Page 132 of The Cost of Silence

“Bathroom,” Nico says, turning to Adi. “Then water. Then notes. Don’t let her tell herself this is her fault.”

“Bossy,” I mutter.

“Accurate,” he shoots back, then leans in, fingers brushing my jaw, his thumb smearing a line of rust-colored red across my skin. “I’m going to the hospital. I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”

I nod, because if I try to say anything, it’ll come out as a sob.

He kisses my forehead—fast, fierce, more like a vow than a comfort—and then he’s moving, jerking his head at Marco. “You’re with me. Bring the second car around.”

They disappear into the concrete dimness of the garage, leaving me with Adi and two silent guards.

For a second, the world tips. My legs feel like someone replaced my bones with wet paper.

Adi’s hand closes around my elbow, steady and sure. “Elevator,” he says. “Come on.”

On the ride up, I stare at my reflection in the doors. The blood spatter looks worse in the harsh fluorescent lighting; there’s a thin streak across my cheek, a rusty smear along my jaw, my hands are a mess, dried in patchy patterns that make my skin look bruised.

I look like an extra from one of the crime dramas I used to binge when I couldn’t sleep.

The difference is that this time I can still feel the heat of it on my skin.

I don’t really remember the walk from the elevator to the penthouse door. One second the floor indicator is blinking our number, the next, the apartment is around me and Adi is pressing a clean towel into my hands and setting a glass of water on the console table.

“Bathroom,” he says, voice gentler than the word. “Then we talk.”

I nod, everything inside me moving on autopilot. I strip out of my coat and cardigan in the hallway, dropping them in a heap I know I’ll regret later, then stumble toward the en-suite.

The shower is too bright and too hot. I turn the water up anyway, stepping under the spray and bracing my hands on the tile as the first hit of warmth makes my knees almost go. The stream runs clear for a second, then pink, then an alarming dark red that swirls down the drain in slow spirals.

I scrub until my skin is pink and my hands sting, until my fingerprints feel like they might have been scoured off. The image of Rossi’s side keeps surfacing behind my eyes—the torn flesh, the slick feel of muscle and heat under my palms—and I have to focus on the mechanical motion of soap, rinse, repeat just to keep from sinking to the floor.

Eventually, the water runs clear.

I shut it off and step out into the steam-heavy air, wrapping myself in one of Nico’s oversized towels. It swallows me whole, smelling like him and laundry detergent and something faintly citrus. I towel my hair with jerky, inefficient movements, not really drying anything, just needing to do something with my hands that isn’t pressing down on someone’s open wound.

Time gets slippery. I sit on the closed toilet lid for a while, wrapped in terrycloth, staring at the faint pink crescents still caught under my nails, then stand again when that makes my chest hurt. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here—ten minutes, thirty, an hour—when the door opens a crack.

“It’s me,” Nico calls softly.

“I’m decent,” I say, which is generous; I’m wrapped in one of his oversized towels and nothing else.

He steps in, closing the door behind him. The hospital smell clings to him, disinfectant and recycled air. His eyes are darker than they were last time I saw him.

“How is he?” I ask, gripping the towel tighter.

“He’s in surgery.” The words land like stones. “They don’t know yet. The bullet missed anything instantly fatal, but it did a lot of damage on the way through. They’re trying to repair whatthey can.” He swallows once, hard. “They said it’s good he had pressure on the wound as fast as he did.”

Something in me loosens and breaks at the same time. “Is that what they told you? That your girlfriend’s amateur-hour field medicine bought him ten extra minutes?”

His eyes flick to mine. “They said whoever was with him kept him alive long enough to be treated.”

The wordalivemakes my knees feel weak. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” I say. “He talked me through it.”

“That’s what he does,” Nico says. He steps closer, reaching for my hands. The skin on my palms is still pink and raw. He lifts one and presses his mouth to the center, a kiss so gentle it almost undoes me. “You listened. That’s what you did. And you stayed. That isn’t nothing, Belle.”

“I don’t want to be the reason your people end up in the hospital,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “You’re the reason they have someone worth protecting. That’s different.”