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Last night’s events flash through my head. Flickering lights. Dom pushing me into the car. Popping noises, and then the vision of Dom’s shoes.
“Hey,” Corrado barks. “Stay with me.”
I shake my head. “Sorry. I started thinking about last night.”
“It’s okay. Try to grab ahold of your thoughts before the bad ones grab you.” He guides my hand toward the wound, and as I aim the gun at it, he depresses my finger over the trigger switch.
At first, a pointy, circular, green light shoots out of the barrel. The color changes to red, and the beam spreads all over the wound. The sizzling noise makes me cringe, and he hisses as his skin burns. Yet he doesn’t stop. He guides my hand over the entire wound. Front, then back, while he grips the counter with his other hand, his knuckles turning white.
I try to pull away, but he says, “Continue.”
“It’s causing you pain.”
“Continue,” he pronounces slowly.
The result is a neatly closed wound and a very pale Corrado.
“Can you see the stitches?” he asks.
“Mmhm. They’re holding.”
“Use a forceps and take them out.”
“Oh no. Let it heal.”
“Fuck, Michela, do what I say.”
I stick out my hand palm up. “Give it.”
Once he hands me the forceps, I’m as careful as a surgeon removing last night’s stitches from a mostly seared-off wound.
“You know,” I say once I’m almost done, “you can take something for the pain.”
“Pain meds interfere with my thinking process.”
“Wow. You can’t let go of your self-control, not even when it’s counterproductive to healing and feeling better.”
“I’m not here to feel better. I’m here to feel my best. And I’ll get there when I figure out my next move. This thing with Dom and his father screwed up my plans. I’m strategizing new ones, and for it all, I need a working body.”
Corrado releases the counter and goes to kiss me again, but I press two fingers over his lips. “Are you hungry?”
He doesn’t even take a second before he sits behind the bar. “Only if you’re cooking.”
I grab the eggs from the fridge, find cheese, then look in the pantry for dried bacon bits. Bingo. “This house is well stocked.”
“Mmhm.”
“But people don’t really live here.”
“You’re right. Drago restocks it.”
“Is it a house kind of like the one I house-sat for?”
Corrado purses his lips. “Kind of, yes.”
“How many such safe places are there?”
“What’s with the 411?”
