I look up. Maria’s face is measured, neutral.
“There’s someone at the gate.” She pauses. “She says she’s your sister.”
My pen slips. Hits the desk. Rolls.
The numbers thread through the static in my skull before I can stop them.One, two, three.Automatic. Useless.
Lorenzo brought her in.
I find them in the sitting room off the main entrance, and the woman standing between the two guards is a stranger wearing my sister’s face.
She’s thin in a way that suggests weeks of bad sleep and worse food. Her hair hangs lank and unwashed. Her nails arebitten to the quick. The silk blouse she’s wearing is wrinkled, too large now, like she bought it when she was someone else.
Elena.
My sister, who fled two days before her wedding in a cloud of Chanel and entitlement. Who left a note that said she couldn’t go through with it. Who took our parents’ savings and disappeared without looking back.
She looks up when I enter. Her eyes are red-rimmed. Hollow.
“Cassia.” Her voice cracks on my name. “Thank God.”
I stand at the threshold. Don’t move toward her. Don’t offer comfort. I take her in: the trembling hands, the bitten lips, the way she keeps glancing toward the windows like something might come through them.
“Elena.”
Lorenzo catches my eye. There’s a question in the tilt of his head.What do you want done with her?
“She asked for sanctuary,” he says. “Claims she’s being hunted.”
“I am.” Elena’s voice pitches higher. “They’re trying to kill me. I didn’t know where else to go.”
A hundred responses crowd my throat. I swallow all of them.
“Get Giada,” I tell Lorenzo. “Have her check Elena over.”
He nods once and disappears.
Elena sags with relief, like she expected me to turn her away. Maybe I should have.
“Cassia, I know you’re angry.”
“Sit down.” I gesture to the sofa. “Don’t talk until Giada’s seen you.”
She sits. For once in her life, she does what she’s told.
Giada arrives within fifteen minutes, medical bag in hand, professional calm settled over her features like armor. Doctor mode. Not sister mode. I’m grateful for the distinction.
“Elena Neri?” Giada sets her bag on the side table. “I’m Dr.Santoro. I’m going to check your vitals and make sure you’re not injured. Is that alright?”
Elena nods. Her eyes flick to me, then back to Giada.
“You don’t have to stay for this,” Giada says to me. “I can handle the assessment.”
“I’m staying.”
Giada doesn’t argue. She pulls out a blood pressure cuff, a penlight, moves through her examination with quiet efficiency. Elena flinches when Giada touches her wrist to check her pulse.
“When did you last eat?” Giada asks.
