As the runner wheeled Gianna Russo deeper into the back-room, she still turned her head to look back at me.
There was panic in that look, and guilt, and something else she couldn't quite hide. Pity.
As if she were the one who'd won.
And I was the poor fool who'd been kept in the dark, the only one at the table who never saw the cards.
The steel door of the surgery sealed shut.
That left only me and Dario in the guarded room where I patched the Family's wounded.
The air was so heavy I could barely breathe.
Dario stood where he was, watching me with a complicated expression.
I thought he would explain. That he would feel ashamed. That he might even say he was sorry.
But after a moment's silence, his first words left me completely stunned.
"Adriana, I know you're angry."
"But have you ever stopped to think about why we ended up like this?"
I stared at him, almost certain I'd misheard.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Dario wet his lower lip and reached to straighten a tie that was already straight, his face dark.
"You don't understand what I mean?"
"Nine years bound by the blood oath, and every single day it's work, work, another soldier bleeding out on your table. How much of this household have you ever actually managed?"
"On my birthday you were elbow-deep in some shot-up runner. On the night they swore me into the crew you were on call. When my mother took ill you always said you were busy. You couldn't even find the time to sit down and eat a Sunday meal with me."
"Adriana, is there anything in your heart besides that back-room?"
The more he said, the more worked up he got. As if he'd finally found an outlet.
"Every day it's the wounded, the table, your head crammed full of other men's blood."
"But I'm your husband, not one of your patients!"
"Look at yourself. It's the surgeon's gloves and nothing but the gloves, the work and nothing but the work. Bare-faced every single day, you don't even put on a decent dress. Where's there any trace of a woman left in you?"
Word after word, every line landed like a slap across my face.
I stood there, and a cold spread through my whole body.
And Dario wasn't finished.
"I'm a normal man. I need company too, I need someone who cares!"
"Gianna is different."
When he said that name, something even tender surfaced in his eyes.
"She remembers my birthday. She brings me things. She works the knots out of my shoulders when the territory's bled me dry. She'll sit and talk with me, listen to me complain about the men I answer to."
"When I'm with her, that's when I feel like I'm needed."
The room went quiet.
But my ears were ringing.
My heart felt like something was ripping it open, slow and deliberate, each pull leaving me numb with pain.
Nine years.
A full nine years.
I'd gone from a green hand barely trusted to hold a scalpel, grinding my way up step by step to the one cleaner the whole territory called when a soldier couldn't risk a Fed hospital.
Countless nights working blood off my hands before dawn.
Countless men carried in half-dead.
Countless races against the morgue slab.
I'll admit it. I'd shortchanged the family.
But I had never once shortchanged him.
When his crew hit its worst stretch, the tribute came up short and the Family was ready to take it out of his skin.
It was me who handed over every last cent I'd put aside.
Me who swallowed my pride and went to my own bloodline, to the Falcones, to borrow more.
That's what carried him through those impossible months.
He'd be out drinking and entertaining the men he owed until dawn.
No matter how late they dragged me from the surgery, I always left a light on for him.
Kept his dinner warm.
Waited for him to come home.
When his mother was laid low, I was the one who called in every favor I had to find her a quiet surgeon and a safe bed.
I worked the wounded by day.
Sat by her side by night.
Brought her water, fed her, wiped her down, changed the pads.
A full month.
I never once slept through a whole night.
Yet now, the way he told it, I had never cared for this family at all.
He only remembered that I'd missed his birthday. Missed the night they made him.
He'd forgotten all the nights I'd ground myself down for this home, all the hardship I'd swallowed.
Forgotten that what I faced every day was life and death, blood and dying.
Forgotten how terrified I was, every time the phone rang in the dead of night with another man on the brink, that I wouldn't be able to bring him back.
I looked at the man in front of me.
And suddenly he was a complete stranger.
As if in these nine years I'd never truly known him at all.
Seeing me say nothing, Dario took it as confirmation that he'd hit the mark. If anything his expression grew even more self-righteous.
"What? Nothing to say?"
"Adriana, you bear part of the blame for this too."
"If you weren't so cold all the time, like a block of wood no amount of warmth could thaw, I'd never have come to this."
"Now Gianna is carrying my child, my blood, and something this serious has happened."
"You're the cleaner. Saving her is your duty!"
"If you let her die over a grudge between us, that's using your place in this Family for revenge!"
"I'll take it straight to the Don's table!"
"And I'll see to it the whole street hears your name!"
"By then forget the back-room. You won't lay a hand on another wounded man as long as you live!"
As that last line dropped, I suddenly laughed.
Laughed until my eyes burned red.
Laughed until my heart ached.
So it turned out that when it came to a moment like this, the first thing on his mind wasn't to beg me to save her.
It was to threaten me.
With the one thing I cared about most.
With everything I'd spent half my life fighting to earn.
To threaten me.
I closed my eyes slowly.
When I opened them again, the last bit of warmth in them was gone for good.
After a long silence, I drew in a deep breath.
My voice was hoarse, but strangely calm.
"Fine."
Dario faltered.
I lifted my head and looked at him. Every word clear, unmistakable.
"I'll save her."
"But not because of your threat."
"And not because I think I've done anything wrong."
"Dario, remember this."
I lowered my head and smoothed the creases in my coat, my gaze settling on the hands that had pulled more men back from death than he would ever name.
My voice wasn't loud, but every word landed hard.
"I'm saving her only because of the oath I swore over this work."
"From the day I first took up the scalpel for this Family, I made a vow."
"No matter who's lying on that table, no matter what's between her and me."
"As long as there's still breath in her."
"I will not stand by and watch someone die."
With that, I turned and walked toward the surgery.
Behind me was the unreadable weight of Dario's stare.
I didn't look back.
Because from this moment on, he was just the kin of a patient.
Nothing more.
