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He’s fighting for me.
“I think the bleeding has slowed down.” I open my eyes long enough to see we’re taking an on-ramp onto a highway—Route 80—heading east, going home. “But it will still be a couple hours. Is there any way we can meet between here and there? Yes, with the doctor, goddammit! What do you think? How the fuck did Vitali know about the safe house?”
He’s frantic, losing his grip. I want to tell him to calm down and there’s nothing to freak out about. I’m actually feeling kind of good now. The pain has subsided a little, and a warm, comfortable feeling replaces it, like being wrapped in thick blankets on a cold day.
I would tell him all those things, only I can’t get up the strength to speak. It’s so much easier to let the darkness enfold me and pull me down deep.
It’s quiet.
My eyes open slowly, and the first thing I notice is the soft pillows behind my head. I’m lying on my back under a thick, down comforter. There’s a little table to my left where bottled water and tissues sit, and beyond that is a window where thin light trickles in between the closed slats of the blinds. Morning or dusk? I can’t tell. But I’m comfortable.
It’s a good start.
Then, I remember everything all at once, the shooting, so vivid in my memory that I can hear the bullets tearing through the wood around us. I can smell the smoke in the blood.
My blood.
I look down at my right arm, surprised to find my sweater replaced by a white, sleeveless nightgown. Large gauze pads cover me from my shoulder to halfway to my elbow. I move a little and don’t feel any pain, noting they must’ve given me something for it.
But who are they?
And where am I?
“You’re awake.”
My startled gasp rings out as I turn my head to find a stranger sitting in an armchair to the right of my bed. Even if he didn’t look so much like his son, I would recognize him on sight. “Mr. Santoro,” I croak, noting his distinctive silver hair and a nose permanently flattened after being broken one too many times. My throat is so dry like I haven’t had anything to drink in days.
“Miss Washington.” His voice is deep, gravelly. “Or should I say, Detective Washington?”
The blood freezes in my veins. He must know how frightening this is. No doubt he’s taking a little bit of pleasure in it. “I didn’t think you knew that,” I whisper.
“I know a lot of things now.” He folds his thick hands in his lap, and I have to deliberately stop myself from wondering how many lives those hands have snuffed out. “You see, my son had no choice but to confess everything if there was any chance of allowing you in my home.”
His home? He took me to his father’s compound? How could he do that? Why would he do it? “He could’ve left me at a hospital,” I whisper more to myself than to him.
The lines at the corners of his dark eyes deepen, and he even chuckles. “Yes, I told him the same thing. How interesting to find we think along the same lines, you and I.”
Here’s hoping that’s where the similarities end. I may have made the mistake of getting too close to his son, but the father is another matter. I can barely keep my thoughts together under the weight of his judgmental gaze. “Where is he?”
His thin, forced humor dies, replaced by stony refusal. “That’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“But he’s all right?” My heart pounds as I search his face, desperate for confirmation that Luca hasn’t been punished for rescuing me.
This is not a man who allows his true reactions to show. He can’t afford it. Nobody in a position of power can. Yet his eyes fly open wide in the split second before he reins himself in. “And you care… why?”
“Because I do. He tried so hard to help me when I was injured. He defended me.” It sounds silly now that I’ve said it out loud, but I’m not going to take it back. It’s a much safer admission than the one that would directly answer his question.
I’m reasonably sure I fell for Luca somewhere along the way.
He scoffs before his mouth tightens into a smirk that makes him look painfully similar to his son. “All in all, he’s fine,” he reports, answering my original question. “Not as all right as he would have been had you never darkened his doorstep, of course. It’s been a relief for his mother to have him home these past few days.”
“Couple of days?” I try to lift my head, but the room starts spinning.
“Relax,” he urges in a deceptively soft voice. “No need to worry. Yes, you’ve been asleep all this time. My wife was generous enough to help clean you up and even gave you one of her nightgowns. You lost a great deal of blood, but our family doctor got you stitched up and thinks you’ll be just fine. Although, I hate to say it…”
My heart forgets to beat for a second. “What?”
“It looks like you’ll be on desk duty from now on, Detective. He said there’s a good chance of nerve damage, and that’s your dominant hand. Sorry about that.” The twitching of his lips conveys a very different sentiment.
