I Left the Underboss for the Man Who Remembered Me novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Ones You Didn't Want

Gianna's POV

The nurse called me at ten past nine, and I was out the door before I thought about the note.

"His pressure's dropping," she said. "Come now."

I took a cab to Sunset Park with my shoes in my hand.

My father was awake when I got there, gray against the pillow, with three people around his bed.

He held my fingers for a minute.

"Ettore?" he whispered.

"Working."

"Good." He shut his eyes. "He's a good man. Don't make him wait fourteen years for a thing like that."

"Papa, what thing?"

He was asleep.

The doctor said he was stable.

I sat in the hall with my back against the wall and my heart still going like a hammer.

At eleven I heard fast footsteps.

Ettore came down the corridor with his jacket open and the look of a man who had run up four flights.

He stopped when he saw me.

"You left."

"My father's pressure dropped."

"You left a note on the floor and the salt shaker knocked over and the door open." His voice cracked. "I thought they had you."

"I didn't think."

"I know you didn't."

"Don't shout at me."

"I'm not shouting." He was. "I was gone for two hours, Gianna. Two. I came back and you were gone and I had to stand in my own kitchen and think about what Cesare's people could do to you."

"I'm not a child."

"You're the only person alive who..."

"Say it."

"No."

"You locked me in," I said. "You wrote a note and locked the door of your apartment with me inside, like I'm something you can put in a drawer."

He flinched.

"That's not what it was."

"Then what was it?"

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