“I’m fine,” she says, her voice shaking for the first time all night, the fury and the adrenaline finally cracking enough to let the fear through. “I’m fine, Papà.”
Elena is at Olivia’s side, one hand on her arm, the other reaching instinctively toward her stomach as if she needs to confirm for herself that both mother and baby are here and breathing.
Luca’s gaze shifts to Olivia. “And you, tesoro?”
Olivia lifts her chin. “A little shaken. I wasn’t anywhere near it.”
There's a whole group of other people standing behind them, waiting their turn.
Vibrating with questions, I can practically feel it. But they hold their tongues.
Until Teresa finally makes her way to the front and sees me.
Her eyes go straight to the blood on my shirt, and all the color drains out of her face.
“Oh my God, Adrian.”
Then she closes the distance fast, already reaching for me.
“It’s all right,” I say, already anticipating.
But she’s having none of that.
“No, it’s not,” she says incredulously. “Get in here.”
Then she just takes matters into her own hands and hooks her hand around my forearm and starts dragging me farther into the foyer like I’m still sixteen and scraped my knee instead of thirty-eight and bleeding through from a bullet wound.
I let her get away with exactly three steps before I brace my feet.
“Teresa.”
She stops, looks back at me, and for one second, I get the full force of furious cousin, not cool professional.
“You got shot.”
“So they keep reminding me.”
“That is not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Behind us, somebody makes a sound that might be a laugh and knows better than to let it become one.
Teresa ignores all of them. “You are not standing in the middle of the foyer pretending this is a minor inconvenience.”
“It’s not a minor inconvenience,” I say. “It’s a gunshot wound. I’m still vertical. Priorities.”
Her eyes narrow. “You don’t get to say ‘priorities’ to me like I’m one of your employees.”
“No,” I say. “But I do need to brief my employees.”
She puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at me.
“I may not be a trained military officer or bodyguard or mafia man or whatever, but I'm willing to bet with that bullet hole in you, I could probably kick your ass.”
Behind me, I hear a laugh that I just know is Vito.
“All right, none of that,” another voice cuts in.
