Page 57 of Dreadful
“Just yank the creamy-white dress off the sewing machine.”
I focus on Sever’s chest, but his bleary-eyed gaze catches my attention.
“Vipera…didn’t I…just see you?”
My eyes widen, but his lips quirk up into a loopy smile. It’s a hint of that characteristic smirk I haven’t seen him wear in twenty-four hours. My heart twinges. I’ve missed it.
Shut up, heart. Now isn’t the time.
I listen to my brain and quiet my heart.
“No. I haven’t seen you since last night,folle idiota.”
“Last night?” Gio pipes up as he lays down the fabric and apron. “What happened last night?”
Sev turns toward Gio with a dopey smile, but I answer before he can.
“Nothing happened. Now come on, let’s get this shirt off him.”
Tony opens the door and rushes inside to lay the gauzy cheesecloth on the bedspread.
“I also got this.” He holds up a half-full bottle of dark amber liqueur. “It could help take away the pain if you have to stitch him up.”
“Alcohol?” I ask, my brow raised.
“Oh, fuck yes,” Sever groans and reaches up. Tony hands him the Amaretto, and Sever unscrews the top with one hand and knocks back several swigs. “Cazzo, that’s sweet.”
“But it’ll do the job.” Gio takes the bottle and sets it aside but still within Sev’s reach.
“Thanks,” he breathes with a grimace.
“We were baking the batches for tomorrow,” Tony rambles in Italian. “We heard loud thumps on the front door. We didn’t know what they were at first. We thought it might be one of Claud—”
“But you opened it and found him?” I ask, not letting them finish.
As conflicted as I am about my feelings for Sever, I don’t want to involve him in our problems until I know more about him. We’re later than usual on paying Claudio’s protection money this month. We’ve only received threats so far, but if Claudio has his way, our luck might run out soon.
“Yes,” Tony answers. “Sev was lying on the ground, still knocking when we opened it.”
“Lying on the ground…”
I glance down at his foot, where a boot print is outlined on the bottom of his pant leg.
“Cazzo, someonekickedyou? Why did they let this happen?” I murmur. “Lift his foot, too, Gio. It needs to be elevated.” Gio does as I ask without a word. He’s usually the talkative one, going nonstop, but Tony’s monologue is helpful as he recounts picking Sever up and bringing him to me, hoping I could stitch him up.
“Help me get his jacket off, Gio.”
He and I wrestle Sev’s bloody jacket and shirt off of him. He shifts around on the bed to help us, but his face twists up in pain with every movement. His grunts of pain rip through me, but I grit my teeth and keep going. Once his shirt comes off, a bloody dinner napkin rolls from his chest, revealing an inch-long stab wound.
“I’ll call one of our regulars,” Gio offers. “He’s a doctor. I’ll tell him we cut ourselves on a knife, and he can get us antibiotics for this.”
“Good idea.”
“Mamma mia. Look at all that blood,” Tony stutters. Gio pats his husband on the back as my poor, gentlenonnoblows out a breath. “Thisisworse than the Navy. We were just chefs there! We never saw anything like this.”
Trying to focus, I ignore Tony’s reaction to analyze the ragged slash just underneath Sev’s collarbone. The skin gapes open, but it doesn’t look like the blade was long enough to go all the way through, and I don’t see bone. It’s deep enough to cause blood loss, but I think he’ll be okay.
Then again, what the fuck do I know? I’m a costume designer, not a medic…
