Chapter 7: What I See

The Falsetti doctor worked on my sister for three hours.

He put a line in her arm and a machine beside her bed, and he told me the drugs would hold her heart steady until morning.

"Only until morning," he said again at the door. "After that she needs a donor."

"I know."

"Not hers." He looked at me. "Not anyone's I'd take from a living girl."

I thanked him. My voice came out raw.

Costanza slept in a guest room on the second floor, with two guards in the hall.

I sat by her bed until she turned her face on the pillow and stopped frowning.

Then I went out into the corridor and found Ruggiero standing at the window at the end of it, with his back to me.

His right hand hung at his side, wrapped in a bar towel.

Blood had come through it.

"What did you do?" I said.

"Hit a wall."

"Why?"

"Fabrizio said something in the courtyard, and I didn't like how it sounded."

"Ask him about the docks," I said.

He did not answer.

"Show me your hand."

"It's nothing."

"Show me."

He held it out.

I unwound the towel. His knuckles were split open across all four fingers, and the skin around them was swollen.

I took him into the bathroom beside my sister's room and ran the tap.

He sat on the edge of the tub, and I stood between his knees to reach the cut.

It was not the right place to stand, and I knew it.

I held his wrist and washed the blood off one finger at a time. His hand lay in mine, heavy and warm, and he did not flinch at the water.

He flinched when I touched the inside of his wrist with my thumb.

I felt his pulse jump there.

I did not look up.

"This needs stitches," I said.

"Then I'll wear it."

"You'll be wearing it at the Families' table tomorrow. The captain's men will see it and know they got to you."

"They didn't get to me."

"Your hand did."

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