Chapter 6: Stitches

"Sit down," I said.

"No."

"Emanuele, sit on the edge of that bathtub, or I'll tell your sister you bled on the carpet."

He sat.

His bathroom was white marble with a shower the size of my childhood bedroom.

I found the first aid kit under the sink.

It was a real one, with surgical thread and a curved needle in a sealed packet.

"You've done this before," I said.

"Twice on myself. It's harder than it looks."

He pulled his shirt over his head, and I forgot what I was going to say.

He was lean and broad, olive skin over hard muscle, with a scatter of dark hair running down to his belt.

Across the lowest ribs on his left side ran a gash, long and ragged, held shut with black stitches.

Three of them had torn.

Blood ran from the break down into his waistband.

"That's a bullet," I said.

"It's a graze with ambitions."

"It cracked a rib. I can see the bruise."

"It's cracked."

"You've been walking around with a cracked rib for four days?"

"I've been busy."

I washed my hands in his sink with water so hot it hurt.

"Hold still."

"Raffaella, you're an art historian."

"I study panel paintings, and I've mended split canvas since I was seventeen."

I threaded the needle.

"Skin can't be harder than linen."

"That's not a medical opinion."

"It's the one you get."

I knelt between his knees on the cold tile and set the first stitch.

He took the needle in his skin without a sound.

His hands gripped the tub on either side of him, and I watched his knuckles go white.

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