Pushing through the door I walk through the empty front room and straight to the stairs leading to the upper office. Capo Famiglia is waiting for me, his hip leaning against the desk as he looks out the windows.
“What was our deal, Wolf?” He doesn’t face me, talking to the windows.
“I wasn’t supposed to touch or assist Delaney in anyway.”
He turns, dark eyes finding mine. “And did you?”
I straighten my shoulders, refusing to appear weak even if my hands are sweating behind my back. “I did what I needed to do.”
He raises a brow, humming at my response. “Why didn’t you shoot Donatello when I ordered it?”
“Because Delaney didn’t want me to.”
He nods, pursing his lips. “Does Delaney make the rules, Wolf?”
I grind my teeth, If I’m going to be punished, I might as well be honest. “She does for me, Capo Famiglia.”
“Then why did you let her pull Donatello for so long, Wolf? If she means so much to you?”
I blink in confusion, but he doesn’t bother to elaborate. “I wanted to help her the entire time, but my respect for the Famiglia stopped me. I eventually decided she was more important.”
“Good choice, Wolf.” He starts to walk from the room, leaving me blinking in confusion, “Too bad it took you so long. You likely killed Donatello.”
“So, I’m not being punished for breaking our deal?”
He pauses, looking at me from the doorway. “Your punishment will be losing Delaney if he dies.”
Almost six hours later and Donatello still hasn’t woken up. They have him hooked to an IV, his heart monitors, a steady beat as I lay my face on his arm squeezing his fingers in mine. Jessie had to leave me at the front doors and I’ve been alone since. I don’t have my phone, but I have no one I want to talk to anyway. The bullet went straight through his chest. A clean shot… Lucky, they said. It didn’t look clean. It didn’t feel lucky.
There’s a light rapping on the door and I lift my head watching as a doctor comes into the room. He smiles at me, eyes wandering over Donatello’s form. “Has someone been in recently to check his vitals?”
I nod. A nurse had just come in fifteen minutes prior. He taps his fingers on a packet in his hand. “Good, good. From what we can tell, it looks like he’ll be just fine.” He smiles and I try to force one in return to be polite, but I’m not sure it looks very nice. “I just wanted to drop this off with you guys since you were already here.” He hands me the file with another look cast Donatello’s way as I take it.
He’s almost out the door, but he pauses with a hand resting on the doorframe. “Oh, and congratulations.”
He’s gone before I can ask what he means and I look at the manila file in my hands, frowning in confusion. What the fuck could there possibly be to congratulate me for? I sit back in the seat, opening the top flap to pull out the papers inside. It takes me a second to realize what I’m looking at, for the lines to stop waving across the paper so I can read them.
I look at Donatello laying next to me, my heart breaking all over again at the sight. I tuck the papers away, setting the file on the wheeled side table. I get back in my spot, resting my cheek against the skin of his arm, entwining our fingers together. I know what I need to do. I know what choice I have to make. The choice is obvious, but a knife in my heart would be less painful.
“I need you to wake up, Donatello.” I whisper it into his skin, willing my words to be heard. He lost a lot of blood and I know that’s why he’s sleeping, but it still makes me nervous.
I almost fall asleep like that, waiting for him to wake up, but a nurse comes walking into the room lightly tapping my shoulder. “I’m going to need you to move for just a moment, honey.”
Slowly sitting up, I pull myself from Donatello watching as she goes through the same routine they’ve been doing since he was deemed stable. “Does the hospital have any shampoo or anything I can use? I’d like to shower in the ensuite bathroom if that’s okay.”
She smiles up at me, swapping out the IV bag hanging on the opposite side of the bed. “Sure. If you open the cabinet to your right there should be some extra soaps and things you can have.”
Smiling in thanks, I open the cabinet and pull out a small travel bag before stepping into the bathroom. I almost cry when I look in the mirror. I’ve been avoiding it since we got here, pretending I didn’t notice the dark stains on my clothes or feel the tackiness of the blood dried on my skin through my shirt. My face has dried blood smeared randomly where I must have touched it and there are tear tracks through the dirt that has stuck to my cheeks. It makes sense now why the other nurses kept asking if I’d like to freshen up earlier.
I peel the clothes off and turn on the shower. As soon as I step under the spray, the water turns brown and I shut my eyes pretending it’s fine. Grabbing the soap for my hair, I scrub myself more times than necessary trying to erase the evidence of what happened from my skin. If I can’t see it, it didn’t happen.
Turning the spray off, I grab the towel from the counter drying both my body and hair as best as I can, before wrapping myself in the towel. I don’t have any other clothes and I refuse to put back the ones piled on
