’ve been told, is praying. All the Morellis, they’re all praying. I just sit, and I look at the flower arrangement at the front of the chapel, and I wait, because I know the one making the final decision tonight isn’t some God.
It’s Death.
Chapter One
FINCH
Idon’t know how much time passes, how often I have to come out and deliver more no-news news to the waiting Morellis and ignore the waiting cops, but eventually the surgeon comes to speak with me. She looks pleased—with herself more than the outcome, I think, and when she speaks, she confirms it.
“Your husband is a lucky man. Most of the gunshots missed anything vital. There was one bleed that was quite tricky at first, and will take some time to heal. However, our main concern now is the head injury.”
“They shot him in thehead?” The room goes out of focus for a moment.
“No,” the surgeon says, and puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezing. “This injury was from a blow to the head, or perhaps a fall. It’s caused some swelling of the brain, but that should reduce with time to heal. Since he’s hemodynamically unstable, we have him in an induced coma anyway while he’s on the ventilator.”
“But—he’s going to live?”
“Yes, he’s going to live,” the surgeon says, as though it were a foregone conclusion. As though she hadn’t even noticed Death slipping into the operating theater behind her, hitching a ride on her coattails.
“When can I see him?” I ask.
* * *
It tooka lot of hours and a lot of pointing out how much money Luca and I have given to the hospital before they let me in to see him in the ICU. Carlo Bianchi and Aidan O’Leary did most of the heavy lifting in those negotiations, and I was grateful to them, because I could barely speak.
And when they finally let me into that blank little room to see Luca, just for a few moments, I almost walked straight back out again and told them they’d made a mistake. I just couldn’t believe it was him, covered in tubes and masks, lying more still than he ever has in his life.
Now, even a few days later, when Luca has been moved into a private recovery ward and I can stay with him all day and night, I still get the urge to argue with the staff sometimes.
This is not my husband lying here in this bed.
Luca has always been paler than me, but never this colorless. He’s disappearing into the sheets except for the spill of black hair across the pillow. But more than that, the man in this bed looks fragile.
Empty.
He lookssoempty that every hour I’m terrified he’ll just…let go. So I’ve been cradling his hand in my own, anxious that I’ll only hurt him more, but I have to keep him here. Anchor him to the living.
The ventilator has been removed, along with the drugs that kept him comatose. But Luca still has not woken up.
They’ve told me it’s just a waiting game now—that Luca will wake when he’s ready. I’m so terrified he just won’t wake up at all that I can’t even ask if that’s a possibility, if he just…won’t ever open those blue eyes again. Sure, that surgeon said he’d be okay. But he doesn’t look okay. He doesn’tfeelokay.
And I think so much about Connie Taylor—who was in this same damn room they’ve put Luca in, to allow for bodyguards out the front and all the Morelli comings and goings—and how Connie never made it out of here alive.
