He Let Me Die for Her, So I Refused His Ring novel · Chapter 32 of 32
Chapter 32: The Ring in the Barrel
Bianca lay propped on three pillows in a private room with a drain in her side and a Corvi guard on the door.
She looked small.
I stood at the foot of the bed with my chart in my hand, because I had not been able to think of what else to do with it.
"You came," she said.
"You asked."
"I didn't think you would." She turned her face on the pillow. "I wanted to ask you a thing, and I can't find the right way."
"Say it badly."
"Was it ever mine? The ring? Did I ever have a chance at it?"
I thought about it honestly, because she deserved that.
"Massimo would have given it to you if you'd stayed," I said. "And you'd have hated every Sunday dinner."
She laughed, and it hurt her, and she pressed a hand to the dressing.
"I would have."
"You'd have been unhappy and rich, in a chair with your name on it."
"That's what I was afraid of."
"I know. It's why I didn't take it, either."
She was quiet for a while.
"Ettore's man left the passport on the table," she said.
"Then it's yours."
"I don't know if I'm brave enough to use it."
"You were brave enough to shout 'Now' in the dark," I said. "Use it when the stitches come out. Don't call me from Paris unless you want something that isn't a favor."
"Will you answer if I write?"
"Once a year," I said. "On the day you were shot. I'll write back."
It was the most I had.
She nodded, and her eyes filled.
I left a card with the surgeon's name on the table, and I walked out past the guard into the corridor, and I did not look back.
That autumn the rain came off the harbor and ran down the kitchen window on Van Brunt Street in long gray streaks.
We had two chairs now, and a table between them with a coffee ring on one corner that I'd put there.
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