Her eyes are wide, wet.
“The doctor who treated me, I didn’t know he’d been killed.”
“Cristiano, don’t.”
“Tell me about the damage. Tell me what you knew.”
She shakes her head. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“There’s something and we both know it.”
She looks down to Cerberus, who whines, then back up at me.
“You’re like a grandmother to me. You always have been. I need you to tell me the truth, Lenore. I have so few people in my life that I can trust.”
“I just…” she shakes her head, breaking off, wringing the towel in her hand. “He…they kept you comatose for so long.”
“Go on.”
“You were fighting to wake up. You almost did a few times.” She stops, shakes her head and she won’t look at me when she continues. “But I’m not a doctor. I don’t understand these things and they said you needed the time to heal.”
The morning my brother found me I was close to death. The coma had been induced to help me heal. This six-years long sleep.
“But you didn’t think I needed that time?”
“I don’t know, Cristiano. I just know you tried to wake up. I saw it a few times myself. Felt it when you squeezed my hand.”
She could be wrong. That squeezing of the hand, isn’t that just the body’s muscles working without direction from the brain? She’s right, she’s not a doctor. And neither am I. All I’ve had to go on is what I’ve been told and all I could do was trust it to be the truth.
“What did my uncle say to you the other night?” I ask, changing direction.
She looks down, then pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes.
“What did he say, Lenore?”
It takes her a full minute to look back up at me.
“He said it could have been worse for Alec.” She wipes her face which is wet now with tears.
My jaw tenses. My hands fist and relax. “And how did you think he meant that? As a comfort?”
“Don’t ask me that, Cristiano. Do not ask me that. My nephew was shot twice protecting your wife. That’s all I know.” She shifts her gaze away from mine at that last part.
“Do you resent Scarlett for that? Blame her somehow?” I ask because I hear her tone and it’s not the first time she’s said something that has made me question.
She closes her eyes, shakes her head and takes a long time to open them again. “No, Cristiano. I don’t even know why I said that. She’s innocent. I know it.”
There’s more. I see it in her worried expression. “If you’re afraid, know that I’ll keep you and Alec safe. I promise.”
“He wasn’t safe that night.”
I grit my teeth, take a deep breath in. She’s right. “It won’t happen again. I’ll lay my own life down before I let anyone hurt you or Alec.”
“No, that’s not…I love you like I love him. Like I loved my daughter. Like I loved Mara. Love her,” she corrects. But she’s wavering now between past and present. Loved. Love. Has she given up hope after all these years?
Her eyes fill up again and I see so much sadness, but she wipes it away and forces an almost smile. “I’m an old woman, but Alec, he’s so young.”
“I promise, Lenore.”
She nods, looks down at the floor then walks backward to sit down.
“The medicine they were giving you to keep you in the coma, I asked about it. I asked your uncle, and I asked another doctor and did a little research. Maybe I shouldn’t have. I could have put you in danger. I know that.”
“What did you learn?”
“David knew if it was used for a prolonged period, it could—would—cause permanent memory loss.”
He knew?
The door opens then and Antonio walks in. He stops just inside the door.
Lenore and I both turn to look at him.
“We’ve got a problem,” he says.
“What is it?”
“Dante.”
My heart drops to my stomach. “Is he okay?”
“For now. But we need to go.”
I nod and as I cross the kitchen, I think about them all. All the people who need me to keep them safe. Scarlett. Lenore. Alec. Dante. Even Cerberus needs me. So many people depending on me and what have I wanted all this time? Vengeance. And then? And then death. I won’t deny that anymore. It’s selfish. I’m selfish.
But maybe in my case, dead is better.
I’m just about to walk out of the kitchen when Lenore calls my name. “Cristiano.”
I stop, turn.
“He knew,” she says. “They gave you more of those drugs when you started to wake up to keep you asleep. He knew all along. And that doctor,” her expression is one of disgust. “That doctor was on his payroll.”
19
Cristiano
“Where is he?”
Antonio and I are on the chopper along with two soldiers.
“I know one of the officers. He took him home. No arrest was made.”