"Dario, what if something happens to me too?"
Gianna curled up against the headboard of the back-room cot, her eyes red-rimmed, her voice thick with tears.
"I'm really scared."
Dario sat at the bedside, holding her hand with absurd care, his voice impossibly gentle.
"Don't let your mind run wild."
"The work's done. You're going to be fine."
But the more he soothed her, the harder she cried.
"But my stomach hurts so much..."
"My head's spinning, I keep feeling sick, my whole body's wrong."
As she spoke, the tears kept falling, one after another. Her free hand drifted up and touched her own collarbone, as if steadying her heart.
"Dario, do you think the Falcone woman did it on purpose?"
"She hates me so much. What if she did something while she had me open on that table..."
For a moment the room went quiet. Even the low hum of the generator behind the wall seemed to hold its breath.
I pushed open the door and walked in.
Gianna's voice cut off mid-sentence.
The instant she saw me, her face paled, and she shrank back into Dario's arms on instinct.
As if I were some monster.
Dario looked up.
The last trace of civility was gone from his eyes.
"Adriana, you're just in time."
"Gianna's been in pain this whole time, dizzy, nauseous."
"What exactly did you do to her on that table?"
I lowered my head and paged through the notes I keep that never see a Fed's eye.
My voice was calm.
"Mild abdominal pain, nausea, and dizziness after the kind of work I did are all normal."
"The anesthetic hasn't fully cleared her system yet, and her body's still recovering from the blood loss. This is to be expected."
"A few days lying low and it'll ease up."
The words had barely left my mouth.
Dario let out a cold laugh.
"Normal?"
"Normal would have her hurting like this?"
"I think you're settling a personal score!"
I looked up at him.
And suddenly explaining felt pointless.
"If you doubt the work, bring it to a sit-down. Have the Don's own cleaner look her over."
"Every cut I made, every stitch, every result. It's all there for anyone with standing to see."
"If it really was my hand at fault, I'll answer for every consequence. To you. To the Family."
Dario laughed, beyond furious.
He shot up from his chair, the metal frame screeching against concrete.
"Answer for it?"
"What could you possibly offer?"
"If something really happens to Gianna, can you afford what that costs?"
The air in the room grew tighter and tighter.
All at once, the exhaustion hit me to the bone.
I hadn't slept the night before.
I'd been on my feet all day, keeping the Family's wounded off the morgue slab, right up to now.
And on top of it, I had to stand here and take baseless accusations from the man my bloodline financed and the outsider woman he'd put in my place.
Body and mind, I was at my limit.
I closed the file.
"Think whatever you want."
"There are other men I have to keep breathing tonight."
"Find a nurse if you need anything."
With that, I turned to leave.
The next second.
A hand seized my arm, hard.
"You stay right there!"
Dario clamped down on me.
The grip was tight enough to crush bone.
I frowned and wrenched my arm free.
And it was right then.
A scream came from the cot.
"Aah—"
Gianna's eyes rolled back, and she dropped straight down, stiff as a board.
"Gianna!"
Dario's face changed in an instant.
He all but threw himself at the bedside.
"Gianna! Wake up!"
"Don't scare me!"
But no matter how he shook her, she didn't respond.
His head snapped toward me.
That look could have devoured someone.
"Adriana!"
"What did you do to her!"
I stood where I was.
It was simply absurd.
"I didn't do anything."
"You're still trying to talk your way out of it!"
Dario crossed the room in a few strides.
He grabbed me by the collar of the coat I wore over blood I'd already washed off twice that day.
His eyes were bloodshot.
"It was you, it had to be!"
"You did something on the sly while you had your hands on her!"
"You poisonous bitch!"
"If Gianna doesn't wake up tonight, there is no corner of this Family that will shield you from me!"
The words landed.
He raised his hand.
And slapped me hard across the face.
"Crack—"
The sharp sound of it exploded through the room.
My head snapped to the side.
Blood welled at the corner of my mouth.
Everyone in the room froze.
Even the nurse who'd just stepped in stood rooted in place, her hand still on the door.
Dario seemed not to have expected he'd actually do it.
He stared at his own palm.
A flicker of panic crossed his eyes.
He wet his lower lip and reached up to straighten a tie that was already straight.
But that flicker lasted only an instant.
It was swiftly buried under rage again.
"You brought this on yourself."
He said it.
As if every wrong here were mine.
As if he weren't the one who'd broken the oath that bound him to my blood.
As if the woman lying on that cot were the real victim.
I lifted my head slowly.
My cheek burned.
But inside I was strangely calm.
So calm there wasn't a single ripple.
So it turned out that when your heart truly dies.
You can't even feel the pain.
I gently pushed him off.
Straightened the rumpled coat.
Then set the crooked pin on my chest straight again.
Through all of it I said nothing.
Then I turned and left.
And never looked back.
Back in the room they let me keep at the edge of the compound.
I sat in the chair, silent for a long time.
The handprint on my face still throbbed faintly.
Outside the window the sun was bright.
But I couldn't feel a trace of its warmth.
After a long while, I took out my phone.
And called a woman I'd come up with, back before the Family bound my name to Dario's.
She handled reckonings now, the kind brought before the Don.
"Draw up the papers for me. The full reckoning. Everything I'm owed back."
There was a pause on the other end.
"You've finally decided?"
I gave a quiet "Mm."
My voice was calmer than even I expected.
"The sooner the better."
After I hung up.
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.
Nine years bound to that bloodline.
It had finally come to an end.
My phone suddenly rang.
I thought she'd texted back.
I answered without even glancing at the screen.
Donna Winslow's shrill, grating voice came crashing down on me.
"You shameless, worthless woman!"
There was the click of her tongue against her teeth, twice, before the venom came.
"I must have been blind to ever let your name be tied to the Conti household!"
My hand tightened around the phone.
On the other end she was still screaming her curses.
"It's bad enough you can't give my son a child of your own!"
"And now you won't let anyone else carry one either!"
"How can you be this vicious!"
"Dario told me everything!"
"That girl is carrying the Conti bloodline's child, and you nearly put her in the ground!"
"What ectopic pregnancy?"
"I've lived this long and never even heard of such a thing!"
"You're the one with the knife, surrounded by your own people, who knows if you're behind this whole thing!"
"Let me tell you, Adriana!"
"If anything happens to my grandson, there is no Don, no famiglia, no name that will keep me off you!"
One vicious line after another came pouring through.
I sat there in the quiet room at the edge of the compound.
And suddenly I laughed.
Laughed until my eyes went red.
So even now.
They still believed.
I was the one in the wrong.
