Chapter 7: Clean Hands

The bullet missed his heart by the width of a thumb.

Dominic woke on the fourth day in a private clinic outside Armonk.

He had a tube in his arm, and I was asleep in the chair beside his bed.

His fingers closed around mine, and I jerked awake.

"Don't," I said, because he'd started to sit up.

"The baby," he said.

"Fine. The doctor listened to the heartbeat twice this morning."

"You?"

"Not a scratch."

His eyes closed, and I watched the muscle in his throat work.

"I've been shot three times in my life," he said.

"That's the first time I was glad to be in the way."

A phone buzzed on the tray beside his bed.

It was the number the consigliere had told me never to answer.

I answered it.

"Signora," said a warm, friendly voice.

"This is Aldo Pellegrino."

"I understand my four boys are your guests."

"They are," I said.

"They'll go home when the man who sat in your sedan comes here and tells my husband why."

Aldo laughed softly.

"You're pregnant," he said.

"Congratulations."

"The sedan was not my idea, and I have a very sorry story about a hot-headed nephew."

"Then bring me the nephew," I said.

The line went quiet, and Dominic's eyes opened and stayed on my face.

"Tuesday," Aldo said finally.

"At the Poughkeepsie yard."

"No weapons, and my four boys on their own feet."

"Tuesday," I said, and hung up.

Dominic stared at me.

"You hung up on Aldo Pellegrino," he said.

"He called my husband's phone."

For the first time since I'd met him, he laughed, and then pressed his hand to his side and swore.

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