“Curtain.”
I pulled the privacy curtain halfway, just enough to block the camera’s direct view without seeming suspicious.
Then I placed the notebook on his blanket and put a pen between his fingers.
His hand trembled badly. The pen slipped once, then twice. On the third try, he managed to drag a crooked line across the page.
I expected names. Orders. Plans.
Instead, he wrote one word.
WATER.
I felt foolish for forgetting he was a patient before he was anything else.
I raised the bed slightly and held a small sponge to his lips. He closed his eyes as the water touched his mouth, and for one brief instant, the brutal shape of him softened. He looked younger. Not innocent. Never that. But human.
When he opened his eyes again, the softness vanished.
“Who comes?” he whispered.
I told him everything I had seen over the last three months. The rotating guards. The private doctors. The priest who came every Sunday and never prayed aloud. The woman in pearl earrings who stood by his bed once, slapped his motionless face, and cried without making a sound. The heavyset man with the gold watch who called him “brother” and kissed his forehead for the cameras.
At that, Nicholas’ stare sharpened.
“Marco.”
“Your brother?”
“Half.”
Something in the way he said it made the temperature drop.
“He visits every Thursday,” I said. “Usually afternoon.”
“What does he do?”
“Talks to you.”
“Words.”
I hesitated.
Nicholas’ eyes narrowed.
“Clara.”
I hated how quickly he could make my name sound like a command.
“He says the families are restless,” I admitted. “He says he’s keeping things together. He says your people need a living Castellano, not a vegetable in a bed.”
Nicholas closed his eyes.
For a second, I thought pain had overcome him.
Then he whispered, “Snake.”
The word held no anger.
Only recognition.
“What happened outside the steakhouse?” I asked.
His eyes opened.
“You read stories,” he said. “You want one?”
“No,” I said. “I want to know whether I’m going to die.”
“That is a story.”
He looked toward the window, where rain streaked the black glass.
“I was told the Irish wanted peace. Dinner at Bellafina. Neutral place. My driver was new. The hostess was new. The cameras on the block went blind for four minutes.” His jaw tightened. “When I stepped outside, the first shot hit my lung. Second my shoulder. Third my ribs. Fourth my thigh.”
“And the fifth?”
His fingers touched, weakly, the scar near his temple.
“That was close. Too close to be luck.”
“Who fired?”
“I saw a face reflected in the car window.”
I waited.
He turned his head toward me.
“Marco.”
The name seemed to crawl under the door and into the hallway.
I looked toward it instinctively.
Nicholas’ voice sank lower. “My brother has my chair. My doctors. My guards. Maybe my priest. Maybe this hospital.”
“Then why keep you alive?”
“Because death is simple. Coma is useful.”
I understood before he said it.
“As long as you’re technically alive, he can act in your name.”
Nicholas’ eyes approved of the answer.
“He signs nothing permanent. He says he protects my interests. He waits for loyalty to rot. Then he pulls the plug with tears in his eyes.”
A chill moved over me.
“You need someone outside.”
“I have someone.”
“Then call them.”
