“Just a scratch. Rosa’ll patch me up.”
He reaches out to my shoulder and nudges me forward in the seat, his eyes going wide. “Dami, you’rereally hurt.”
I twist around as though I’ll be able to get a look at my back. Of course I can’t. But Icansee the smears all over the seat behind me, and when I swipe at them, hoping it’s just more slimefrom the garbage, my hand comes away red. “I’m fine,” I say automatically.
“You’re not fine.”
“You don’t need to worry about it,” I snarl at him, wriggling away from the pressure he’s trying to apply.
He grabs me by the arm with the other hand. “If you die, I’ll have no one to protect me,” he says, so cold I feel like my veins are shriveling up—but at least then the blood would stop.
“We’re nearly home,” I grumble, but I let him press a hand into my back. Vito knows what he’s doing; he pulls into the garage ten minutes later, and Caligula hustles me up to the kitchen.
Rosa is in there waiting. I asked her to be prepared tonight. I strip off the shirt, which is pretty much soaked with blood now. And the look on Rosa’s face tells me the injury is pretty serious.
“Maybe we should call Darla,” Caligula says nervously.
“Yes,” Rosa agrees quickly. “We should get the nurse.”
“I don’t want anyone hearing about this,” I growl at them both. “Last thing we need is more cooks in the kitchen. Just patch it up.”
She makes me sit backward on one of the tall stools, leaning onto the countertop so she can sew me up. Vito comes in, watching Rosa work, and after a moment, he goes to the coffee machine and starts grinding up beans to make coffee for us all. It’s a sign of Rosa’s concern that she doesn’t chase him away from the machine, her baby.
“This will hurt,” she tells me. “A lot.”
Caligula leans over the countertop from the other side and holds out his hands to me. “Hold onto me,” he tells me, those golden eyes boring into mine.
I want to argue, but the needle begins to drive through my flesh, and I realize how much deeper this cut is than the last one Rosa stitched up for me. I grab onto the Clemenza’s wrists and squeeze. His hands clasp my wrists and squeeze back. “Breathe,” he reminds me.
He takes in a long breath and blows it out, then does it again, until I do it with him. It does help, a little. Or maybe it’s just staring into those pretty amber eyes that distracts me.
There’s a shadow in the hallway, and Sammy’s frightened face looms out of the dark.
“Get back in your room,” I tell him. Of course, he does completely the opposite. He rushes into the kitchen and takes my face in his hands, looking me over for more cuts and bruises. “What happened?” he cries.
I yank my face away. “I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that,” the Clemenza observes calmly. “But you’re clearly not.”
Sammy glares at him. “This isyourfault. Nothing like this ever happened before you came here.”
Caligula’s eyes don’t even move toward him. He doesn’t take his gaze from my face. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he says, and it’s soft and kind, like he really means it.
“Sammy, go get the iodine,” Rosa says.
Sammy backs away, but he’s still glaring at Caligula. He comes back with the iodine and passes it to Rosa. “Hey,” I tell him. “It wasn’t the Clemenza. It was me. I did something dumb, that’s all.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he backs away to the wall where he stands pressed up against it and just watches the proceedings.
At last the torture is over. I release Caligula’s wrists, and I’m a little startled to see red marks ringing them. “You should’ve told me I was squeezing too hard.”
“I’m tougher than I look.” He’s not as cold as he is sometimes, though nowhere near warm, and yet I find myself relieved at the middling temperature he’s chosen. It seems designed to reassure Sammy that nothing is going on between us, although whether Sammy believes that or not, I don’t know.
Vito pours out coffee for all of us afterwards, and at least three of us—me, Caligula, and Rosa—have to wash our hands free of blood before we take up our cups.
“What happened?” Sammy asks again. He’s not going to let it go.
“What happened,” Caligula says, “is that Damiano jumped out of a window, fell three stories, and landed in an open dumpster.”
