Before I Forget His Name novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Nine-Forty

Bruno's men took the corridor that night, and Adriano took the living room.

I lay in the guest bed at half past nine with the lamp on and listened to him walk.

He crossed the floor, turned at the window, and crossed it again.

At nine-forty there was a knock.

He had never once knocked after nine.

I opened the door in my nightshirt with a scarf over my head.

Adriano stood in the hall with his sleeves rolled and his jaw tight.

"I can't sit out there with a wall between us," he said. "Not tonight."

"You have a rule."

"I'm breaking it."

I stepped aside, and he came in and stood by the window with his back to the glass.

"Say what you came to say," I said.

"Aldo's people got into your hospital room. I wasn't there."

"You were across the street."

"That's not close enough." He shut his eyes. "Livia, I can't stand it."

I wanted to give him comfort.

Instead I heard myself say, "Six months."

He looked at me.

My voice shook, and I let it. "You left every room I came into. At the parties, in the halls. You couldn't even be in the same hallway."

"I know."

"Why?"

He took a long time.

"There was a man," he said. "He was reading my face every time you came into a room. He was looking for proof you mattered to me."

"Who?"

"I can't give you that yet."

"Then what did you do?"

"I wrote the text for him." His jaw worked. "That text was never for you. I wrote it so he'd stop looking."

I thought about the one pinned message, which I'd read every night until I knew it by heart.

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