He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Return Ward

Gemma wakes in a converted pharmacy full of people who got their love back, and decides to file a claim; Fabrizio's video says she is unwell.

Leone grabbed my wrist and pulled me behind the delivery van.

"Get in the back," he said. "Lie flat."

The boots were coming down the alley, fast and heavy.

I climbed into a cargo bay that smelled of rubbing alcohol and bread.

He shut the doors on me and got behind the wheel.

I heard a guard bang on the side of the van.

"You. Seen a woman in a blue dress?"

"Seen a woman in a blue dress," Leone said, "run toward the river about a minute ago. She was crying."

The guard swore, and the boots ran the other way.

I lay on the floor of the van with my heart pounding, and it still felt strange.

My heart was racing for the escape, and for nothing else.

No husband in it, no grief.

The van rolled out of the alley, and Leone didn't speak for six blocks.

"You're not going to ask who I am?" he said at last.

"You said you were a doctor from the Transfer Wing."

"I was."

"Then you drew some of it," I said.

His hands tightened on the wheel.

"Let's get you inside first," he said.

The van stopped in front of an old pharmacy on Via Morello.

The sign over the door had faded to grey, and a hand-lettered card in the window said RETURNS.

Inside, the shelves were gone and iron beds stood in neat rows under bright bulbs.

Half of it was full.

A nurse in worn-out sneakers looked up from a clipboard.

"You found her," she said. "Good. Tell her the coffee's terrible."

"The coffee is terrible," Leone said.

A very old man in a flour-dusted apron sat on the nearest bed, eating a roll.

He raised it at me.

"Welcome to the Returns, signora," he said. "I got four percent back last month. My wife looks lovely again."

"He was talking to his dog about her yesterday," the nurse said. "He's very sentimental now."

"A man is allowed to love his dog and his wife in the same breath," the old man said.

A skinny boy of about nineteen laughed from the cot beside him, a wheezing, delighted laugh.

I stood in the doorway with my heels in my hand and my dress torn at the hem.

I had been Mrs. Montanari for five years.

I had never walked into a room where nobody wanted something from me.

"Sit," Leone said, and pointed at the end bed.

I sat.

He brought a paper cup of coffee and put it in my hands.

It was terrible.

"Tell me how this works," I said. "Plain words, no clinic language."

He pulled a stool over and sat down in front of me.

"When a draw is made," he said, "your love goes into the other person. It doesn't disappear, it moves. Whoever bought it is carrying it right now."

"Paola."

"Paola, or someone she passed it to. A transfer can be reversed if you file a claim with the Board of Families and prove it was obtained by deceit. Then the holder has to give it back, in person, in front of the Board."

"In person?"

"The law says so. They hate it." He almost smiled. "It's the only part of the law I like."

"And what do I have to prove?"

"That you were lied to. That your husband said it was for one thing and used it for another."

I looked at the paper cup.

"He told me the first percent was for her legs," I said. "He never said anything about the rest."

"Did he ever say what the rest was for?"

I thought about it.

He had said Paola needed it.

Every time, Paola needed it.

"No," I said.

"Then that's your deceit," he said. "That, and whatever the ledger shows."

The nurse slid a clipboard across.

"Claim form," she said. "You sign it here, and here, and in blood if you like, but we usually don't ask."

I looked at the first line.

Name of donor.

I wrote GEMMA SARTORI.

Not Montanari.

My hand didn't shake at all.

"It will take nine days to get a hearing," Leone said. "Probably less if he fights it, because he'll make a scene and the Board hates scenes. During that time, your love starts to grow back, a little. But it will hurt."

"Why would it hurt?"

"Because you'll feel every day of those five years," he said. "Properly this time."

I thought of the ballroom, and Fabrizio's thumb on my knuckles.

I thought of what I'd felt looking at him, which was nothing.

"Good," I said. "I want to feel it."

I signed.

The boy on the next cot gave me a thumbs-up.

My phone buzzed in my clutch.

I'd forgotten it was there.

A video had been posted from Fabrizio's own account, fifteen minutes old, and it already had thirty thousand views.

I pressed play.

He was sitting in the ballroom with Donata at his shoulder and Paola crying behind him.

His face was tired and kind.

"My wife has been unwell for some time," he said gently, looking right into the camera. "She isn't herself. She has signed every one of her donations willingly, and I have the forms."

The clip cut to ninety-nine pages fanned across a table.

Every one had my signature on it.

"Please," Fabrizio said, "if you see her, call me. I only want her safe."

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