Chapter Eight: Blood On The Ballroom Floor
Alara turned the gala into an operating room.
“Table,” she snapped.
Bruno appeared beside her.
“Now.”
Men lifted Matteo onto a banquet table stripped of flowers and champagne.
Don Tomaso removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves.
Calm.
Precise.
Terrified only in the eyes.
Alara tore fabric.
“Knife.”
A guest stared.
“A clean knife!”
A waiter handed her one with shaking fingers.
She sterilized it with vodka from a shattered bottle.
Not ideal.
Nothing was.
Matteo’s pulse fluttered under her fingers.
Weak.
Angry.
Still there.
“Ambulance is eight minutes out,” Bruno said.
“He has four.”
The room went silent.
Alara opened the wound enough to see.
Blood welled.
Too much.
She packed gauze deep and found the source with touch.
Arterial nick.
Manageable if God behaved and men stopped shouting.
“Hold this.”
Bruno obeyed.
His face grayed.
“Harder.”
“I’ll hurt him.”
“He’s dying.”
Bruno pressed harder.
Alara worked.
Her dress stuck to her knees with blood.
Her hands disappeared into the red.
Her world narrowed to pressure, angle, pulse.
Matteo coughed.
Blood touched his lip.
His eyes opened.
Unfocused.
“Kitchen?”
“No. Ballroom.”
“Worse.”
“Much.”
He tried to breathe.
Failed.
She leaned close.
“Listen to me.”
His eyes found hers.
“You left me once.”
Pain flickered.
“Do not do it again.”
His fingers moved.
Barely.
They touched the hem of her sleeve.
A small, ruined gesture.
“I stayed,” he whispered.
Then went limp.
Alara did not break.
She could not.
“Pulse.”
Bruno checked.
“Faint.”
“Good enough.”
The ambulance arrived to sirens and useless questions.
Alara climbed in with Matteo.
A paramedic tried to stop her.
Bruno looked at him.
The paramedic reconsidered life.
At the private surgical center, they tried to remove her.
She refused.
The lead surgeon recognized her.
“Dr. Quinn, your privileges—”
“Are irrelevant.”
“You are under review.”
“He is under my hands.”
The surgeon hesitated.
Alara stepped closer.
“You can report me after he lives.”
He handed her gloves.
The operation lasted three hours.
The bullet had fractured bone and kissed a vessel without tearing it fully.
Lucky.
Cruel word.
She repaired what violence had touched.
Again.
When it was over, she stood outside recovery with blood dried beneath her nails.
Matteo lived.
Barely.
Bruno sat on the floor against the wall.
Don Tomaso held a rosary he pretended was not a rosary.
Nico arrived before dawn, wrapped in a coat too large for him.
He walked straight to Alara.
“Uncle?”
She crouched.
“Alive.”
“Sleeping?”
“Yes.”
“Because you fixed him?”
Her throat tightened.
“Yes.”
Nico wrapped his arms around her neck.
The hug was sudden.
Small.
Complete.
Alara closed her eyes.
Her hands, which had not shaken during surgery, shook then.
Behind Nico, Don Tomaso watched her with something old and grave in his face.
“You understand now,” he said quietly.
Alara looked up.
“What?”
“Why he feared loving you.”
She held Nico tighter.
“No,” she said. “I understand why fear is not enough.”
Matteo woke twelve hours later.
Alara stood beside the bed.
His face was gray.
His mouth cracked.
His power gone with the anesthesia.
He looked younger.
Almost innocent.
Almost.
His eyes found her.
“Greco?”
“Gone.”
“Nico?”
“Safe.”
“You?”
She looked at his bandages.
“Angry.”
His mouth twitched.
“Good.”
She leaned closer.
“If you ever trade my freedom again, I will let you recover just enough to regret it.”
His eyes softened.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
She touched the blanket near his hand.
Not his hand.
Near it.
“You are going to learn.”
His fingers moved slowly.
They covered hers.
Weak.
Asking.
She let them.
For now.
