Chapter 20: Which Way He Runs

Massimo crossed the warehouse in long strides, with his gun up and his eyes on the floor.

An Orsini man lay twenty feet from me, shot through the shoulder. He was dragging himself toward the lieutenant with a knife.

Massimo fired once, and the man stopped.

Then he stood over us, breathing hard, with smoke still coming off the barrel.

"Livia," he said.

I didn't look up.

The blood had soaked through my dress and the young soldier's sleeves.

Under my palm, I felt a pulse that was slow and stubborn.

"Hold the pressure," I told the soldier. "Don't move your hands."

"Livia, are you hurt?"

"No."

"Is it yours?"

"It's his. Back up. You're standing in my light."

He backed up half a step.

"How did you get in?" I asked.

"The gate. I drove through it. I heard the shooting from the road." His voice was raw. "I came for Papa."

"He's behind the table. He's alive."

"And you?"

"I'm working."

He crouched. For a moment I thought he meant to help.

He looked at my hands, and the pale belt, and the torn dress.

He looked at the Corvi lieutenant, a man he had grown up calling an enemy.

Then he looked at me, on the concrete with my knees in the blood.

"You're staying with him," Massimo said.

"If I stand up, he dies."

"I know that." He said it slowly.

"You'd stay with anyone."

"Yes."

His phone rang.

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