Page 130 of The Cost of Silence

“This is not on you,” he says. “This is on them. The men who pulled the trigger. The ones who told them where to find us. The ones who decided you were a message instead of a person. Don’t you put this weight in your bag, too. You’re already carrying enough.”

Tears sting hotly. “You sound like my mother.”

“She’s a smart woman,” he says. His breath stutters. “You’ll listen to one of us, eventually.”

He closes his eyes for a heartbeat too long. “Hey,” I say sharply. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” It’s softer now, but the steel is still there. “Just… resting.”

There’s a knock on the window by my head, a sharp staccato thud that nearly makes me jump out of my skin. Two paramedics appear in my peripheral vision, yellow jackets bright in the gray light. Marco is already out of the car, talking fast, waving them around.

The driver’s door wrenches open. Cold air slams into the warm, coppery cabin. The world widens suddenly—buildings, graffiti, a stray plastic bag caught on a fence.

“Ma’am, we’ve got him,” one of the medics says, voice calm but urgent. “Keep the pressure on until I tell you to let go.”

“I am keeping the pressure on,” I say, slightly hysterical. “I’m pressing like my life depends on it.”

“His does,” the other one says, sliding a board onto the seat. “You’re doing good. On three, we’re going to slide a dressing under your hands, then you move yours on top. Don’t freak out if it looks worse than it is.”

“How bad is it?” I ask, but they don’t answer, which is answer enough.

They move with practiced efficiency—gauze, bandage, an IV line snaked into his arm, oxygen mask settled over his face—and I try to stay out of the way without letting go. When they finally replace my hands with thick layers of white that turn pink almost immediately, I feel weirdly naked.

“Pulse is thready,” one mutters. “BP dropping. Let’s move.”

They haul him out on the board, loading him onto the stretcher with a series of smooth lifts. He looks smaller lying flat, which is wrong; Rossi is one of the biggest men I know, a walking wall, and now he’s pale and still, the only color the smear of blood along his jaw and the red soaking the bandages.

“Can I come?” I ask, voice thin.

“Family?” the medic asks.

I hesitate. “No.”

“Then you meet us at the hospital,” he says. “We’ll take him from here.”

“He works for us,” Marco puts in. “His boss—”

“Your boss can meet us there,” the medic cuts in. There’s no rudeness, just a focus that says he has one job and one job only. “We’re losing time.”

They wheel Rossi toward the waiting ambulance. For a second, his eyes flutter open and find me.

I step forward, almost tripping over my own feet. “Rossi.”

He tries for a smile; it comes out crooked, pained. His fingers twitch against the rail and I catch them for half a second.

“See?” he rasps through the mask. “Told you. Just a scratch.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” I say, voice cracking.

“Good thing that’s not my job,” he says, and then the doors close between us.

The ambulance pulls away, siren wailing, red lights bouncing off brick.

The street feels too quiet in its wake.

I stand there for a moment, hands sticky, coat spattered, the cold finally catching up. My knees feel like they might fold.

Marco touches my elbow, firm but gentle. “We need to get you back,” he says. “Boss wants eyes on you, and we need to get that blood off you before someone freaks out.”