Three.

When Natalia was able to open her eyes, she felt an incredible heaviness, she didn't even know where she was.

The sight cleared up a bit, and although she felt her body heavy, she raised her head a little to make sure nothing strange had happened.

To the right of her, she saw a shadow, and when she focused on it, she saw the same man who was in the restaurant, so she thought she was still in some kind of dream.

After a few seconds, the image of this man did not fade, and she already felt awake enough.

He spoke first.

"Hey. Are you Natalia, right?" he asked, frowning as if he wanted to know more than that.

"Yes, it's me... Who are you?" wanted to know the one with long hair.

It was not until that moment that she realized that she was lying on some kind of stretcher, but that was not a hospital. Her shoulder ached like hell when she moved it.

"My name is Stefano Mancini. A pleasure" he answered, trying not to look so egotistical, but he couldn't.

"May I know what I'm doing here? Where are we?" kept asking the girl with a lot of curiosity.

"As you may know, you were shot yesterday, which was intended for me."

"Yesterday?! Damn. I have to go now!" the woman replied, trying to remove the IV drip as she wanted.

"Oh no. You shouldn't, in your condition, it's not recommended for you to move. You need to rest."

"Rest? I don't even know where I am."

"This is my house".

"Do you think that makes me feel better? I have things to do and a job to keep. Now, with your permission. I must go" she got up from the stretcher, however, she became so dizzy that she almost fell to the ground.

She was only stopped from her fall by the man's arms, who took her so that she wouldn't hit herself.

That had been pure reflections of the stranger since he did not want trouble, but it was nothing special that he had to do with the girl.

She was left with her arms around the opponent's neck, feeling very ashamed of this, since their faces were dangerously close. Much closer than she would have liked.

Natalia's heartbeat did not wait, the main reason why she moved away from the man was that she thought that in some way it was tricky.

"You already see that you're not safe on your own. You must recover to get out of here" he commented as if that was normal.

"Listen. I appreciate you trying to help me, but I have very urgent matters to attend to. I promise that as soon as I can get up, I'll leave" she said, very seriously.

"You will be able to leave when the medical personnel says so. It does not depend on me, and neither does it depend on you."

She leaned back on the stretcher, without the slightest hope of leaving the place.

Certainly, she felt too weak to leave on her own, much less to care for her family while she was like this.

Ethan must be waiting for her at home, surely he would be worried about her.

"Well... Do you have a phone? I need to talk to my family" was the question that Natalia asked, and the one that had her head spinning.

"Yes, here is yours. One of the restaurant employees retrieved it" commented Stefano calmly.

The girl felt quite good knowing that she wasn't kidnapped or something like that because that situation didn't seem very correct a priori.

Natalia took the phone in her hands and immediately dialed her home number.

Three rings later, Ethan's melodious voice answered.

"Hello...?" said the boy, with a certain air of mistrust, since he knew that no one called the home phone except for an emergency.

"Honey, it's me. Nat" she started to explain.

"Nat? Where are you? Mom and I were very worried, we thought something bad had happened. You didn't tell us anything" the boy exclaimed in a panicked voice "You know you always have to tell us if you don't come. Always".

"I know, Ethan. Forgive me for not warning, it's just that something unforeseen came up. I'm trying to solve this problem and I promise I'll be with you as soon as I can."

"It's okay... I don't like missing school" the boy commented with a sad voice "I miss you".

"I know, honey…I miss you too. See you soon, tell mom I love her."

With this said, she cut off the communication, as she could not bear the broken voice of her younger brother.

That situation hurt her a lot, knowing that she was the only breadwinner for the family and now she was in that quagmire.

"Do you know how long I'll have to rest?" wanted to know Natalia, but the man shook his head.

At that moment, a nurse entered the room to check the patient's signs, and she was glad to find her awake.

"Good morning, miss. I'm glad you woke up. How are you feeling?" wanted to know the woman, she looked very nice.

"Morning. I think I've been better. However, I wanted to ask you something."

"Tell me, that's why I'm here, to answer your questions."

"Do you know how long I'll have to rest?"

"Well, that depends on your healing process, but it may be one to two weeks while you are healthy again”.

"Can't that process be brought forward?"

"As I say, it all depends on your body's response to the medication," the woman insisted.

Natalia nodded, knowing that she was against a rock and a hard place, she felt like a girl in the hospital. She was terrified of needles.

There were many details that she had to take care of so as to not worry her family even more.

She would tell them that a work trip had come up. Something like her boss hired her and several of the girls from the restaurant to attend a long-running event.

Sometimes that could happen.

She stayed in her thoughts so much that she didn't notice when Stefano had left the room.

Now it was just her and the nurse, who was checking all her reflections and everything else about her.

Somehow, she was embarrassed that such an important man was there wanting to know about her health.

"Don't worry. The sir returns in the afternoon, you can talk to him then" the nurse spoke as if she had read her thoughts.

Suddenly, she saw the nurse tending to her IV and everything went black. Natalia fell into a deep sleep.