Chapter 8: Stitches

My wound split open in the car.

I felt it go on the Brooklyn Bridge, a hot wet tug under my ribs, and I said nothing until Giacomo looked over and saw my hand.

"Stop the car," he said.

"We're almost there."

"Stop the car."

The driver pulled over on the ramp.

Giacomo's jaw was tight.

He came around the back, opened my door, and lifted me out without asking, and I let him.

The safehouse kitchen was dark and warm.

He sat me on the long table under the same lamp, and he rolled out a kit I had last seen in my father's basement.

"The doctor is on a plane," he said.

"I know."

"You'll need three, maybe four stitches. I've done it."

"On who?"

"On myself, mostly. And on Franco. He bleeds loudly."

I laughed, and it hurt.

He didn't smile, but something in his face eased.

"Lie back," he said. "Shirt up. Over the ribs."

I unbuttoned the borrowed shirt and let it fall open on one side.

The dressing was soaked through.

He peeled it away with careful fingers and swore very quietly, in Italian.

"Does it need to be this deep?" I said.

"It's not deep. It's just in a bad place." He pressed gauze to the line. "Hold this. Press."

I pressed.

His hands came over mine, and for a second we were both holding it.

I could feel his pulse in his thumb.

"You're shaking," he said.

"Adrenaline."

"Is it?"

I did not answer.

He worked a needle through the edge of the wound, and it hurt, and I breathed through my teeth, and he said, "Good, that's one, that's one."

His other hand rested flat against my hip to keep me still.

It was a clinical grip, and it burned through the cloth like a coal.

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