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“I’m not telling Enzo shit,” I muttered, sitting down on the couch-bed, which I hadn’t bothered to make. “You think he knows about this? You think he’d want me to have taken you?”
Allegra’s brown eyes widened. “You’re not doing this for Enzo?”
“I told you, I’m doing it for Ricardo,” I explained for what seemed like the fiftieth time. “I have no idea what that idiot is planning.” There was no reason to lie to Allegra, not now. I was doing this for her more than I was doing it for Ricardo or Enzo, and I wanted her to know that.
“You know it has to have something to do with my father.”
“He plans to kill him,” I admitted.
She scrambled out of bed. “We can’t let him do that!” she exclaimed.
“He’s not going to,” I assured her. “Enzo will stop him.”
“And what if he doesn’t? What if my father’s killed while I’m here watching television as you guard me?” she asked desperately, clutching at my arm.
I looked down at her arm over the prison ink on my bicep, liking the way her fingers dug into me. I didn’t pull away. “If I thought he would really hurt Romeo, I wouldn’t be here,” I lied. I didn’t know what Ricardo would do. He was a loose cannon.
“Ricardo’s crazy, Rocco,” Allegra pleaded with me, tears shining in her brown eyes. “You don’t know what he’ll do. You have to take me home.”
I looked at her for a long moment, thinking about it. She was probably right. Enzo wasn’t the man he used to be, not after that last surgery, and he expected me to keep an eye on Ricardo. I wasn’t there, which meant Ricardo could do as he wished. Maybe Ishouldtake her home and stop Ricardo. Maybe I should call Enzo and tell him everything that was happening.
I was considering it when I heard a thud outside. I put an arm across Allegra, putting a finger to her lips when she opened her mouth. I walked slowly toward the door, sliding on my slacks and putting on a shirt, although I didn’t take time to button it. I could hear the footsteps of someone outside. They weren’t being very stealthy. Just as I got to the door, a bullet came through it, whizzing right past my ribs. Allegra screamed and dropped to the floor, and I cursed, grabbing my gun from my overnight bag and cocking it. I usually kept it on me, but since I’d just showered… I felt stupid, not being on guard. Allegra had my head all over the place.
“Is this even the place?” someone said in a high-pitched voice. He was speaking too quickly, probably tweaked out.
“Stay down,” I hissed to Allegra as she army-crawled toward me, and she froze, listening to me for probably the first time in her whole life. I jerked open the door, throwing out my fist and hitting the man with the gun in the shoulder. The gun went off but it went wild, up into the roof. A second guy pointed his gun at me, but I leaned back and kicked him in the chest and he lost his breath, gun flying as he went down. I shot the first guy right in the face as he managed to aim again, and began to kick the second guy’s face in.
I got to into it, kicking him over and over until his face was unrecognizable, and then Allegra grabbed my shoulder. “Stop it, Rocco, he’s dead. We have to get the hell out of here!” The panic in her voice cut through the rage in me and I grabbed my bag, running with Allegra to the car. She was still barefoot and in a robe, but she didn’t seem to care.
We took off and I was on the interstate when Allegra looked at me, brown eyes wide and panicked. “Rocco, you’re bleeding,” she said, and that’s when my vision started to black out around the edges. I pulled over on the side of the road, nearly hitting another car, and I heard the tire pop as we ran over a speedbump too fast. But I managed to stop the car before I blacked out, and that was what mattered.
11
ALLEGRA
I didn’t consider myself a woman who felt fear easily, but I had to admit I was terrified. I stared at Rocco as his mouth dropped open, and saw that he had been shot in his ribcage. I was just frozen for the longest time, and then I lifted him up, seeing that the bullet had gone through and through. He was losing a lot of blood, though, and I had to do something about it. “Sewing kit,” I mumbled to myself. “Rocco, please tell me you have a sewing kit.” The possibility of Rocco dying never even crossed my mind. I had to save him, or I’d never get out of here. I had to save him, because he couldn’t be gone from this world. I’d just gotten him back. I knew that was the part of me who was young and still loved him, but still—I had to get this done.
I finally found a needle and thread in his pack, my hands shaking as I brought it out. I took deep breaths in through my nostrils and out through my mouth. I finally managed to calm down, and I ripped off a piece of my robe to hold to the wound, trying to dab the blood off of it.
Rocco groaned and his eyes fluttered open, my heart nearly jumping out of my chest. “Rocco,” I breathed. “Thank God.”
“They fucking hit me,” he mumbled, his words slurred.
“A through-and-through,” I told him, patting at the wound while he hissed. “I’m going to stitch you up. You’ll be okay,” I said, but my voice was shaking. Rocco just looked at me, his sea green eyes pained, and sat up so that I could start to stitch the wound. All I could do was hope that the bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. There was so much blood that I could barely see through it, and so I took a t-shirt out of his duffel bag and dabbed at it so that I could have some visibility.
Rocco stopped me, putting his hands on my wrists, and I paused. He started to rip off his belt, groaning as he moved, and I just stared at him until he put the belt between his teeth. I nodded slowly, understanding finally, feeling like my head was filled with water. Everything seemed to be happening too slowly or too quickly, and no in-between. It was like I was fighting through some kind of fog in my brain.
I stitched up one side and then the other, with Rocco cursing and grunting, muffled by the belt. I tried to pretend that I was darning Matteo’s socks, that I wasn’t pushing the needle through flesh, but fabric. The bleeding trickled and slowed, and finally stopped once I stopped stitching. I was trembling all over when I was finished.
“Good job,stellina,” Rocco said gently. “You’ve done that before.”
“Once,” I admitted. “For my father.” It had been a stab wound, and he’d come home with Alberto all but carrying him. It had been a traumatic experience when I was just nineteen, and I hated that I had to relive it with Rocco. “Fuck,” I cursed. “Who came after us? Who knew about the safehouse?”
Rocco snorted. “Ricardo, of course.”
“Why would he come after you? You did what he asked,” I said incredulously.
Rocco shrugged and then groaned, like it hurt him. “I don’t know. He’s off the rails. He has been for a while.” He cursed again. “I should have known.”
