“So what, we just leave them here?”Ferro asks, sounding a lot like a child realizing what he wants is outside his reach.
“We’ll send guys to watch them, keep them safe,” Lorenzo says.“And report back on everything that’s happening.How does that sound?”
These two go way back, I’m sure, and Lorenzo is acting more like Ferro’s father than a lot of fathers I’ve met.
Ferro looks back at the ER entrance and I can see it on his blood-stained face that a war is raging in his mind—stay with the women he clearly loves or live to fight another day.
“There’s nothing you can do for her here,” I tell him.“But she’ll need you once she’s well again.”
I hope my voice doesn’t betray that I don’t actually believe it’ll ever come to that second thing.But it’s true.The girls’ old man is probably dead too.Chiara and Gianna have nowhere to go, and they are not fit to live in the outside world on their own.Like it or not, Ferro and the rest of us are their only path to a life like they used to have.
“All right, you’re right,” Ferro says, running his hand though his hair again.“Let’s go.Meet back at the mansion.”
He strides back to his car, walking fast like he’s afraid he’s gonna change his mind.I already have.
Because if I leave Goldie here, she’ll have to face the loss of her sister all alone.And I don’t want that to happen.I know how terrible it is.
Chapter37
GIANNA
The doctorsand nurses working on Chiara are moving faster and faster.They’ve cut off her dress, it’s hanging off the sides of the bed she’s on like forgotten, discarded curtains and all the beeping and yelling is so loud I can’t hear the prayer running on repeat in my head.
I’m about to pass out.I can’t face this.I’m watching my sister bleed, and I can’t bear to see her die.
Those are the thoughts I can hear just fine.No matter how much I don’t want to.
I feel him next to me even before he slides his hand into mine.I try to jerk my hand away, but he only squeezes it tighter.
“You shouldn’t go through this alone,” he whispers in my ear.
It’s not right that just his touch and the sound of his voice should make me feel so much better.Not when my sister might be dying.Not when my dad could already be dead.Not when he caused it all.But it does.
“Wouldn’t you rather cut your losses and run away like my sister’shusbanddid?”
The word husband came out of my mouth like the worst kind of curse word.
“I don’t see a point in getting anything else if I lose you in the process.”
I turn to glare at him.Why is he saying these nice things?Just because I want to hear them?Just to make me feel better?Why does he have to sound so sincere?
Another doctor just rushed into the room where Chiara is still bleeding, this one wearing a surgeon’s outfit.Now a nurse is holding the door open and they’re wheeling my sister out, a doctor straddling her, giving her chest compressions.They’re running.Matteo lets go of my hand so I can take off after them.He’s right behind me.
“What’s happening?What’s going on?”
They all ignore me as they wheel my sister into an elevator.The same male nurse who took me to sit down stops me as I try to get in behind her.
“They’re taking her up to surgery, it’s on the third floor.”
I just gape at him.Unable to ask any of the questions rattling inside my mind and choking me.
“What are her chances?”Matteo asks the question I need the answer to, but can’t bear to ask.Or hear it.
“We have the best surgeons here,” the nurse tells him.“Her chances are good.You should go up and wait there.”
The elevator returns empty, and he holds the door for us, pressing the button for the third floor before stepping back and giving me a small smile.
Then I’m alone with Matteo in the elevator, shaking like a dried-up leaf in the wind that’s about to fall.That’s what I feel like.That I’m about to fall and I’ll never get up again.That I’ll just rot away on the ground.Forgotten.
