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“I’ll drive you both to the hospital,” Mia says quickly as Jimmy and Angelo and Dante move Nico to the car, Jimmy still holding pressure on the wound.
I follow Mia, trying not to look at Nico, trying not to look at the blood soaking his white shirt red.
I feel like I’m standing outside my body, as if I’m on the outside looking in, and its disconcerting.
At the hospital, the police ask a million questions but all of us just keep saying we don’t know, that he was in a bad part of town and he must have gotten caught in the crossfire. They don’t seem to believe us but none of us care.
They can’t charge us for bringing in an injured man.
I keep thinking of all the blood, of Nico’s face, how pale he was, almost gray.
I keep rubbing my stomach, waiting and waiting.
Francesca comes to me after speaking with the doctors.
“It’s an artery around his heart,” she says in a shaky voice. She’s holding together so much better than I thought. “He’s lost a lot of blood. They’re taking him to surgery to remove the bullet now.”
“God,” I whisper, and I hug her tightly. She’s shaking all over.
“I have to call Mama,” she murmurs, and I let her go and she walks outside of the hospital.
Mia takes my hand. “You need to sit down. You fainted just a little while ago.”
I listen to her, letting her take me to a chair.
I haven’t completely broken down yet, not since I fainted, and now I’m feeling it approach like a freight train.
“God, Mia, what am I going to do?” I ask, searching her face, tears bursting from my eyes.
She looks at me and she doesn’t have an answer.
I break, burying my face in my hands, and Mia just keeps rubbing my back, not knowing what else to do.
30
NICO
Idream of Aurora. I dream of her with her eyes puffy from sleep, with her nightie bunched up, how she writhes beneath me. I dream of her in that little bikini she wore at the safe house, looking up at me with wide brown eyes.
I remember hitting Marco, beating him so thoroughly that his face was unrecognizable. I remember Angelo’s pale, drawn face as I looked up at him. I don’t remember being hurt. I don’t know where I am when I open my eyes, looking up at the ceiling.
“Nico?” someone says, some sweet voice that I know deep in my heart, and I look over to see Aurora staring at me with wide brown eyes. “Oh my god, he’s waking up,” she chokes, and I reach out for her and there’s a stab of pain in my chest that makes my breath hitch in my throat.
“Principessa,” I choke out, but my mouth is so dry that I can’t make more words. I clear my throat, and as if reading my mind, Aurora brings me a glass of water with a straw.
I sip it gratefully. “What happened?” I croak.
“You were shot,” she says, and then she bursts into tears.
I want to take her into my arms but I can’t move and it’s torture to just watch her with her face in her hands.
“Principessa,” I manage. “Look at me. Look into my eyes.”
She does, her brown eyes wet with tears as they stream down her face.
“I’m okay,” I say, although I’m not completely sure I am. “I’m alive.”
“It’s been two days,” she gasps out between sobs. “You had to have open-heart surgery and you’ve been on a ventilator for two days. You started breathing on your own, so they took it out but then you wouldn’t wake up.”
