Chapter 7: Safehouse

"Ruggero?" Nerina said, and her voice was a thread. "Ruggero, please say something."

"It's Marisa."

The line went quiet for two heartbeats.

"Mari." A wet breath. "Oh, thank God. Tiberio said there was shooting at the hospital. Are you hurt? Is the baby hurt?"

"We're fine."

"And Ruggero?"

"He's alive. He can't talk right now."

"He's bleeding. I can hear it in your voice. Let me come. Let me help."

"No."

"I just want to be near him. I can't be alone, Mari. You know I can't."

I looked at Ruggero.

His head was back against the seat, and his eyes were closed.

His phone was slick in my hand with his blood.

"Nerina," I said, as gently as I could, "you're twenty-two years old. You have a phone full of people who love you. Tonight, call one of them."

"Mari, please. Don't take him from me."

"I'm not taking anybody."

I ended the call.

Then I turned his phone off, and I put it in my pocket.

Ruggero opened one eye.

"That was cold," he said.

"That was medical advice."

The safehouse was a brick row house in Staten Island with iron bars on the windows and a kitchen that smelled of coffee.

Two of Ruggero's men carried him in, and I carried Rosa.

His doctor, an old man who treated the Salerno family, was already waiting.

I took one look at the old man's tray of thread and said, "Out."

"Signora, I've been stitching this family for thirty years."

"Then you've had thirty years to get better at it. Out."

He went.

I washed my hands to the elbows, and a young soldier held Rosa in a cradle of his arms.

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