Ricardo #2
The blood has already dried in places, dark against the green silk. There is a smear along her forearm, another near her collarbone. I do not know whether it happened when she tried to put pressure on Dante’s wound or when she was pulled away by paramedics or—
My mind keeps making pictures I do not want to see.
Dante in her apartment.
Dante standing between her and bullets.
Dante bleeding on the floor while she tries desperately to keep him alive with her hands.
My son, who would not speak to me without a blade in his voice the last few weeks, who still did exactly what I trusted him to do.
My son.
I crouch in front of Julia.
Her hands are shaking in her lap.
I take them carefully.
The blood is dry and tacky against her skin.
She looks at our joined hands and starts to cry again, silently this time.
“I couldn’t stop it,” she whispers. “I tried. I did what they told me to do. I kept pressure on it, but it kept coming through my fingers.”
“You kept him alive long enough to get here.”
“What if it wasn't enough?” She shakes her head. “Ricardo—”
“You called for help. You stayed with him. You pressed on the wound. You did what you could.”
“I was so scared.”
“I know.”
Her eyes lift to mine, shattered. “I thought I was going to watch him die.”
I cannot answer that. Physically, I cannot answer it.
So I pull her forward and press my forehead to hers.
For one moment, I let myself breathe her in.
Then footsteps move fast down the hall.
Mario arrives first.
His tuxedo is still perfect, but his face is no longer cordial and polite. Victoria is beside him, one hand gripping Mario’s arm. Her color drains when she sees Julia.
“Dante?” Mario asks.
“In surgery,” Lorenzo says. “Gunshot wound to the abdomen. Significant blood loss. Alive at last update.”
Victoria makes a small, broken sound and covers her mouth.
Mario’s eyes move to me.
Then to Julia’s dress.
Then to her hands.
Something lethal passes through his face.
He locks it down almost immediately, but not before I see it.
“Julia,” Victoria says, moving toward her.
Julia starts to stand.
Victoria stops her with both hands on her shoulders. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Julia says again.
“Stop apologizing,” I tell her.
Julia breaks.
Victoria wraps her arms around her carefully, but Julia is too afraid to return the hug with her bloody hands.
Mario watches them for half a second, then turns to me.
“How many?”
“Two, waiting in the apartment,” I say.
“Dead?”
“Julia says Dante took them both out.”
Mario’s face hardens.
Lorenzo adds, “Police are on scene. We left before engaging. Edoardo has someone close enough to listen. He’s being updated.”
Mario nods once.
“Rusk?” he asks.
“Handled for now.”
“What did he give?”
“Enough to know Calhoun was testing us and trying to figure out who blocked his access. We will discuss that later.”
Mario’s gaze flicks toward Julia.
He understands at once.
Because Julia is the one who blocked his access, and she is covered in Dante’s blood, and the conversation we need to have will not happen over her head while she is shaking in a hospital chair.
More footsteps.
Alessio, who had been parking the car, arrives, along with Edoardo. Matteo and Tomasso come from the opposite hall seconds after, moving fast but not running.
Matteo looks at Julia first, and his eyes widen at the sight of the blood.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes,” I say.
He closes his eyes briefly.
Tomasso turns away, one hand over his mouth, then drops it and looks back toward the doors that lead back.
Alessio mutters something in Italian under his breath. Edoardo grips the back of a chair hard enough that his knuckles whiten.
Diego arrives last, which means he must have stayed behind to move whatever needed moving before he came. The charm is gone from him completely. He takes in the waiting room, the blood, Julia, Mario, me, then looks toward the doors.
“Tell me,” he says.
Lorenzo does.
Diego walks to the wall and presses both hands flat against it, head lowering for one second before he pushes himself upright again.
No one speaks for a moment.
The Contis are not built for rooms like this.
We know what to do with enemies. With money. With blood that we’ve spilled. We know how to move men, silence stories, burn threats to ash and call it business.
We do not know what to do when one of our own is in surgery behind a closed door.
Mario stands with Victoria tucked against his side now, his arm around her shoulders. Lorenzo speaks quietly to Matteo. Tomasso paces—three steps in one direction, then three steps in another. Diego stares at nothing. Edoardo and Alessio stand near the hall like guards without a post.
Julia sits in the middle of it all, still in the green dress, covered in my son’s lifeblood.
I sit beside her.
Not because I can comfort her.
Because I cannot stand anywhere else.
Her hands are still trembling.
I take them again.
She looks at me, eyes swollen, face pale beneath the streaks of dried blood and tears.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I close my hands around hers.
“No more of that.”
Her mouth trembles.
I lower my voice so only she hears me.
“He got you out of that apartment alive.”
A tear slips down her cheek.
“And you got him here alive.”
She shakes her head once, but she does not argue.
That is all I can ask from her right now.
The surgery doors remain closed.
And every person I love stands beneath fluorescent light, waiting for my son to come back to us.