Adriano choked on his coffee, droplets of brown dripping from his chin. “You’re gonna put that painting of Milan jerking in a hallway of kids?”
“I wasnotjerking.” I scowled. “I was holding it so she could paint it.”
Francesco slurped loudly on his cup, and I reached over to confiscate it. He glared but sighed as though he knew he would not win against me. “If I was holding my dick anywhere near Adrian, we’d definitely end up fucking.”
Adriano laughed, but I did not. His statement was likely true, and that was acceptable, but I was more focused on my Consigliere, my brother, who laughed freely without an ounce of reservation. He loved Francesco, and though nobody outside of this room could know yet, it somehow felt like the entire world knew anyway, because it existed entirely within this room beside my wife.
She had allowed everyone the bravery to feel, and now she was unconscious.
I leaned forward, bringing Sicily’s warm fingers to my lips, breathing in the scent of her, but it was nother. She smelled of hospital bedsheets and something sterile. I wanted her perfume, her candy shampoo.
I wantedher.
Adriano squeezed my fingers. “Why don’t you go home and?—”
“No.” I breathed, exhaling, though it relieved none of the tension.
He held up his hands in surrender. “We’re here, Milano. She’s not going anywhere.”
“We were also there, and they took her from five feet away.”
Francesco hummed. “I feel like that’s kinda different.”
“Different?”
“Well, it’s not like some random dudes came and took her.” He shrugged. “She was targeted for this dumb contract.”
Silence stretched between us. It was heavy and full of three people blinking at each other as though that was a form of communication. For others, perhaps it was, but I did not understand language this way.
Adriano leaned in close to his partner and whispered, “I feel like that wasn’t helpful.”
My Consigliere was rarely wrong, but on this occasion, he was. Francesco’s argument was logical, factually based, and somewhat relieving.
I kissed my wife’s head firmly and immediately walked out of the hospital room for the first time in a week.
She was safe. They were safe.
For now.
SICILY
Everything hurt,but what I noticed first wasn’t the pain—it was the silence.
It was so quiet and still, so unfamiliar.
I didn’t know where I was when I peeled my sticky eyes open, but by the box lights above me and the worn armchair beside me, it was easy enough to work out that I was in a hospital.
A hospital because Cesare Fera had slit my throat.
I shoved myself onto my forearms, wincing at the dull ache in my limbs. My eyes roamed the small room as if someone would materialize through the walls to tell me that everyone was fine.
Was nobody here because the Feras had killed everyone?
The silence was deafening. Lonely.
A sob threatened to rip from my lungs, but the throbbing, slicing pain in my throat silenced me. My lips tasted metallic, and my head spun to the mirror across the room, only to find white bandages clinging to my neck and something pink stuck to my forehead.
My shaky hand unglued the square of paper from my skin, taking a stray piece of hair with it, and then, despite the thickness in my throat, I laughed.
