Page 60

“Prove it,” I throw back when I can speak, and he does, relentlessly, and the first orgasm pulls me apart and wrecks me.

But he gives me no time to rest. He sets me to my feet, then leads me to his desk, bends me over, and enters me from behind. His grip on my hips hurts, and when he slams into me, the smack of it echoes on the hardwood. The desk bites into my hip bones. Harder and harder, rougher too, until I feel him swell inside of me.

Then he slows down. Slower and slower, until he’s buried in me and stops. He is all I can feel. His breaths puff into my hair. “You’re mine, Veda. No matter what anyone else says.”

And then something clicks in my brain.

Allegra said they spoke the same language. She batted him around for decades, treating him like a toy she owned. He proposed twice and was grateful when she turned him down.

He never wanted to belong to her.

Over my shoulder, I whisper, “You’re mine, Lupo.”

He gasps, and his hips shove harder, deeper, when he comes with a cry of his own. His body jerks with it, and he leans around to cover my mouth with his at this terrible angle. The moment he’s finished, he spins me around to kiss me properly and holds my face with both hands, while he leaks from me.

After I clean up in the adjacent bathroom, we gather onto his leather sofa, me lying on him, half-reclined. He keeps an arm around me like he needs to. His forehead drops to mine. But he says nothing.

“Tell me. All of it, no olive oil. What is this life, Lupo? What are we, actually?”

He opens his mouth to answer me. Then his phone rings.

He almost lets it go. I watch him choose me over the machine, watch his hand start to wave the call away. Then he sees the screen, and whatever’s on it drains the office of warmth.

He answers in Italian. He listens. And I watch the man who kidnapped a doctor without a second thought go pale in front of me over whatever voice is on the line.

20

LUPO

The hospital corridor outside cardiology has the hush of a place built for the worst nights of ordinary lives. I have spent too much time in hospitals to appreciate the hush.

“Minor,” the cardiologist keeps saying. “A minor event. We caught it early.” He’s young, cautious, and clearly aware of my identity, and he selects his words carefully, considering that I could take offensive ones personally. “Signora Sartorre is stable, the damage limited. At her age we watch closely, but the prognosis is good.”

“Would you call it minor if she were your mother?”

He smiles, but there’s fear in his eyes. Fear. Not deceit. “Yes. Without question.”

“Yeah, well, the word minor does not work on me. Show me proof.”

I’ve watched men call catastrophic things minor to keep a room calm, and I’ve done it myself. But he shows us the numbers, and the numbers get the knowledgeable nod from Veda, and slowly the fist behind my ribs unclenches a finger at a time. She parts for Ma’s room, and I watch her go.

“And this is because someone got her here fast,” I say. Nick. He spotted her struggling at the market and didn’t hesitate.

He nods. “I’ll be honest, Don Sartorre. It may have made the difference between this conversation and a very different one.”

In Ma’s room, Veda is doing the thing she does. Keeping people calm in a bad situation. A nurse and a resident stand half-circled around her while she translates my mother’s chart into something Ma can understand.

I wasn’t present during the worst of her moments, and now the man who saved my mother manages the perimeter out of instinct. There are two men at the entrances, one overseeing the parking structure, with the family car repositioned for a quick exit. Everything arranged on the margins while I struggle to process the word minor. Even tonight, the war continues, and Nick still shields me from it so I can be a son, even if just for an hour.

And Sarah. Sarah is the part I don’t know how to handle. It’s always been her in the hospital, and her Nonna was this invincible person who did everything for her.

My baby girl looks lost.

She sits in a plastic chair too big for her, Pip clutched to her chest, watching the doors with the terrible stillness of a child who has spent too much of her short life in hospitals. She knows what these hallways can take. She’s been brave for two hours, holding on like a veteran, and it’s the bravery that guts me, because a child shouldn’t have the training.

I go to her first. Business can wait. My mother’s stable. My daughter is scared. Sarah watches me to see if tonight’s survivable. Children read adults for what’s ahead. I’ve spent her whole life staying calm when she looks up, and I won’t let her down now.

“Piccolina.” I crouch to her level. “Nonna is going to be all right. The doctor said so. Veda said so, and Veda doesn’t lie about these things.”