55. Lorenzo
CHAPTER 55
Lorenzo
I sabella’s hands were slick with blood as she pressed down on Amalia’s side. “I can’t close this on my own,” she said, answering Elio’s question but looking up at me. “There’s no exit wound here, which is good because she’s not bleeding as fast, but that means the bullet is still inside. There’s no way I’m going to be able to dig it out without causing way more damage. Besides, if he hit any of her major organs…” She grimaced, and we got the message.
Elio’s eyes didn’t leave his wife. “ Cugino .”
I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll call for an ambulance,” I told him. Isabella’s phone had been in my pocket when I’d jumped on the Russian; the screen was cracked. I made a mental note to have it fixed for her before swiping for emergency services.
“I don’t need to go,” Amalia tried to argue, but she was already shivering from the amount of blood splattering both her and Isabella.
“You’re not bleeding out on my floor,” I said.
The garage door swung open, and we all jerked. Elio had a gun in his hand, already aiming. Where did it come from? He was like a magician, but instead of fuzzy, cute creatures, he pulled out weapons.
“It’s me,” Damian announced, arms outstretched. There was blood on his face, and he was walking with a limp.
“Are any of Volkov’s men alive?” Lorenzo asked.
Damian shook his head. “Dead, or very nearly. The cleaners are already on their way.”
“Good,” I grunted. “What in the hell happened?”
Before Damian could reply, however, we heard the wail of sirens. The ambulance would be here in a matter of seconds. “How are you going to explain all those bodies to the EMTs?” Isabella asked.
“We won’t,” I said. “We’ll pay them not to see them.”
I waited for any follow-up questions, but Isabella accepted my answer as fact. It did make sense in a way: I was able to pay and intimidate the NYPD to not see me. I didn’t see why I couldn’t do the same for some poorly paid first responders.
The ambulance parked in the driveway, and they came running with a stretcher and a backboard. “I got this,” a woman said, gently moving Isabella out of the way and taking over putting pressure on Amalia’s wound. “Who’s riding with her?”
“I am,” Elio replied. He was still shaken, but I could see he was trying to keep himself together. “Is she going to?—?”
“We’re going to do our very best to make sure that doesn’t happen,” the woman assured him, and then she and her partner were lifting Amalia onto the stretcher. Once she was stable, they started wheeling her back to their vehicle.
“ Cugino ,” Elio practically growled. His eyes were trained on his wife, but I could see how he shook. “I want blood,” he demanded. “I want retribution.”
“You’ll get it,” I promised. “But you need to take care of Amalia right now.”
He nodded, more than a few times. “Yeah,” he said, mostly to himself. “Yep, I have to take care of Amalia for now.” His eyes met mine, and he was lost. “How do I do that?”
Isabella pushed herself to her feet, and I reached out automatically to steady her. She stepped just out of my reach. Right, so she’s still pissed . “You go with her to the hospital,” she told him. “We’ll get some clothes together for you and her, and we’ll bring them up in a little while.”
Elio agreed, and we separated, marching orders in hand. Isabella did a quick once-over of Damian in the kitchen. Nothing needed stitches, thankfully, but she made sure to glue the cut on his forehead shut so that it wouldn’t keep bleeding. “Do you feel like you’re going to throw up?” she asked as she looked at his pupils.
“No.”
“Pass out?”
Damian replied with another negative. “I want to sleep for the next twelve hours,” he said. “But I’m not going to lose consciousness.”
She hummed, seemingly satisfied. “Get some rest,” she said. “I don’t think you have a concussion, but we’ll keep an eye on it for the next few days.”
He thanked her. “You’re quite good at patching me up,” he said before he headed to his room for some rest.
I reached out to touch her, and again, she stepped out of my way. “ Dolcezza , really?”
She glared at me. “I’m going to put a bag together for Amalia. Be ready to go in twenty, all right?” There was not an ounce of friendliness in her tone.
I wanted her in my arms for just a moment, but I didn’t force the issue. We could discuss it, or fuck about it, later. “I’ll be in my office when you’re ready.”
Isabella
I had been in Amalia and Elio’s room once or twice since coming to the estate, but I had largely tried to keep out of it and respect their privacy. It felt like a wasted effort now that I was elbow-deep in their drawers, digging out clothes for the both of them.
Once I was finished with clothes, I would grab some toiletries from their bathroom. The smell of the hospital-grade shampoo and lotion made me sick to my stomach; I had been forced to use plenty of it during my long hospital stay following my attack. There hadn’t been anyone there to bring my favorite things, and I didn’t want that to happen to Amalia.
I opened the very top drawer in their bureau. I didn’t want to paw around her panties, but she would need some, and while what she had on top was very pretty, thongs and lace wouldn’t be comfortable. So, I dug deeper into the recesses of the drawer. She had to have period panties, right? What woman didn’t?
My fingers brushed over something that felt like paper, and I was pulling it out of the drawer before I could tell myself not to. This is an invasion of privacy , I reminded myself, but my eyes were already glued to the picture in my hand.
My first thought was that I was looking at a picture of myself, but that was a stupid thought. I didn’t own the clothes the woman had on in the picture, and while at first glance, she and I could have been mistaken for twins, I noticed that her hair was lighter and longer than mine, and her teeth were perfectly straight. Mine were ever-so-slightly crooked. Plus, she didn’t have a spiderweb of silver scars climbing up her cheek.
Who is this?
I turned the photograph over, and the air was sucked out of my lungs. On the back, in Amalia’s scrawl, was: Sienna Bianchi, 2016 .
Sienna. Bianchi.
This was Lorenzo’s wife; I had nearly forgotten that she and Amalia were cousins. I turned the photo back over and looked at it again. My stomach sank with that uncanny valley feeling. She looked like me, but she didn’t look like me.
The pit inside me grew even more. I was a facsimile of the woman Lorenzo had fallen head over heels for. The dead woman that he still lived for. For a moment, I let it sink in that everything between us had been a lie. Or, in the very least, tainted by what he didn’t say. There was no coming back from this; I might not love myself every day, but I had more self-respect than to be with a man who only wanted me because I could be the 2.0 version of his dead spouse.
Too quickly, however, that overwhelming sadness that threatened to drown me disappeared, and it was replaced by rage.
The world became a hazy red around the edges.