تسجيل الدخولLenny's Pov
I walked out before Giovanni finished his sentence.Not because I could not handlehearing the rest of it; I just knew if I stayed in that room one second longer, I was going to say something that would make everything harder for Vincenzo. He did not need that right now, so I left, pulled the door behind me, and stood in the narrow hallway with my back against the wall and just breathed.Giovanni was right. I knew he was right the second theVincenzo's PovGiovanni pulled a folder from the bag he had brought in with him and set it on the bed next to me without any introduction."Everything I've been able to gather since you first came to me," he said. "I want you to go through it."I reached for it, and the movement pulled at my side enough that I had to breathe through it slowly before I could actually open the folder. Giovanni watched me do it without offering to help, and I was glad for that; I did not want to be helped with something I could still do myself even if it cost me a little more than it should have.Inside was more than I expected."How long have you been collecting this?" I said, looking at the first page."Since the night you sat across from me and told me you thought Dante was the rat," Giovanni said. "I did not want to believe you right away, you know that, but I also did not dismiss it, and I started paying atte
Lenny's PovI walked out before Giovanni finished his sentence.Not because I could not handle hearing the rest of it; I just knew if I stayed in that room one second longer, I was going to say something that would make everything harder for Vincenzo. He did not need that right now, so I left, pulled the door behind me, and stood in the narrow hallway with my back against the wall and just breathed.Giovanni was right. I knew he was right the second the words left his mouth. Understanding something and being okay with it were two completely different things, and right now I was stuck somewhere in between, understanding it fully and hating every part of it anyway.Bressi came out a few minutes later and stood next to me without saying anything. He did not ask me if I was okay; he did not tell me it would all work out, and I was grateful for both because I did not want to be managed right now.We stood there for a while in t
Vincenzo's PovIt was Giovanni.He was standing in the middle of the small living room when Bressi pushed the door open. He turned when he heard us come in, and the second his eyes landed on me, his face cracked, just for a second, something raw moving across it before he pulled it back together and made it blank again."Get him to the bed," he said, already moving to help.Between him, Bressi, and Lenny, they got me onto the makeshift bed set up in the back room.I kept my eyes on Giovanni the whole time, and he kept his eyes on me, and for a man who had built half his life on never showing anything on his face, he was not doing a great job of hiding what he felt seeing me like this.Once I was settled, he pulled a chair close and sat down, his hands folded in front of him."You look like hell," he said."Feels worse than it looks," I said."I doubt that," he said, and for
Lenny's Pov"Someone knows we're here," Bressi said again."How?" I said."I don't know yet," he said. "A car circled the street twice in the last twenty minutes. Slowed down both times right in front of this house. That's nothing."The doctor's face had gone tight. "We don't move patients like him on instinct.""We don't have a choice," Bressi said. "If I'm wrong, we lost twenty minutes. If I'm right and we stay, we lose him."I did not need to hear anything else. "Where do we take him?""I have a place," Bressi said. "Only me and Giovanni know about it. It's clean, it's stocked, nobody's been near it in months.""How far?" I asked."Twenty-five minutes," he said.The doctor looked between us, jaw working. "Moving him is not without risk. If anything tears open on the way there.""Then I'll fix it the same way I fixed it the first time," I said. "We don't have twenty m
Lenny's PovVincenzo was awake when the doctor came back in the morning, propped up just slightly on the pillows we had stacked behind him, and the doctor checked his bandages and his pulse and asked him questions in a flat tone that did not give anything away."How is the pain?" the doctor asked."Manageable," Vincenzo said.I almost laughed at that. He had tried to sit up on his own last night and gone pale from the effort and called that manageable.The doctor did not look convinced either, but he did not push it. He finished checking the wound and changed the dressing, then he straightened up and looked between the two of us."Let's talk about what comes next," he said."Talk," Vincenzo said."You are not going anywhere for a while," the doctor said. "Weeks of rest at minimum; there should be no standing unless it is necessary. No lifting anything heavier than a glass of water and no stress."
Vincenzo's PovPain came first; it was not sharp at the start, it was just there, sitting heavy in my side and pulling tighter every time I tried to breathe in too deep. I did not know where I was. I did not know how much time had passed. My body felt like it belonged to someone else, and I could not get it to listen to me.I drifted back under before I could make sense of anything.The next time I came up, there was a sound pulling at me. A voice; I could not make out the words, but I knew the voice and something in my chest loosened just from hearing it. It was steady and low; it kept going even when I could not follow what it was saying.I held onto that sound like it was the only solid thing in the room.I drifted again. Each time I came back, the pain was a little more familiar, and the voice was still there, sometimes closer, sometimes further, but always somewhere near me. At one point I thou
Lenny’s POVGradually, the darkness that had swallowed me finally began to spit me out, taking off its tendrils as I heard sounds muddled in my ear. Soon, the fluorescent lights above me flooded my vision. After taking a minute to adjust, I swept my head from one side to another."You're alive," a
Vincenzo’s POV"I swear I'll get you the money! I wasn't running... I wouldn't dare...!"Behind the pathetic pleading filling my ears, my 8 o’clock class loomed in my mind...I have an essay I've been putting aside. The professor was a pain, but he had a backbone unlike the others in my department,
Lenny's POV"Explain?!" I spat out, throwing my plastic bag at him. "How the heck are you going to explain this?"He dodged—he always had surprisingly fast reflexes—and groaned, pulling up his pants and buckling swiftly."Sofia is a friend,""I'm sure she is," I seethed as he approached me. He had
Lenny's pov"I’d better not see you around here again," the warden scoffed, handing me a plastic bag containing my mortal belongings. "Won't you miss me?" I teased lightlyWrinkles lined her face, "I mean it, Willow. Keep your head down and stay away from the reason you got sent to this hole in the







