Page 95 of The Thief

49

ANTONIO

Iopen my eyes, and fluorescent light sears my retinas. Machines beep shrill warnings. Heads bend over me, their voices a low, panicked murmur.

I’m in a hospital. It should worry me, but I feel detached. Disconnected from everything that’s happening around me. I’m untethered. Like a boat adrift on troubled waters or a kite caught in a storm, tossed here and there by gusts of wind, I drift through the darkest years of my life.

I touch down in my first foster home. I didn’t think I had any memories of that place, but the thick, cloying aroma of the rose-tinted prayer candles fills my nose. And the bawling. Six babies, cribs side by side in a too-small room, crying all the time.

I moved into my second foster home when I was two. Then another and another. I lost track of how many there were. When I was six, I ended up with Alia Radulescu. Alia had blonde hair and a kind smile, and the first time I laid eyes on her, I thought she was an angel.

I was determined to stay there. But Alia’s partner, Peter, believed in harsh discipline, the kind enforced by liberal beatings with a belt. And Alia was too afraid to protest.

The day after my tenth birthday, I fought back. I was out of her home six weeks after that.

I’d been there four years—long enough to think of Alia as my mother. I’d hoped she would fight for me, but she didn’t.

No one ever did.

Lucia would have fought for you if you hadn’t sent her away.

I hear Dante’s voice in the distance. “He was fine,” he says, sounding hard and desperate. “The bullet grazed him—nothing more. Now he’s collapsed. What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s a bone chip,” the doctor replies. “Fragments of the bone have caused damage to the surrounding blood vessels. Our scan shows that it’s lodged in Signor Moretti’s pulmonary artery, restricting blood flow to his lungs, which are at risk of collapsing. Unfortunately, we can’t yet operate.”

“Why not?” Dante demands.

“His blood pressure is too unstable. If it doesn’t improve in the next few minutes. . .”

Then I’m going to die.

“Is there a wife? A family?”

“A girlfriend,” Dante says. “Lucia. I’ll get her.”

She won’t come,I try to say, though words don’t leave my mouth.She has no reason to. Not after the way I hurt her.

The beeping intensifies. “His vitals are dropping!” someone yells. “What should we do? If we don’t get into the operating room now?—”

The words cut out, and the darkness around me intensifies.

The last image in my mind is of Lucia.

I shouldn’t have pushed her away. I should have told her that she made my life brighter every single day. My life became better the moment she walked into it, and I should have told her how precious she is to me. I should have told her, over and over again, how much I love her.

But it’s too late.

I wish she were here.

Next to me, her soft hand linked with mine.

I wish. . .

50

LUCIA

Iwalk for a long time before heading back home. It’s when I’m almost at my building that I remember Antonio bought it.

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