Chapter 10: Don't Put This in a Book

"Mostly?" I said. "Mostly?"

"It's a scratch."

"Scratches don't leave handprints on doors!"

Rosalba came down the back stairs at a run, in pajama pants and her big glasses, with a red tackle box under one arm.

Nonna was right behind her with a pot of water and a bottle of grappa.

"Shirt off," Rosalba said.

"Rosie, it's fine."

"Shirt off, or I cut it off, and it's your good one."

He unbuttoned it with one hand, and I did the rest.

A long, raw furrow along his left ribs.

It wasn't a hole.

I sat down very hard on the bench next to him.

"Siobhan," Rosalba said, all business. "Phone flashlight. Right here. Don't move it."

I held up my phone.

My hand was shaking so badly the light jumped all over his chest.

He reached over and closed his hand around my wrist.

The light went still.

"Better," Rosalba said.

Nonna poured grappa on a clean towel and pressed it to his side without warning.

He said a word in Italian that made Nonna slap the back of his head.

Then she poured him a glass of the grappa too, and drank one herself.

"Why isn't he going to a hospital?" I asked.

"Hospitals call the police on gunshots," Rosalba said, threading a curved needle. "And I'm in my third year. I'm basically a hospital."

"Hold still," Nonna told her grandson in English, very clearly, and then sat on his other side and took his free hand.

"Talk to me," he said. "Like the messages."

"About what?"

"Anything. What did you do today?"

"I went to see my father. I said the word "sold" to his face."

Rosalba's needle stopped.

"Well," Luciano said through his teeth. "That's a lot."

"I told him he can't come to dinner until he goes to a meeting."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Oops, My Online Ex Is the Mafia Don from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.