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“Are you talking about my mother?” she says, standing at the door.
I sigh and get up. “Maybe letting you walk around the house was a mistake.”
She grabs my shirt. “My mother—what’s—what’s wrong with her?”
My guilt hits full force as I realize that all I have done is take away an innocent woman from her family.
Chapter Seventeen
Alyssa
I wake up to Mary pressing a cold towel to my head. As my eyes flutter open, I see her make the sign of the cross and mutter a quick thank you.
I pull my body upright, or at least I try to. She keeps me lying down in bed. “You’ll get yourself killed, you foolish girl,” she scolds gently.
My head feels like a log of wood, and I can barely keep my eyes open.
“What happened?” I ask her. She pinches my arm firmly, and my eyes fly open at the sharp pain.
“What was that for?” I cry.
“Why did you go snooping in the study? That guard almost killed you!” she cries back.
The recollection of the event makes my eyes fly open. I look at my body and examine my hands, and I look up at Mary, who is watching me.
“Antonio didn’t shoot me?” I ask.
She sighs. “You’re not the only one who is surprised. He usually takes snooping very seriously,” she says.
“I was just curious,” I say.
At that, she pinches me harder. “Does this place seem like an amusement park or something? Curiosity isn’t accepted here. Silly child,” she says, wiping my head. “Thank heavens you are awake now,” she says.
She’s still scolding me, but I am lost in thought. If Antonio figured out I was snooping, why hasn’t he hurt me yet, and why isn’t he here?
“He came to check on you hours ago,” she says as she reads my mind in the middle of her babble. I look up in interest.
“Did he? What did he say when he got here?” I ask.
She shrugs, “Nothing much. He seemed to be going off right away to somewhere else,” she replies.
For some reason, this makes my heart skip a beat. Immediately after Mary leaves, I reach for the phone tucked into the bed, and I whip it out to call Giovanni, but then I stop.
A person like Giovanni can’t be bothered by my predicament. If he learns I can’t serve his interests, he’ll dump me without a second thought. I can’t let that happen. As much as I hate to admit it, I need him to leave this place. I return the flip phone to its hiding place.
“How do I fix this?” I mutter to myself.
I pace the room, worrying over the options and possibilities until I hear a car pull up in the driveway.
I dash to the window, and I lift the blinds just in time to see him get out of the car. I try to read his face. He doesn’t look enraged, which means that he doesn’t think I am trying to betray him.
The way out of this is a simple apology, I tell myself. It takes me hours to devise a proper apology: a truth and a lie.
I walked into your study because I was curious, but I was only looking through some books. I love books. I didn’t think it would be a problem.
I practice my speech and my broad smile. Before I go, I mess up my hair, roughing it up a bit so he sees that I am still quite sick, and so he won’t go so hard on me. I inhale, tell myself that I can do it, and begin to walk to his study.
“Yes, sir. One more thing. The mother has been admitted to the hospital. Her condition is severe.”
