never forget. It was something he wouldn't have wished on anyone. "Genna's BMW?"
Kidnapping him hadn't been enough. They had to attack his sister on top of it, the only innocent one out of them all.
"Oh… no," Gavin said. "Matty's Lotus."
Son of a bitch.
Dante's eyes opened. "Barsanti blew up his own kid?"
"No," Gavin said, hesitating before adding, "It wasn't him."
Maybe the medication was leaving a haze over Dante's brain, because it took a full minute for him to grasp the true meaning of Gavin's words. If a bomb had been planted in the Lotus, chances were someone else would've been responsible.
Someone else, being the Galantes.
Someone else, being Dante's family.
"No." Dante shook his head as he clenched his hands into fists. No. It didn't make any sense. "My father wouldn't have done it. He loves his kids. He does. He loves us."
"She wasn't supposed to be there," Gavin explained. "And she wasn't... at first. She showed up right before the car blew up. Guess she found out what was happening and wanted to stop it."
"How do you know?"
Gavin didn't answer, but he didn't have to. Dante saw the agony in his steel-colored eyes. It was the look of helpless remorse... the look of someone who had witnessed the kind of devastation that only something like a car bomb could cause.
Sighing, Dante's gaze flickered to the ceiling as his eyes started to burn. Don't fucking cry. Don't cry in front of him. Don't cry in front of anybody. Don't fucking do it. "This is my fault."
"You can't blame yourself."
"The hell if I can't. I should've been there. I should've done more to protect her. She shouldn't have been left alone to fend for herself."
"She wasn't alone," Gavin said. "She had Matty."
"And a lot of good that did her."
"He tried. After you… you know… Matty did everything he could for her. He wanted to get her out. Wanted to get her away from it all." Gavin paused, like he was considering what to say next, and finished with a whisper. "They were planning to make a run for it, before the car went…"
Boom.
Once silence took over again, Gavin pushed away from the wall. "I should get going. If you need anything, look me up."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Gavin nodded, turning to leave. "And I meant it, you know... I'm glad you're not dead."
Dante waited until Gavin was gone before muttering, "Me, too, man. Me, too."
Gabriella stood in the doorway of the cramped hospital room down on the general medical floor. Seven in the morning and her shift up in the ICU just ended. Two new patients had come in, one of which occupied the recently vacated bed in room twenty-two. More often than not, when patients left, it was because they lost their fight. But sometimes, happy endings happened, landing them on this floor on their way out the door, their last stop before being released back out into the wild.
She seldom saw people again once they made it there.
She tried to separate herself from her work.
But sometimes, she couldn't help it.
Sometimes, she had a hard time letting go.
Dante lay propped up in the small bed, his arm draped over his eyes. He'd gained a few pounds since she first laid eyes on him, but the hospital gown was still too big for his body, loose around the neckline, exposing some of the scars on his chest. The lighting was dim, even the television off, but the room still managed to feel lively, courtesy of the vast array of flower arrangements and balloons shoved in the corners and along the counters.
Those things weren't allowed up in the ICU.
"So, I heard you're really digging the red Jell-O… true?"
Dante's arm shifted, resting across his forehead, as his eyes drifted toward her in the doorway. "False."
"Oh, well, that sucks," she said, stepping into the room as she pulled the container of Jell-O from behind her back, along with a flimsy plastic spoon. "Because I happened to have some with me, but I guess since you don't like it..."
He held his hand out. "Give it to me."
"But I thought—"
"Hand it over," he said, "and nobody gets hurt."
Laughing, she approached, handing him the Jell-O. Shifting in the bed to sit up, he tore the foil top off of the plastic container and took a bite.
He wasn't eating. Gabriella had heard the complaints, the frustrated whispers passed along between nurses, ones that violated a dozen hospital rules (and even a few laws, for that matter). An intolerable patient. Uncooperative. Bad-mannered.