Chapter Five: The Truth Greco Spilled
The attack changed the mansion.
Locks multiplied.
Guards doubled.
Doors closed softly but more often.
Nico slept with the toy ambulance under his pillow.
Alara slept with her phone beside her hand and surgical scissors beneath the mattress.
Matteo did not sleep.
She saw him at three in the morning through the library door, sitting in a chair with a glass untouched beside him.
His injured side had reopened.
He hid it badly.
Powerful men were terrible patients.
She entered without knocking.
He did not look surprised.
“Take off the shirt.”
His eyes lifted.
“Dangerous sentence.”
“Medical sentence.”
“Pity.”
She should not have smiled.
She did.
Only a little.
He unbuttoned the shirt.
The wound was angry.
Not infected.
But close.
“You tore stitches.”
“I moved quickly.”
“You bled stupidly.”
“I will remember the distinction.”
She cleaned him in silence.
He watched her face.
Not her hands.
Never her hands.
“You were suspended,” he said.
Alara’s fingers paused.
“Blacklisted.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do.”
“I tried to fix it.”
Her laugh was dry.
“Did you try quietly?”
“Yes.”
“That is why it failed.”
His mouth tightened.
“I made enemies in your hospital.”
“No. I made those.”
“You made one. I made the rest.”
She pressed gauze over the wound.
“Why?”
He looked at the shelves.
At the old books.
At anything but her.
“Because after I left, I kept watching.”
The words entered softly.
Then cut.
Alara stepped back.
“You kept watching?”
“To make sure you were alive.”
“You had men follow me?”
“Yes.”
Her slap cracked through the room before she decided to give it.
Matteo accepted it.
His face turned with the force.
He did not touch his cheek.
He did not apologize.
Not yet.
That made it worse.
“You stole five years of my grief.”
“I know.”
“You watched me lose my career.”
“I know.”
“You paid my grandmother’s medicine like charity.”
His eyes came back.
“Never charity.”
“What then?”
His voice dropped.
“Debt.”
The word was too honest.
Alara turned away.
“Do not dress obsession as honor.”
“No.”
He stood, pale from blood loss.
“It was fear.”
That stopped her.
He took one step.
Then another.
Still not close enough to touch.
“After you saved me, Greco wanted you dead.”
“Greco?”
“He said you saw too much.”
“I saw a patient.”
“You saw me weak.”
“That was not a crime.”
“In my world, it was.”
Alara’s pulse beat in her throat.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have tried to testify.”
She would have.
They both knew it.
“And?”
“And they would have put you in the ground before morning.”
His voice broke on the last word.
Barely.
But enough.
Alara looked at him.
At the man with the cut lip from her slap and the stitched wound beneath his ribs.
At the monster.
At the patient.
At the coward who had left to protect her and the arrogant fool who thought protection could replace truth.
“I do not forgive you.”
“I did not ask.”
“That is smart.”
“I learned slowly.”
A knock came at the door.
Bruno entered without waiting.
His face was wrong.
“Greco is missing.”
Matteo went still.
Don Tomaso appeared behind him.
“One warehouse burned,” Tomaso said. “Two men dead.”
Bruno looked at Alara.
“And this was left at the gate.”
He held out an envelope.
Cream paper.
No stamp.
Alara opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Her apartment door.
Her grandmother’s window.
A red circle around Margot’s face.
On the back, one sentence.
The doctor should have left when the boss told her.
Alara felt the room tilt.
Matteo reached for the photo.
She pulled it back.
“No.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Alara.”
“No more deciding for me.”
“That is your grandmother.”
“Yes.”
Her hand shook.
Then steadied.
“So now we move first.”
Matteo stared at her.
For one second, she saw the old surprise.
The one from the emergency room five years ago.
When he realized the woman saving him was not afraid of blood.
“What do you need?” he asked.
Not what will I do.
What do you need.
That mattered.
Alara handed the photo to Bruno.
“Get Margot somewhere safe.”
Bruno nodded.
Already moving.
Alara faced Matteo.
“And bring me everything you have on Greco.”
Don Tomaso lifted a brow.
“She is a doctor.”
Alara looked at him.
“I am also the woman he underestimated.”
Matteo’s mouth almost curved.
Then the phone on his desk rang.
Once.
Twice.
He answered.
His face changed.
Greco’s voice came through the speaker, amused and ugly.
“Did the pretty doctor enjoy my picture?”
Matteo’s hand closed into a fist.
Alara stepped closer to the phone.
“Not as much as you’ll enjoy mine.”
A pause.
Then Greco laughed.
“You should have stayed dancing, sweetheart.”
Alara looked at Matteo.
Then at the blood on her own cuff.
“No,” she said. “I should have started cutting sooner.”
