"I needed his attention, quickly," I smooth the sheet near his wrist. "So I pretended to be his wife. I got his attention."
Steph makes a wounded noise. "Pretended?"
"Don’t get greedy, Marito." I squeeze Stephano's hand. "He’s useful. I might keep him."
Nico huffs a laugh that tugs his vitals half a notch, but not enough to scare the machines. "He always wanted a woman who could stabanddo paperwork."
"I don't do paperwork."
"You don't?" Steph fakes horror, and the warmth in his voice rolls down my spine like a secret.
Nico’s smile strengthens. He looks from our linked hands to Steph’s face, and the relief there makes him younger by a decade. "I’m glad you found me," he whispers.
"We’re not losing you again," Steph assures him, and that’s the first prayer I’ve ever heard him say out loud.
The door opens.
An older man who resembles Nico and Steph glides in like he owns the paintings on the walls. "My son!"
Gustave Conti, I presume.
Nico flinches as if a wire snaps inside him. The monitor leaps, his BP spikes, his heart rate slams upward so hard the beeps blur into a scream. The color drainsfrom his face.
"Out," he rasps, then louder, raw. "Get. Out!"
"Easy, Nico," Steph says, already on his feet, hands up, body between them. "Breathe."
Gustave’s expression does a little pantomime, surprise, confusion, and wounded dignity. "What is?—"
"Out," I echo, already hitting the call button with my elbow. "Now."
The room floods: two nurses, a resident, and another doctor with a calm voice. "Sir, you need to step outside."
They move around Nico with practiced speed; lines checked, meds prepared, a syringe snapping into the port. Nico thrashes when he sees the needle—panic, not pain.
"Hey," Steph says, close to his ear, the kind of voice that can lead a man out of a burning building. "Look at me. Just me. You’re safe."
Nico’s eyes latch onto him for one heartbeat, then flick past, to Gustave still frozen like a portrait that learned to walk. The monitor pitches higher, a frantic, pleading stutter.
"Sir," the doctor repeats to Gustave, harsher this time. "Out now."
Gustave blinks, performing injured innocence. "I—I came to?—"
"Go," I say, and there is nothing kind leftin my voice.
When he hesitates a fraction too long, I give him a push toward the door. When he still doesn't react, I grab my knife and surreptitiously push it into his side, not to hurt him, yet. Just a warning. He glances at me, startled, and finally retreats, hands up, boggling for an audience that isn’t here.
The sedative flows. Nico’s breaths hitch, then lengthen. The monitor slides from red to yellow to something the nurses no longer side-eye. His lashes tremble. The fight leaves his shoulders by slow inches. Steph’s hand stays at his temple, steady as a metronome.
"Good," the doctor murmurs, watching the numbers fall. "That’s it. Let him sleep." She glances at Steph, then at me. "Minimal stimulation. Familiar voices only. Keep it quiet."
"Understood," I say.
They clear out as efficiently as they arrived. The door clicks, soft as a secret. The room is smaller now, just the three of us again, tinged with the aftertaste of panic.
Steph remains standing for a long beat, his jaw is locked, his eyes on Nico’s face like he can glue him together with attention alone. Then he lowers himself back into the chair beside me, elbows on knees, head briefly in his hands. He exhales through his fingers.
"I’ll kill him," he says quietly.
