Chapter 10 #2
“No,” he mumbles.
“I know. It’s annoying.”
“No doctors.”
“Doctor is already coming.”
His head moves weakly on the pillow.
Stefano’s voice cuts in, low and controlled. “Heath.”
Heath’s eyes open halfway.
Stefano doesn't soften. He doesn't become someone else. He remains exactly what he is, which may be why Heath pays attention.
“No one is moving you,” Stefano says. “No one is touching Erin. The doctor works for me. That means he follows my rules.”
Heath blinks slowly.
“And my rules,” I add.
Heath’s gaze shifts to me. “You don’t have rules.”
“I have several. Most involve annoying Omar.”
From the doorway, Omar mutters, “Clearly.”
Erin lets out a tiny laugh through her tears.
The sound loosens something in the room.
Heath’s hand twitches near the blanket. I take the chance and slip the thermometer beneath his tongue. He makes a miserable sound but allows it.
Small mercy.
The reading is high enough to make my stomach tighten, but not high enough to make Stefano’s face change when I show it to him.
“He’ll be all right,” he says.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep needing to hear it.”
I glare at him.
He accepts that without comment, which is the closest thing to mercy I have received from him.
The doctor arrives in eighteen minutes.
Not twenty.
Stefano gives me one brief look when Dr. Bellini steps into the room, as if daring me to notice.
I do.
I do not thank him.
The doctor is in his late fifties, compact, neatly dressed, with silver hair and tired eyes that sharpen the moment he sees Heath.
He carries a black medical bag that looks old-fashioned until he opens it and reveals enough equipment to remind me this is not a house that waits for ambulances unless it chooses to.
“Dr. Marco Bellini,” he says to me, not Stefano. “You are?”
“Maya.”
“The aunt?”
My eyes cut to Stefano.
He says nothing.
“Yes,” I say.
“Good. Stay close if he knows you.”
“If?”
Bellini’s mouth tightens in a way I like immediately. “Children in distress decide that, not adults.”
I step aside enough to let him work but stay within Heath’s line of sight. Erin tries to follow me, and Stefano intercepts her without touching, simply shifting his body into the space near the foot of the bed.
“Erin,” he says.
She looks up at him, her face wet and blotchy.
“Come here.”
She hesitates.
So do I.
Stefano holds out one hand.
Not commanding. Offered.
Erin stares at it like it might bite.
Then Heath makes another small sound, and she starts crying again. Stefano lowers his hand, adjusts immediately, and instead reaches for the stuffed rabbit on the chair beside the bed.
“Mr. Buttons,” he says.
Erin sniffles hard. “That’s his name.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“I was informed.”
“By who?”
“Omar.”
Omar’s face goes blank in the doorway.
Erin looks at him through tears. “You told him about Mr. Buttons?”
“It was in the security report,” Omar says flatly.
I almost laugh.
It comes out too close to a broken breath.
Stefano places the rabbit in Erin’s arms. “Your job is to hold him until the doctor is done. Can you do that?”
She nods.
“Good.”
He sits in the chair near her, not crowding the bed, not leaving either. Present without taking over. Controlled without being cold. The balance is so unexpected that I keep glancing at him when I should be watching the doctor.
He notices.
He always notices.
Dr. Bellini checks Heath’s temperature again, listens to his lungs, checks his throat, his ears, his hydration, the stiffness of his neck, the clarity of his responses when he can get them. Heath resists at first, weakly.
Maya, not agent. Aunt.
The word keeps pressing against my ribs while I hold Heath’s hand through the exam.
When Bellini asks how long Heath has been sleeping poorly, I look at Omar.
Omar answers. “Since he arrived.”
The doctor pauses. “Every night?”
“Most.”
“Night terrors? Panic on waking?”
“Yes.”
“Eating?”
“Some,” I say. “Not enough.”
“Fluids?”
“Same.”
Bellini’s expression remains professional, but his eyes tell me enough. After he finishes examining Heath, he gives him fever reducer, pushes fluids in careful sips, and checks the reading again after several minutes. Heath remains miserable but more aware. His fingers stay loosely around mine.
Bellini steps toward the window with Stefano and Omar.
I follow.
No one tells me not to.
Smart.
“He is not in immediate danger,” Bellini says quietly. “The fever is moderate and likely worsened by exhaustion and dehydration. I see no signs right now of anything severe, but I want him monitored closely today. Fluids. Rest. Light food if he tolerates it. Keep the room calm.”
My knees threaten to stop being useful.
I lock them.
“He’ll get better?” I ask.
“Yes,” Bellini says. “Physically, he should improve over the next day or two.”
Physically.
The word sits there.
Stefano hears it too. “And otherwise?”
Bellini looks toward the bed. Heath has turned his face toward Erin, who is perched near his side with Mr. Buttons in a death grip.
“That boy has not slept properly in some time,” the doctor says. “His body is worn down. Children can endure more than they should, but eventually the body collects the debt. Fever, collapse, stomach issues, headaches—stress finds a way out.”
My nails dig into my palm.
“He needs counseling,” Bellini continues. “Real counseling. Consistent. Someone experienced with trauma. And he needs to be kept somewhere stable. Safe. Predictable. Whatever frightened him enough to keep him awake, he cannot keep living as if it is about to walk through the door.”
For a moment, no one speaks.
Safe.
Stable.
Predictable.
Three words that do not belong in Stefano Savarese’s house, and yet somehow this house may still be the safest place Heath has been in years.
That makes me want to scream.
Stefano’s voice is calm when he answers. “Arrange it.”
Bellini looks at him. “A child therapist?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“For now.”
My head turns. “For now?”
Stefano’s gaze meets mine. “Unless you would prefer I make long-term decisions about your sister’s children without you.”
That shuts my mouth.
Not because it is kind.
Because it is not cruel when it could have been.
Bellini nods. “I’ll make calls. Quietly.”
“Good,” Stefano says.
The doctor returns to Heath with instructions, most of them common sense and all of them suddenly impossible to hold in my head.
Fever reducer schedule. Fluids. Lukewarm cloth if the fever climbs.
Call if his breathing changes, if the fever spikes, if he becomes difficult to rouse, if he cannot keep fluids down.
Stefano listens to every word.
Omar listens too.
I listen and feel like the worst aunt in the world because some part of me wants someone else to write it down.
Stefano does.
He takes the paper from Bellini, reads it once, and hands it to Omar. “Post the schedule in the room. Assign one staff member to track it. No substitutions without Maya knowing.”
My throat tightens.
He says it like an order.
It lands like something else.
Erin sniffles again from the bed. “Is Heath going to be okay?”
The doctor starts to answer, but Stefano moves first.
He returns to the chair beside the bed and lowers himself into it, making sure Erin can see his face.
“Yes,” he says.
She searches him with the brutal intensity only frightened children have. “You’re not lying?”
“No.”
“Adults lie.”
“Yes.”
That answer startles her.
He continues, “But lying now would make you harder to calm, not safer. So I am telling you the truth. He is sick. He is tired. The doctor gave him medicine. He needs rest, water, and quiet. He is going to be watched all day.”
Erin absorbs that slowly.
“By Maya?”
Stefano looks at me.
“Yes,” he says. “By Maya.”
My heart does something inconvenient.
Heath’s eyes open a fraction. “Erin?”
“I’m here,” she says quickly, crawling closer until her knee touches his blanket. “I’m right here.”
His gaze drifts to me.
Still feverish.
Still guarded.
But not gone.
“You came back,” he whispers.
The words almost undo me.
I sit beside him again and take his hand. “I keep doing that.”
His fingers move weakly against mine.
Not quite a squeeze.
Close enough.
Dr. Bellini leaves after giving Omar more instructions and Stefano one of those looks older men reserve for younger men with too much power and not enough humility. I decide I like him even more for it.
When the door closes behind him, the room finally exhales.
Erin curls beside Heath carefully, rabbit tucked between them like a solemn third patient. Omar remains in the doorway, less hostile than usual and twice as watchful. Stefano stands near the window with his phone in one hand, already sending messages.
I should hate that.
The control. The efficiency. The way the house rearranges itself because he says so.
But Heath is asleep within twenty minutes. I sit with him until my own exhaustion starts pulling at the edges of the room. When I finally look up, Stefano is watching me.
“What?” I whisper.
“You came to me.”
I look away immediately. “I needed a phone.”
“You came to me,” he repeats.
I hate the warmth that crawls into my face.
“I needed help.”
“Yes.”
“That’s all.”
He walks closer, stopping at the edge of the bed. Not touching me. Not touching Heath. Just near enough that I feel him there.
“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “you chose correctly.”
I look up at him then.
“I didn’t have another choice,” I say.
His eyes hold mine. “No. But you still had to make it.”
I have no answer for that.
On the bed, Heath shifts, his hand tightening faintly around mine.
Stefano notices.
So do I.
For once, neither of us says anything.