She keeps staring at me. “Adriano. Thank you.”
I clench my jaw and say nothing.
She opens door 612 and slips inside. I give her a couple of minutes before I stick my head in. The room is dim, with thick curtains drawn over the windows. There are cards and flowers everywhere. January sits beside the bed, her face buried in Teresa Calderoli’s sheets. The old girl looks bad. Her face is a mess of purple and both her arms are in casts. Whoever worked her over went beyond the call of duty. She’s unconscious or the stuff in her IV is helping her sleep. They’re probably more generous with meds in a place like this.
“You okay?” I ask.
She lifts her head, makeup smeared around her eyes. “Is it time?”
I want to lock her in the basement. Hide her away from everything that makes her look like this. “Not long,” I say, closing the door on her.
We passed a coffee machine on the way from the elevator. I find it, prepared to shove any amount of money into a slot to get some. It turns out to be free. I press a button and watch the freshly brewed beans pour into a paper cup.
My phone buzzes. Eli ringing me. I’ve already got messages and missed calls from Bobby and Doc. So, it begins.
I shove my phone away and take my coffee. It’s too hot but I empty the cup into my mouth anyway. I was hoping January’s Zia would be awake. I wanted to see if the relationship was mutual or if the girl had projected a mother onto another disinterested party. Looking into my empty cup, I find myself hoping it’s real. That someone loved January the way Magdalena Rossi loved me. Stupidly. Against all her better judgment.
Mama feels close in this hospital, so different from the one where I watched her die. Eight hospital beds crammed in a room, dead-eyed doctors giving distracted updates, their minds already on the patients who might live. Eli wanted to pay for a private hospital, but I knew it was too late. I was just waiting for her to go. I close my eyes and see her in our tiny green kitchen, folding varenyky and singing along to the radio. I’m older than she was now and everything about that is wrong. I was supposed to die young.
A noise behind me. A squeak like a scuffed shoe.
Time folds backward, peeling away like the point of a blade. I pull my Glock from my shoulder holster but it’s too late. I know it like I know my name. The bullet slices my side. I turn, clipping a short guy through the forehead, but I’ve barely had time to aim at the massive blond behind him before someone grabs me. I heave against them, breaking their hold but they jam their fingers into my bullet wound, tearing downward. My head splits open in agony.
“Take him down!”
The massive blond sprints toward me, I raise my gun as his fist slams into my nose. The pain whips the air from my lungs. I collapse onto my knees, gagging on blood.
A woman screams. January? I push my foot into the floor and try to stand but the blond kicks me in the chest. I sprawl onto my back and my fake glasses go flying. I hear them splinter on the floor. An ambush. A stupid run-of-the-mill ambush.
The metal tang of blood goes down my throat and I hack it up. The blond takes my gun, and spits in my face. “Fucking scumbag.”
Another feminine scream. “Adriano! Help me!”
I see January in her tiny pink dress, sitting next to her Zia Teresa. I remember the feel of her under me. I should have fucked her. Why didn’t I fuck her?
“Hello, Rossi.”
It’s funny how little Parker’s changed in twenty years. His face is unlined, his round blue eyes still flicking around for more money, more pussy, more power, more pills. An empty void swirling around nothing. I cough, spraying more blood up and back over my own face.
Parker laughs. “I’m going to kill you, Rossi.”
He’s going for Morelli’s light confidence, but his voice is shaking.
“So, fucking do it.”
Parker licks his pink lips. “You and January checked in as father and daughter. Was that a joke or have you violated my fiancée?”
I laugh. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Parker’s gaze goes black. “Shut up.”
“I had her on my face an hour ago, naked and begging me to—”
Parker’s not strong, but a boot in the ribs is still a boot in the ribs. I feel another dull crack and my breathing twists off like a rusty tap.
“You’ve grown a tongue, bootlicker. What happened to letting your friends do the talking?”
I laugh even though it makes my insides scream. “You’re fucked, asshole. You kill me, there’s three more coming.”
