But I'm not good.
I am so far from good.
"Alright," I say, and I make my escape.
I close the door behind me and lean my forehead against it, my eyes closed, my heart pounding.
I have no idea what just happened.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I just know that I have bought myself twenty-four hours to figure it out.
And I’m not going to waste a single second of it.
Chapter Nineteen
Adrian
Twenty-four hours.
Exactly.
I know because I’ve been counting.
I have been watching the clock like a hostile witness since Caterina Conti stood in this room with her arms crossed, threatened me with Teresa and my mother, and ordered me to stay in bed for one day.
One day.
I agreed. I still don’t know why.
That’s a lie.
I know exactly why.
Because she looked exhausted and angry and humiliated and worried enough that winning the argument would have cost more than staying put. Because she had almost died the night before. Because I had kissed her back, and if I had pushed her on anything after that, it would have felt like using the wrong kind of leverage.
So I stayed.
It nearly killed me.
Not literally, though everyone in this house has spent the past day acting like movement might finish what the bullet started. The wound is stable. Sore as hell, yes. Stiff. Hot around the stitches. Angry every time I breathe too deeply or turn too fast. But stable.
Dr. Alfonsi came back this morning, checked the dressing, again recommended imaging, again got the answer he expected, and again looked at me like he was deciding whether professional ethics allowed him to sedate a patient against his will.
Elena supported that possibility more than I liked.
Teresa actively encouraged it.
This house is a strange place to be injured.
That is the part I did not expect.
I’ve recovered in field hospitals, military barracks, safe houses, cheap motels, back rooms, once in the rear seat of an armored vehicle with a medic telling me to stop bleeding on his boots. I know how to be injured in places where injury is common, even expected.
Luca Conti’s house is not one of those places.
The room is too clean. The sheets too soft. The food too good. The women too determined. The men too silent, standing in doorways like they are all weighing what they owe me and what they might resent about owing it.
