Chapter Twenty-Four – Lunetta
I pace the length of the room again.
The floor is oddly cold beneath my bare feet. I press my fingers together, then release them, then repeat the motion without realizing.
Something feels wrong. I sit on the edge of the bed.
I lift my wrist, half-expecting to feel the beads there. The rosary. My thumb brushes my skin, as if I might have missed it. But I didn’t. I remember exactly when he took it—his fingers slipping it from me before pressing his mouth to my neck.
I stand and walk toward the door. My hand hovers just above the knob.
Do I knock? Ask for it back?
Or maybe I should wait.
Before I can decide, the door creaks open.
I take a step back.
It isn’t Vieri.
Riccardo enters, chest rising and falling unevenly. His eyes are bloodshot. In one hand, he holds a short club streaked with something dark. In the other, a gun—raised and steady.
I freeze.
We stare at each other.
“Come with me,” he says.
I glance down at the club, then back at his face.
“Is Vieri alright?” I ask. I already know the answer.
Something sinks in my chest.
Instead, he mutters something in Italian under his breath.
“Putana.” He raises the club slightly. “Move,” he says. “Before I put this through your skull.”
I pass the painting in the hallway—the one of the vineyards. The leaves look darker today.
The guards don’t appear. No one stops us. The house feels deserted.
He opens the car door, yanks it wider.
“In.”
I step inside, heart pounding but face still calm. Then a scream escapes me. Vieri’s body slumps in the back seat. Blood streaks his face, smeared down his jaw. His chest doesn’t rise.
I reach for him, my hands shaking.
But he doesn’t move.
I hold Vieri in my arms, his head cradled against my lap as the car jolts along the road. My hands are greasy with sweat, but I don’t care. I press my palm to his chest, feeling the weak rise and fall of his breathing.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, trying to keep my voice steady, but it trembles anyway. My tears mix with his blood. “Please.”
The car slows.
Riccardo’s hand jerks the wheel sharply. The tires screech and I look up, startled. We’ve reached the hospital.
I don’t know how far we’ve driven. The world outside feels like a different place now, as if I’ve slipped into some other reality.
The door opens, and Riccardo steps out. I push open the door, my hands shaking, my knees buckling under me as I try to get out.
I think Vieri is going to be treated. I think someone in this hospital is going to help him. Maybe this is what this is about.
But when my feet hit the pavement, Riccardo shuts the door with a sharp slam.
My chest tightens. Vieri is still inside the car.
“Get down.” His voice is steel.
“Please, what about him—” I begin, but the words catch.
He steps closer, his eyes narrowing.
“Move,” he demands. The gun is in his hand again, cold metal reflecting in the dim light. “Before I put a bullet in you.”
I stare at him. I follow him, keeping a few paces ahead, my heart thudding too loud in my chest.
Riccardo opens the door to the hospital without a word, and waves me in, hiding his gun. The antiseptic hits me immediately. The long white halls stretch out ahead, the fluorescent lights casting an unnatural glow. He walks me down the hall, watching over me with eagle eyes. The nurses and patients walk past, lost in their own world.
We get to a door labeled "private room." Riccardo looks down at me, and for the first time, his expression softens—not in sympathy, but in some twisted form of understanding.
“If you go in that door,” he says, “and you still want to go back and help him, then you’re more than welcome.”
My eyes search his face for something—anything—but it’s only blank indifference. Tears sting at the back of my eyes.
When I reach the door, I stop. The handle feels impossibly distant in my fingers. And when I grasp it, the metal cools beneath my palm. I turn it, and for a moment, time stills. But the door opens.
The room has machines lining the walls, their soft beeping filling the space with a steady rhythm. A heart monitor. An IV drip.
The bed is at the far end of the room, its white sheets pulled up around a still figure. I can barely bring myself to look at it—too afraid of what I might find.
I step forward, the air growing thicker, my chest tightening. My legs feel as if they’re sinking into the floor with every step.
Then, I see her. The figure lying in the bed, so still.
It’s Nonna.
The sight knocks the wind from my lungs. My knees threaten to give out beneath me. I step closer, as if moving will somehow make it clearer, make it easier to understand.
Her face is pale—so pale—and her eyes are closed. The soft hum of machines fills around me. The tubes that snake from her body look foreign, like something I’ve only seen in movies. The heart monitor beeps steadily, and I hear it as a distant sound, like it's coming from someone else's world, not mine.
I stop beside the bed. My hands are trembling, fingers hovering over her arm, too afraid to touch. I know she’s not awake. I know she can’t hear me.
But I whisper anyway, almost against my will.
“Nonna?”
I don’t know how long I stand there, staring at her, hoping that somehow, she’ll wake up, or move, or speak. But she doesn’t.
The door opens beside me.
I turn, startled. I see Bea standing in the doorway, her face pale and wide-eyed.
Bea stands there, still in the doorway. Her lips tremble.
“Lunetta?” she whispers, her voice so soft it’s almost lost in the sterile air.
Before I can take another step, Bea is there.
Her arms wrap around me so tight it takes a moment for me to realize I’m not alone anymore. Her breath is warm against my ear, and she’s holding me with a force that tells me she’s been waiting for this.
“Jesus, Lunetta,” she breathes. “Is this really you? This isn’t a dream, is it?”
The tears fall without permission, spilling over onto Bea’s shoulder. My hands clutch her shirt like I’m afraid she’ll slip away.
I don’t know when I started crying. She holds me tighter, pulling me even closer as my sobs shake through my chest.
Bea pulls away just slightly, her hands cupping my face, her eyes searching mine with a desperation I haven’t seen before. Her fingers swipe at my cheeks, wiping away the tears.
She pulls me back in. I feel the warmth of her body against mine, the soft pressure of her chest.
“What happened to Nonna?” My voice cracks between each word. I can barely say it. The question feels like a weight that drags me down.
Bea doesn’t let go. She presses her lips to the top of my head, holding me against her.
“Shhhh,” she murmurs, the sound like a soft lullaby. “You have to calm down, okay? You can’t… you can’t get overwhelmed.”
I nod, but I can’t stop the shaking. My hands are still clenched around the fabric of her shirt. My body trembles with each breath I take.
As Bea holds me, I glance over her shoulder. Riccardo stands outside the door. His eyes meet mine. He doesn’t say anything. He just frowns and then turns, walking away without a sound.
I bury my face back into Bea’s chest, my tears coming harder now, but not just for Nonna. For everything I couldn’t see, couldn’t understand. For the suffering they endured without me.
Bea doesn’t pull away again. She just holds me, her hands moving gently over my back, like she’s trying to piece me back together.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” she says softly, but there’s no certainty in her voice.
The world’s never going to be okay again. Not until I understand what’s happened. Not until I make sense of everything.