scan me from head to toe, and she zeroes in on my arm. “You’ve been shot.”
She reaches out gingerly with shaking fingers, but I push her hand away.
“I’m fine,” I say.
I’d forgotten all about the wound, and the pain comes back into focus, stinging with a needle-like intensity. My chest hurts, too, from the shots to my vest. I want to remove it, but I will wait until we are back onshore and I know for sure the others are not coming back.
I welcome this pain. t means I am alive.
Harry sniffles and looks over at me, his face pinched. “Dada,” he whimpers. “Scary!”
I don’t know if he is saying that I am scary or that the situation is, but either way the terror in his eyes smarts more than any bullet wound could. I realize in that moment that as much as I try to tell myself that Alexis and Harry can be a part of this life, I’m wrong. I am asking too much of them. I am pushing them too far.
“We’ll be back soon,” I say gruffly, getting to my feet.
Alexis reaches for my hand. “Where are you going?”
I gently extricate myself, swallowing hard. “I’m going to check on everyone else and call ahead to the house for extra security.”
I am going to do these things, but more importantly I’m going to put some distance between us because right now I don’t deserve to take comfort in their presence. I am a danger to my own family and something needs to change.
The hot water beats against the back of my neck. I pull the steamy air deep into my lungs, as though I might be able to cleanse myself from the inside, and watch as the water swirls pink down the drain.
So much blood. And so little of it is mine.
I take inventory of my body, flexing my arm. The shallow gash complains bitterly, but it’s just a graze. My torso blooms with ugly red and purple bruises from the bullets I took to the vest, but those are superficial wounds too.
I made it out with barely a scratch, yet I hurt more after this battle than I ever have.
When the water starts to run clear, I turn the shower off and step out, though I don’t feel any cleaner. I may as well still be covered in Vito’s blood. I can almost smell it, the metallic twang forever embedded in my nostrils.
After a long, silent drive back to the house, Alexis took Harry upstairs and I considered following her. I wanted to be in her presence more than anything else in the world, but I didn’t feel worthy of it. Not covered in Vito’s blood. Not while Corie played with Nuri in their apartment, as yet unaware that she was a widow.
I might never feel worthy of Alexis and Harry again, but I need to start trying to be.
So I make some calls, and I shower away my best friend’s blood, and then I drive out personally to deliver the news. I owe Vito that, at the very least.
Corie collapses the second she sees me in the doorway. I can see in her eyes that she has always feared this would happen, and I have just made her worst dreams come true.
I reach for her hand to pull her back up, but Corie twists out of my grasp. She doesn’t say a word, but the hatred in her eyes says enough. I tell her that she and Nuri will be taken care of, that they will never want for anything for the rest of their lives. I tell her that if there’s anything else she needs, all she has to do is name it and I will make it happen. She is under my protection.
“Bring my husband back,” she hisses, glaring up at me.
I leave without another word. I am not welcome there, and I do not blame Corie for her vehemence, even though Vito had chosen this life long before he met her.
Back at the house, I make some calls and do some work, but the more the day ticks along, the more my head swims with sluggish, painful thoughts. When I find myself staring at the same point on the wall for a solid ten minutes, I decide that I have done all I can for the day. There is only one place I want to be.
I find Alexis in the nursery, seated on the couch across from the crib. Harry is inside, napping.