Chapter 19 Giulia
GIULIA
I can’t breathe.
I can’t hear anything over the high-pitched whine in my ears.
It feels like something is on my chest, pinning me to the cold, wet ground.
When I open my eyes, I understand why. Someone is lying on top of me. Someone in a black suit. The jacket is soft against my cheek. My memory stirs at the familiar scent that clings to it.
It’s Alessandro. His cologne. He’s what’s crushing me.
Someone shot at us.
And now it all comes rushing back, landing on me with a sickening thud, the way Alessandro landed on me and knocked me to the ground.
The look on his face when he threw himself at me.
The gunshots. Feet race all around us, but a few stop close to my head.
I can’t see who they are. He’s blocking my view.
He’s not moving.
“Giulia? Giulia!” It’s Dante shouting my name, but the sound is muffled by the whining still filling my head.
He and Luca help Alessandro off me—oh, thank God, I can breathe.
I pull in a deep breath of chilly air that goes a long way toward clearing my head while staring up at the maroon awning overhead, then sit up with Dante’s help.
My head is spinning, but I’m not in pain. I don’t feel much of anything. Not even my brother’s hands running over my arms and legs, up and down my back like he’s searching for wounds.
That’s not what I care about, anyway. Right now, it’s an afterthought.
“Forget me!” I shout, scrambling from him on my hands and knees to where Alessandro lies on his back a few feet away.
Luca and some of the other men who were inside hover over him.
Someone barks orders into a phone. People are starting to gather on the sidewalk, whispering, taking videos.
Men in suits push them back, arms spread.
It all goes by in a flash, images making impressions on my horrified mind like the scenery outside a speeding train.
“Are you all right?” Luca asks me, almost shouting in my face.
“I’m fine.” Only nothing could be further from the truth because Alessandro’s eyelids are fluttering, and his mouth is moving, but there’s no sound coming out. And oh, God, there’s blood on the ground. It’s starting to spread from under him.
“Alessandro?” Leaning over him, I take his head in my hands, staring down into his eyes. “Look at me. Can you hear me? Please, tell me you can hear me.”
“We need to get you inside.” Luca tugs my arm, but I barely feel it. He’s a mosquito buzzing around my head right now, easy to swat away, while I never break eye contact with Alessandro.
“Did somebody call an ambulance?” I ask, still stroking hair away from his forehead.
“They’re on the way.” Dante crouches next to me, his hands on my arms. “Mama is hysterical. Please. Come inside. You can wait for the ambulance in there.”
“Get off me!” I scream, high-pitched and desperate. This can’t be happening. He’s slipping away, I feel it. I’m supposed to wait inside? “I’m not leaving him!”
Dante’s face sags, his eyes close, and he mutters something under his breath.
I don’t care.
I don’t care about anything anymore…
Except for the man who took a bullet for me.
“Jesus, fuck,” Luca groans, standing beside me. “You cannot be fucking serious. I’ll blow his head off now.”
“Shut up,” I snap, glaring at him with Alessandro’s head still in my hands.
He’s warm, thank God. Not cold, the way a person is supposed to get when they die.
He’s still with me. “Just shut up. They could’ve hit me.
Don’t you get it? He saved my life!” And he could be dying. I can’t lose him. I won’t accept it.
“Giulia…” I barely hear him over the chaos, but even his faint whisper is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.
I lean closer, cradling his head in one hand, stroking his cheek with the other. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
He looks so pale. Terror wraps itself around my heart and squeezes hard. He can barely keep his eyes open.
Don’t let him die, please don’t let him die.
It seems to take all the strength he has to ask, “Are… you okay? Not hurt?”
“I’m fine. Why did you do that?” Water drips on his face, and I realize it’s my tears, which I brush away with my thumb. “Are you really crazy? Trying to get yourself killed?”
“Making sure… you don’t get killed…” A brief smile passes over his face. He almost laughs. “I did a good thing. I did the right thing.”
“You did, you idiot,” I tell him through my tears. “You know what you can do now? You can stay with me. Please, don’t leave me. Don’t go. You’re gonna be okay, right?”
“I’m not leaving you,” he murmurs as his eyes drift shut. “Not leaving.”
Does he have a choice? That’s the thing. I don’t know.
He’s not slipping away. I won’t let him. “Eyes open, Vitali,” I growl, making his lids flutter. “Stay awake. I need you to stay awake.”
“You’re… fucking bossy,” he whispers with another weak smile.
My tears wet both of our faces when I kiss him, forcing myself to commit him to memory. The way his lips feel against mine, the way he tastes. “I’m a Santoro,” I remind him with a soft laugh.
Flashing lights illuminate his face, and I can breathe a little easier knowing the ambulance is here.
But not too easy.
Not until I know he’s well.
* * *
“How did this happen?”
I am so tired, I barely have it in me to respond to Papa’s question. The waiting room in the ICU holds only us, which is at least one slight positive in the middle of so much darkness. I can’t stop shivering, even with Dante’s suit jacket draped over me. I can’t get warm.
Now I have to deal with this? Papa, looking at me like I committed the ultimate sin?
Luca won’t even talk to me right now, pacing angrily, occasionally scrubbing a hand over his head or rubbing the back of his neck.
Sometimes he’ll stare out a window with his hands on his hips, but he doesn’t speak.
Mama sits next to me, and Sophia sits on my other side, both of them putting their arms around me.
I appreciate it, I do, but it’s like I’m not even here.
I’m in the operating room with Alessandro.
He’s been in surgery for over an hour, though it feels more like a day.
There was so much blood on the sidewalk when they put him on the stretcher.
How can he survive losing that much blood?
“Now is not the time, amor mio,” Mama whispers, holding my hand, squeezing it as she looks up at Papa. “Alessandro is the brother of your daughter-in-law. You should remember that now.”
“Forgive me, Sophia,” he murmurs, looking and sounding regretful. “This is a very difficult situation.”
I doubt she needs to be told that. “We buried my father today,” she whispers. “Now, my brother’s on an operating table. I can’t even get Mom on the phone.”
Right. I vaguely remember her stumbling out early with an excuse about being overwhelmed. I might have been a little too distracted by Alessandro while trying like hell to make it look like I wasn’t watching him.
All at once, Dante swoops in to crouch in front of his wife and sweep her into his arms. And as sorry as I feel for her, as much pain and fear as she’s in, I can’t pretend there isn’t a twinge of jealousy prickling my skin. At least even if the worst happens, she’ll have Dante. Who will I have?
Emotion swells in my chest before rising in my throat like hot, bitter bile.
“He saved my life. Don’t you get it?” I blurt out.
I’m so tired and aching from head to toe now that the adrenaline has started to wear off.
I can barely force the words out, but I have to say it.
Looking across the room to where Luca stares out the window, I murmur, “I would be dead if he didn’t throw himself in front of me. You know it.”
“It was the Scarpettas,” Papa growls. “Those filthy bastards. Lying low until they knew they could flush us out. Imagine using a funeral luncheon for something like this.”
Yeah, I can’t handle thinking about it right now.
I might totally lose it, and I’m barely holding on as it is.
I have to consciously feel the chair under me, the jacket hanging heavy around my shoulders, Mama’s arm squeezing me.
I turn my head toward her, and she kisses my cheek.
“My sweet, sweet girl,” she whispers. “What would we have done?”
“What I want to know is…” Luca’s voice is low, ominous when he turns away from the window. I can’t read his face, but it’s stormy. That much, I can see, even with my brain chugging slowly as it is. “What he did or said that made it so easy for him to take advantage of you.”
“Luca!” Mama gasps. “Don’t say things like that. It’s an insult to your sister and beneath you.”
“He’s beneath her,” he snaps, then looks at Sophia, scowling. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Luca, shut the hell up,” Dante warns, slowly rising. “If you have half a brain, you will keep your mouth shut now.”
“He didn’t take advantage of me,” I insist, fighting for the strength to defend Alessandro when he can’t defend himself. “I’m sorry. I really, really am. I tried so hard to hate him, but it was no use.”
Papa groans, turning his back on me, his head hanging low. “Papa,” I whisper as my heart breaks. Not now. This would be hard enough to handle on its own, but I can’t imagine a worse time than right now. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Don’t you see how you’ve betrayed us?” Luca demands, flipping Dante off when he reacts angrily.
“Save it, all right?’ he growls at him. I haven’t seen the two of them like this in a long time, back when they used to treat antagonizing each other like a hobby.
“I haven’t betrayed anybody,” I argue, though my voice is emotionless.
I don’t have it in me to get worked up. I’m in too much pain.
I’m too scared. The memory of kissing Alessandro while life was draining from him is too fresh.
“And I’m sorry if you don’t think that saving your sister‘s life makes him worthy of a little respect. I’m sorry, I don’t mean much to you. ”