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“We have to get to my father,” I told him. “Warn him. Let me use your phone.”
Rocco shook his head. “Not this one. It’s compromised,” he said, sending one text before throwing it out onto the highway.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Got us a new car,” he said. “We just have to wait for a bit.”
I watched Rocco like a hawk as we waited, making sure his wound didn’t start bleeding again. It seemed to have stopped and he was breathing shallowly, but he didn’t seem to be on the verge of passing out again. “Don’t ever fucking do that to me again,” I muttered.
Rocco barked out a laugh that definitely would have hurt his wound. “I’ll try not to get shot again,stellina,” he said, almost in a teasing tone, and I wondered if he was delirious after the gunshot.
After what seemed like forever, two cars pulled up and I stiffened. Rocco waved his hand, as if to dismiss my fears. “Friends, not enemies,” he assured me gently, and I finally relaxed. The man dropped off the keys with Rocco, not asking any questions about our states of undress or the blood all over the seats, and we switched to the other car after they left, Rocco limping and holding on to his side.
“Let me drive,” I commanded.
Rocco shook his head. “We need to hide out for a night. I can’t make it home like this,” he said, gesturing to his side, which looked angry and irritated.
I swallowed hard, knowing he was right. We couldn’t get a burner phone this late, and it was a couple hours’ drive home. We’d have to let Rocco rest up. “Where do we go?” I asked as Rocco gingerly got into the driver’s side.
“I know of a hotel close by, owned by a friend I had inside. We’ll try it,” he said.
“Ricardo doesn’t know about it?” I asked. Rocco shook his head tersely.
It took him half an hour to drive fifteen miles, but we finally made it. “I look a mess,” he said. “You go in first, tell him Rocco sent you.” He handed me a stack of cash. I bit my lip, looking down at it, but nodded. I’d never exactly been in this situation, but I’d had to do things like this for my father.
I walked inside. The hotel receptionist was a huge black man with teardrop tattoos around his eyes. The hotel was sleazy, one of those roach motels, with the neon lights flashing on and off. The carpets were dirty, the wallpaper peeling, but it was somewhere to stay, and I wasn’t picky right now.
He grunted out a greeting, pointing to a signup sheet. “Rocco sent me,” I told him. “Rocco Moretti.” My voice was quiet and sounded thin and reedy from the shock.
The man’s brown eyes widened. “Rocco? Forty bucks,” he said gruffly.
I slid him a hundred. “Keep the change.”
He handed me a keycard. “Anything you need, come down to the office. Ask for Red,” he said, and I nodded, looking down at the keycard. My head felt funny, like the world was spinning just slightly. I thought I might be in shock, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.
Rocco was grimacing, his eyes narrowed, when I got back into the car. We drove around to the room and I noticed there were only a few cars in the whole parking lot. I helped Rocco into the room. There was only one bed, so I laid him down on it as gently as I could. Rocco yelped anyway when he landed on his side. “Bring me my bag,” he said gruffly.
When I returned, I could see blood all over his shirt, and my eyes widened as I handed him the duffel bag. He put his hand in it, rifling through the stuff, and then groaned, rolling over. “Need you to find it,stellina.”
“Find what?” I asked, still feeling odd.
“The bottle. There’s a bottle of painkillers, strong ones. I want you to give me two and then don’t give me another for six hours. Even if I beg.”
I raised an eyebrow at him but shoved my hand into the bag, my fingers closing around the bottle. I handed him two of them and he dry-swallowed them. I put the bottle in the nightstand, shutting it closed. “You need antibiotics. We have to call a doctor,” I said.
Rocco nodded tiredly. “I will. Just need to catch my breath first.”
“How does it feel?” I asked dumbly.
Rocco gave me a grin. “Feels like I’ve been shot,” he said, and I gave a laugh that had an edge of hysteria to it. My heart pounded against my chestplate and I didn’t know how to calm down. Rocco looked at me intensely. “Breathe,bellissima,” he said softly. “Just breathe.” I did as he said, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth again, and I finally was able to calm down. I knew I should get up, go to the couch, but I couldn’t seem to move from this spot.
Rocco grabbed my wrist and tugged me down on his good side to lie next to him. “We both need to rest,” he said, and I felt stiff for just a moment being so close to him before I laid down next to him, trying to relax. I found myself leaning toward him, putting a hand on his chest just to feel his heartbeat. For a tense second, I’d thought he might not make it, and I felt so relieved that he had. As angry as I was towards Rocco now, I would never want him hurt or dead, never want him gone from the world. I didn’t even know if I hated him anymore, not really. I felt strange about Rocco. I still felt a connection to him, still felt close to him in some way, but I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Should I be frightened? Should I be worried that I was going to fall back in love with him? I wouldn’t, right? I could never, after all he’d done to me, after how he’d left me. But he felt warm next to me and my hand on his heart felt familiar, somehow.
Rocco hummed in the back of his throat, drawing me closer. “Thank you,stellina,” he said again, while I was dozing in and out. It was like all the adrenaline had left my body, and as much as my brain screamed at me to get up and get away from him, to not let myself fall back into old patterns, it was like I couldn’t move. It was so familiar, so easy to fall back into even after so many years.
Rocco moved slightly, shifting so that his lips fell on my temple, and he kissed me there, softly. Alarm bells went off in my head, telling me tomove, damnit, to get out of here before I did something stupid, but I couldn’t make my limbs work. All I could do was tilt my head and press my lips against his. He made a pleased sound low in his throat and kissed me back, almost chastely. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said, my voice coming out hoarser than I’d anticipated. Rocco didn’t answer, breathing evenly if a little shallowly due to his wound, and I kept my face tucked up against his chest, under his arm, feeling safe, feeling not alone for the first time in a long time. It felt like coming home.
He slept for hours and hours, and when I woke up he was still snoring, breathing shallowly from the pain in his ribs. I didn’t know if I should wake him or not. In the end I didn’t, letting him sleep through the pain. All I could think about in the hours he slept was what would have happened if he hadn’t made it, if he’d bled out. I didn’t think about how I would have gotten home, or worried about myself in any way. All I could think was that I couldn’t comprehend how he could be gone from this world. It defied the natural order of things, for him not to be around. All the memories we shared, all those times we’d almost been caught by my father or Enzo or the cops, all of that would just be in my memory if he was gone. It would be like I was the only person who truly knew him, the only person who would miss him. It made my stomach feel sick, made my chest feel tight.
