Page 29 of Final Reckoning

14

Get A Priest In Here

Christmas Day

“More turkey, dear?”one of the nonnas asks me. I can’t remember her name; I haven’t met her before today.

“Not right now, she doesn’t,” the nurse announces as she hurries in. “I need to check her vitals.”

The Adamos have invaded the hospital.

Thanks to Tonio, who’s one of the medical center’s major benefactors, we have a whole wing to ourselves. In typical Adamo fashion, the clan has brought enough food for an army, along with trees, gifts, tinsel, and every other imaginable trapping of Christmas.

“I’m stuffed,” I tell the nonna while the nurse wraps a pressure cuff around my arm. “But thank you.”

Next to me – right next to me, because our beds are pushed together – Matteo’s monitors are beeping. Officially, I’m here for observation. In reality, they were ready to release me, but I refused to leave.

When the charge nurse told me I couldn’t stay, I told her I’d break my own leg if I had to. She didn’t take that well, but then Tonio showed up and smoothed the way.

I’ve heard about the invasions, and of course I witnessed both my sisters’. Even so, being the invadee is a bit overwhelming. There’s no such thing as a quiet moment.

My sisters and their men are both here. So is Matteo’s family. When Alma came in and saw her son for the first time in two and a half years … well, things got pretty emotional. Even Matteo had some dust in his eyes.

The nurse sticks a thermometer in my ear, then checks my pulse. “All good,” she says. “You can leave–” her eyes go to Matteo–”as soon as things are stable.”

Thank goodness he was wearing a bulletproof vest last night. My sudden drop threw Santiago off. Since Matteo had a gun and Santiago was now a clear target, he switched focus.

His first shot almost missed, but scored a groove in Matteo’s thigh. His second, though, struck the same spot as Matteo’s previous injury. So now those ribs are bruised all to hell on top of the earlier damage.

A little girl, maybe three years old, comes up to Matteo’s bed. All the children have brought their favorite stuffed animals from home to cheer us up. She’s holding a well-loved lamb, which she offers him with great solemnity.

“Thank you,” he says with equal gravity, and takes the animal. “What’s your lamb’s name?”

“Lammie,” she says shyly.

“Good name. Does Lammie have a favorite story?”

My heart is doing all sorts of strange gyrations, watching them together. The little girl is not at all frightened of the huge man with the scarred face, and he’s been so patient and kind with all the children.

A woman comes over and gently guides the little girl away after Matteo returns her lamb. He watches her go, then turns to look at me. Our gazes catch, and hold, for a long moment.

He’s been sending me looks that say very clearly if not for the invasion, we’d be in one bed instead of two, bruised ribs or no. But his expression now is something altogether different, and it makes my heart burst in my chest, then knit itself together again.

Last night, his first shot hit Santiago in the chest – but the man was sane enough to not believe himself immortal, and he wore a vest too. Matteo’s second shot, as he was falling, struck high on Santiago’s shoulder, spinning him toward me. It slowed him down, though, enough that I had time to get my gun free.

Santiago’s bullet grazed my scalp. It hurt like hell and bled a lot, but wasn’t life threatening.

I blew his brains out.

Bree’s already talked to me about seeing the same counselor she did after her own ordeal. I’m sure it’s a good idea. For now, though, I’m pretty much at peace with what happened.

Santiago made an endless series of choices that led to that moment, any one of which might have spared him if he’d chosen differently. Being the instrument of his death is not something I would have sought, but I don’t feel any guilt about it.

Matteo reaches out and takes my hand, and as if by a prearranged signal, the room falls silent.

“We’ve had hardly any time,” he says to me, “and no kind of normal. If I could ask you for just one gift, it would be this: that you give me the chance to do this right. The chance to give you time, and togetherness, and normalcy.”

My eyes are suddenly full of tears. It takes a few seconds, and a lot of concentration, to will them away. “I can do that,” I say, in a voice that comes out in a croak.

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