His gaze sharpened on mine, and for one moment he appeared to understand he had come within inches of dying in public at the hands of a man with correct credentials and a badge clipped to his shirt. Then discipline took over again.
“Good,” he said.
Luca responded. “Dominic, is that all you can say?”
“What would you prefer?” he asked without looking away from me.
“That you’re relieved he’s alive.”
“I am relieved he’s alive. I’m also confirming that his tactical intervention was good. Quality job performance.” He looked at Luca. “These facts can coexist.”
The EMS team arrived, pushing through the wing with a stretcher. One of them, a compact woman with sharp eyes, cut away the jacket sleeve before I could object.
“All the way through,” she said after a quick look. “Lucky.”
“I know.”
She glanced at my face. “No, honey. Real lucky is when the bullet hits the wall instead of you. This is hospital lucky.”
Luca stepped back far enough for them to work. He released my face. I missed the contact immediately.
As they secured the bandage and checked the distal pulse, the house beyond the wing shifted from performance silence into aftermath noise: anxious voices and the sweep of rumors. It would be on every local station within the hour.
Dominic knew that. Celeste would know it before the cameras did. The board would panic. Henri would be booked and then hospitalized or not, depending on how far his illness had progressed. Bridget—God, Bridget—would be genuinely rattled for one of the first times in her life.
The paramedic looked at Luca. “Family?”
Before he could answer, I said, “No.”
Luca’s head turned toward me with an expression I couldn’t fully read. The paramedic nodded as if that settled nothing and everything. “Are you riding with him?”
Luca said, “Yes.”
Dominic added, “Obviously.”
The paramedic took that as sufficient consensus and went back to her work. They got me to my feet with more dignity than I deserved after insisting I was fine. The shoulder protested violently. My vision narrowed for a second, and then returned.
Luca stayed at my right side close enough to catch me if the floor shifted again. He smelled faintly of starch, sweat, and the soap from the house, all of it woven with the harsher notes of backstage dust and gunpowder.
As they started walking me toward the service corridor, I looked back once.
Dominic stood where the wing opened onto the stage, shoulders squared, the line of his body steady. Beyond him, the Orpheum glowed with work lights and shaken faces.
He caught me looking. Instead of any larger gesture, Dominic lifted the baton a fraction.
Then Luca and the medics turned me toward the freight exit, and the sound of the house fell behind us.
Chapter twenty-one
Luca
The intake nurse had given me a visitor band without asking many questions.
“You came with him?”
“Yes.”
“That counts.”
