Julia
Chapter Thirty One
The bathroom is too bright. Too white. Too sharp after the dim horror of my apartment and the fluorescent blur of the waiting room. The mirrors stretch over the sinks, throwing my reflection back at me from too many angles.
I stand and just stare.
For a second, I do not recognize myself.
The green dress is ruined.
Blood stains the once-beautiful silk. It’s now dark and stiff where it has dried, brighter in places where it soaked deeper. There is blood on my forearms. Blood beneath my nails. Blood smeared along my wrist. A thin streak crosses my cheek.
Dante’s blood.
My stomach twists.
Victoria steps in front of me, blocking part of the mirror. “Look at me.”
I try.
My eyes keep dropping to the dress.
“I can’t wear this,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“I can’t sit out there like this.”
“I know. Someone is bringing you clothes.”
I blink at her. “Who?”
“Mario handled it.”
Of course he did.
Victoria guides me to the sink. “Until they arrive, we clean what we can.”
She turns on the water and tests it with her fingers, then takes my hands.
The first touch of warm water makes me gasp.
The blood loosens slowly, rust-colored at first, then red as it runs down the porcelain and disappears into the drain. Victoria uses soap, is gentle but thorough, working between my fingers, under my nails, across the lines of my palms.
I stare at the water.
I see my apartment floor.
Dante on his knees.
His hand pressed to his side.
The way his face went pale so fast.
I see myself crawling toward him because I could not stand right away. My legs did not work. My ears rang so loudly I thought he was speaking underwater.
I remember saying his name.
I remember his eyes finding mine.
Focused even then.
Angry, maybe. Afraid, maybe. But alive.
“Pressure,” he said.
Or maybe I said it.
Maybe no one said it.
I only remember my hands moving.
I pressed both palms over the blood, and it came through my fingers anyway. Hot. Slick. Impossible to hold. I pressed harder. Dante groaned, and I almost pulled back because I was hurting him, but then I heard his voice in my head telling me to stay down, stay alive, do what needed doing.
So I pressed harder.
When my hands slipped, I grabbed the skirt of my dress and shoved the silk against his wound. Green silk. Ricardo’s dress. The beautiful dress I had felt shy wearing in the ballroom, the dress he wanted to take off me later.
I used it to hold my friend’s blood inside his body.
“Julia.”
Victoria’s voice cuts through the memory.
I blink.
The water is still running.
My hands are in hers.
The sink is streaked pink.
“Breathe,” she says.
I pull in air.
It shakes on the way out.
Victoria reaches for a paper towel, wets it, and gently wipes my cheek. “There you are.”
I look at her.
Her face is calm, but her eyes are wet.
“I got blood on you,” I say.
She glances down at the faint smear on the sleeve of her pretty party dress. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
The words are quiet but fierce.
My mouth trembles.
She softens immediately and presses the damp towel to my other cheek. “I know. I know you’re scared.”
“He was bleeding so much.”
“I know.”
“I couldn’t stop it.”
“You slowed it.”
My throat closes.
“You slowed it,” she repeats. “You got help. You stayed with him.”
“I thought he was going to die.”
The words come out small.
Victoria’s hand stills against my face.
Then she sets the towel down and takes my shoulders.
“Dante is strong.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“He is strong,” she says again. “He is stubborn. He is young. He made it to surgery. That matters.”
“He passed out.”
“Because he lost blood. That does not mean he won’t make it through.”
I open my eyes.
The mirror reflects us both. Victoria in blue, pale and pregnant, but steady. Me in green silk and blood, looking like someone dragged out of a literal nightmare.
“He’ll make it through,” Victoria says.
I want to believe her.
I want to grab the words and hold them in both hands until they become true.
Instead, my body starts shaking.
The tremble starts small, and then they grow, becoming unbearable.
Victoria tightens her grip. “Julia?”
“I feel—”
The nausea hits hard and sudden.
I pull away from her and stumble toward the nearest stall. My shoulder clips the door before I get it open. My knees hit the tile.
I barely make it to the toilet before I vomit.
Once. Then again.
Victoria is behind me at once, one hand gathering my hair back, the other braced gently between my shoulder blades, soothing me.
I grip the sides of the toilet and retch until there is nothing left but shaking and the bitter taste of fear in my mouth.
Bless Victoria.
Somehow, between my shaking, the vomiting, the blood, and the fluorescent nightmare of the hospital bathroom, she manages to hunt down a nurse who can get me a toothbrush.
I do not ask how.
I do not think anyone tells Victoria no. Not even here.
The toothbrush is still in plastic when she hands it to me.
“Here,” she says gently.
I stare at it for a second too long.
Then I take it.
My hands are steadier now, though not steady enough. Victoria has to open the packaging for me. She puts toothpaste on the brush, wets it, and passes it back without making a fuss over the fact that I apparently cannot manage the smallest task by myself right now.
I brush my teeth with my eyes fixed on the sink.
I do not look in the mirror unless I have to.
The blood is mostly gone from my hands, though faint traces remain beneath my nails and along the skin near my cuticles. My face is clean. My mouth tastes like mint instead of bile and fear.
My dress is still ruined.
There is nothing to do about that yet.
Someone is bringing clothes. Victoria told me that.
I remember it and do not remember it at the same time.
When I finish, she takes the toothbrush from me, tosses it into the trash, and wets another paper towel.
“Your face,” she says.
“I thought you already got it.”
“I did.”
“Then why—”
“Because I need something to do.”
That makes me look at her.
Her face is pale. Her eyes are too bright. And for the first time, I realize what this must be doing to her too.
Dante is family.
He is hers too.
And she is standing in a hospital bathroom cleaning blood from my skin because I am falling apart and she refuses to let me fall alone.
My throat tightens. “Victoria.”
She shakes her head once.
“Let me.”
So I do.
She wipes beneath my eyes, careful around the raw skin where tears have dried and started again too many times. Then she steps back and looks me over, not the dress, not the blood, but me.
“Better,” she says.
I almost laugh.
It comes out broken.
“No.”
“Enough better to go back out there.”
I nod.
The waiting room is much the same when we return.
Dante is still in surgery.
Ricardo stands the moment he sees me. He has taken off his tuxedo jacket, and his tie is gone now. His white shirt is marked where I grabbed him earlier with hands still covered in his son’s blood.
The sight nearly knocks the air out of me again.
He crosses to me without hesitation.
His hands come to my arms, then stop as if he is afraid to touch too hard.
“Are you all right?”
No.
Nothing is right.
But I nod because there are no words that will help him.
Victoria guides me to a chair before my legs give out. Ricardo sits immediately, close enough that his thigh touches mine. He takes one of my hands. His thumb moves over my knuckles, slow and careful.
The dried blood is gone.
I can still feel it.
I think I'll always be able to feel it.
Mario is standing near the wall with Lorenzo and Diego. Matteo and Tomasso are several feet away with Edoardo and Alessio. Their voices are low, but the waiting room is quiet enough that I catch pieces.
“Police have the apartment sealed,” Diego is saying.
“Do we have names?” Mario asks.
“Not yet.”
“I need them as soon as possible.”
“Already working on it,” Lorenzo says.
The words moving around me are practical. They're talking about the two men in my apartment. The men that Dante killed.
My apartment.
My floor.
My entrance table.
My hands press together in my lap.
Ricardo’s thumb stills. “Julia.”
I lift my head just slightly to acknowledge I heard him.
“I'll tell them to stop,” he says.
“You don’t have to,” I say. “I'm okay. I promise.”
Across the waiting room, Diego is talking to Mario: “Why were they there? Because she works for you? Or because she's seeing Ricardo?”
The question comes clearly across the room.
Ricardo’s hand closes more firmly around mine.
Mario’s expression gives nothing away. “That is what we need to know.”
“It would have to be a quick job if this was about Ricardo,” Lorenzo says. “They just went public tonight.”
My stomach turns.
Ricardo’s voice is low beside me. “Breathe.”
I had stopped.
I pull in air and taste hospital disinfectant.
“What about Judge O’Brien?” Diego asks. “Prominent judge. Long career. I'm sure he's made plenty of enemies.”
My father’s name drags my attention back to them.
Mario’s gaze shifts toward me briefly, then away. “Possible.”
“Okay, I think that's enough,” Ricardo says to me. He raises his voice to be heard. “I think maybe this conversation should be continued somewhere else.”
I don't hear a response because I'm somewhere else in my mind. I'm back in my apartment. Walking through the door, just seconds before everything went wrong.
But no, something was wrong before that.
Before Dante shoved me behind the counter. Before any shots rang out.
My apartment door opens.
I see the lamp, the console table, the rug, the bowl.
The flowers.
White roses in a crystal vase.
My lips part.
“Roses.”
Ricardo turns to me at once. “What?”
The men stop talking.
All of them.
I look down at my hands, clean now, though I can still see red in every line of my skin, one of them clutched in Ricardo’s.
“White roses,” I say, stronger this time.
Ricardo's thumb strokes my hand.
“What do you mean?” he asks gently.
My eyes lift to his.
They are already full of tears again.
“There were white roses in the apartment when we got back.”
His voice stays soft, despite me not making any sense. “You bought white roses?”
“No. I hate white roses.”
Ricardo’s eyes search mine. “Julia.”
My hands begin to shake, making him tighten his grip on them.
“It’s me,” I whisper.
His face registers confusion.
“It’s my fault he got shot.”
“No,” Ricardo says immediately.
I shake my head, tears spilling before I can stop them. “It is. It's my fault.”
“Cuore mio, what are you talking about?”
The endearment breaks me.
“Harrison used to send me white roses.”
I can practically feel everyone in the waiting room freeze at my words.
I keep looking at Ricardo because if I look anywhere else, I may come apart completely.
“He sent them when we first started going out,” I say. “Then after fights. After he made me cry. After he said something horrible. White roses. Always white roses. Expensive. Perfect. Never a real apology. Just those fucking roses.”
Ricardo’s expression empties of softness.
“I saw them when we first walked in,” I say quietly. “I saw them, and I knew. I knew, but then Dante was pushing me behind the counter, and everything happened, and I forgot. I forgot until now.”
My voice breaks.
“Those men,” I say. “They must have been Harrison’s.”