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I lift my hand and watch it drift toward his face, slow and unsteady, like I'm not the one moving it. My fingers find his bottom lip. Warm. I press there, checking if the smile is real.

"Hello there," I tell him, the sound raw and rough.

His hand closes around my wrist. Big. Rough. Gentle. I expect him to push me away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he presses his mouth against my skin, holding it there for a moment, looking as if he’s unsure what he’s allowed to do.

The ceiling is still wrong. The room still rocks. But his thumb moves slowly over the inside of my wrist, over my pulse, and I think…

Is he counting?

I want to ask him what we are. Where my other shoe went. Whose blood is dried on his broken knuckles.

If I'm safe.

Did he kill the man who slapped me?

Nothing comes out though. My eyes are too heavy. The dark is rolling back in, gentler this time.

"You—" I manage. My fingers curl against his lip. "You said six minutes."

I feel rather than hear the sound he makes. Low in his chest. My hand goes slack in his.

I fall asleep with my fingertips still touching his mouth.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Valentino

I’m watching Amanda sleep as I wait for Bruno to answer.

She's on her side, one hand curled under her chin like a kid who fought bedtime and lost. My jacket is still wrapped around her shoulders. I should be making this call in the other room where she can't hear, but I couldn' t make myself leave her.

"Valentino." Bruno's voice is thick with sleep. "This better be the building's on fire kind of call."

"It might as well be." I step into the hall. "I killed Aldo Basile."

The line goes dead quiet.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Bruno says it slowly, each word careful, like he's hoping this is a joke, hoping I'm just drunk.

So I tell him.

I tell him the way you report a hit. Clean, no fluff. No gaps for him to crawl into, to ask how I feel. The room. Three men. Amanda on the floor. The phone. The bruise on her cheek. Aldo crawling for his gun. How I beat him to death instead.

He’s silent for a long time. He’s running the scenarios, calculating how bad this is. How much I’ve cost him.

Don Enzo Basile's youngest son. Dead by a Sartori hand. It will certainly cause problems.

"Where are you now?"

"Safe house outside the city. The one off the Bergamo road." I glance back through the gap I left in the door. She hasn't moved. "I've got Elio and her. Luca's coming here too. He pulled surveillance and he's an hour out."

Bruno curses.

"Did they—" He stops. He's a hard bastard, Bruno. Few things make him pause. But this…

"I got there." It's the most I can give him and the least he'll accept. "I don't know everything they did before. Not yet."

He breathes out, rough. "Fifteen minutes," he says. "I'll get everyone on. Stay put. Don't move her unless I say so. Don't talk to anyone, don't call anyone, don't—" He cuts himself off. Bruno's smart enough to know that telling me how to do this is like telling water to be wet. "Fifteen minutes," he says gentler this time. "We'll figure it out."