Ah, yes, the asshole.
I wouldn’t shake his hand, that’s for sure. “Did you call a doctor?”
Something flickered across his face, but like his son, he had his emotions locked down tight. He directed Loppa to do something. The man disappeared, then returned with a stooped little man carrying a black bag.
When he opened that bag, I’d ascertained this was “Zio Tommaso.” But Loppa called him by his honorific, Dottor.
He began his examination of Mario and I hovered with more than a professional curiosity. Maybe my new husband’s paranoia had rubbed off onto me, but I scrutinized the doctor’s actions.
When he injected Mario with something, I almost snatched it out of his hand. Instead, I counted to three before picking up the vial and reading the label. Thank goodness for all the Latin I’d taken in my post-graduate study.
It was an antibiotic. One that was extremely effective in surgical settings. He brought out a bottle of pills and directed both Mario and me on the dosage over the next five days. Then he handed Mario two pills while I inspected the label.
It was a fairly potent pain medicine.
Then he applied a topical so he could irrigate the wound and remove a bit of fabric from the deepest section. I acted as the surgical nurse for the worst of it.
His stitches were much more precise than mine would have been. The wound, despite the swelling, was much less life-threatening now. I breathed a small sigh of relief.
“He’ll live.” The doctor declared. Mostly to me because he spoke in English. To the others, there was a longer explanation, but effectively the same diagnosis.
I thanked the man with a nod before Mario’s father led him away.
Mario still leaned on the cushions, not bothering to button his shirt, or do much more than breathe. I checked his forehead for any break in the fever. There was none. But his color was better.
“Is there a place to rest?” I wasn’t sure Loppa knew English or not, but asked anyway.
But the reply came from Mario’s father who’d returned a little too quickly. “You will sleep in the maid’s quarters. Mario will take the?—”
“We’re sleeping together,” Mario declared to his father. He placed a possessive hand high on my thigh.
I covered it with my own because I was too invested in his well-being to just walk away.
His father glanced down at the ring on my finger. It lingered, sifting through the significance of it with meticulous animosity. Cold eyes met mine. “How long have you known my son?”
I wasn’t going to lie, nor was I going to tell the truth. “Long enough to know he won’t be safe here if I left him.”
Loppa snorted, outing himself. He did understand me despite the way he’d silently ignored me since the airport.
The answer wasn’t met with as much amusement on his father’s part. “You are an American.” He scrunched his nose as if he were trying to block out something rancid.
That didn’t deserve a reply, because…duh.
He left us with a curt, “I’ll take my leave,” instead of saying “good night.”
Loppa suggested something.
“I wish he’d speak English,” I muttered. My brief exposure through an online app would not cut it in this country.
Mario translated. “He said I’d rest easier at the villa. And I would, but it is too far to travel tonight.” He directed his next sentence to Loppa. “And that’s the first place he’d look for me. This”—Mario motioned with his hand to encompass the posh penthouse suite—“would be the very last place he’d want to find me at.”
“Bastardo,” Loppa muttered.
I knew that word. “Who’s the bastard? The guy who stabbed you?”
Mario closed his eyes, the pain or exhaustion making it difficult for him to answer me while looking at me directly. “My best friend, Ringo.”
I blinked.
