I turn to him, hold the scissors out to him. “Thank you.”
He nods, takes them from me. “Are you okay?”
It’s a strange question to ask and I’m not sure if he means about how I just hacked off my hair, or about when I was out on the street, or the last fifteen years. I don’t know how to respond so I nod.
“I’m inside if you need anything.”
“Okay,” I say, and then he’s gone. I bend to pick up the hair I cut off and drop it into the trashcan. Then I walk back into the bedroom toward the window. I turn the chair around to face out, grab the blanket off the bed and wrap myself in it, then take a seat.
Tonight, I’ll keep vigil. I’ll watch for Dante like he watched for me.
11
Dante
Matthaeus has the TV on but the volume off and he’s cleaning a pistol. He’s got it all taken apart, parts lined up in military precision on the coffee table. He looks up at me when I walk in, expression unchanging.
I’ve known Matthaeus for five years. At first, he pissed me off. Fucking standing in the way of anything I wanted to do that wasn’t okayed by my many doctors during my recovery. He was the one who’d draw the short straw every time and sit with me when Cristiano thought I needed to be on fucking suicide watch. I never intended on suicide. That would have been the most selfish thing I could have done. I needed to get her back. That was why I’d survived that night. That was the only reason. The fact that my brother thought I could have some normal sort of life while she was out there was typical, actually. Like he’s the only one of our family who should suffer. Like he should carry my pain along with his.
This responsibility, though, this guilt, it belongs to me. Whether he can accept it or not.
He became the head of our family the day his father and our older brother, Michael, were killed. I was young and while he lay in a coma, I waited for him. I didn’t suspect for a minute it was my uncle making sure he remained as he was. I just trusted him blindly. He was all I’d had then.
Fuck. Bastard.
But I won’t wallow. David’s dead now. He paid. Not enough, but he paid.
I’m convinced the only reason David kept him alive was because of me. At least at first. He adapted his plans then. Always knew how to make the best of any situation. Once Cristiano finally woke from the coma, he turned him into his own personal killing machine.
I shake my head, take off my coat and hang it on the hook. It takes three times before I manage it as I sway on my feet.
“Don’t fucking send men after me,” I tell Matthaeus. I’m sure he knows me well enough to know that I’d see our guys in the car outside the bar. “I don’t need fucking babysitting.”
“Not smart to be out there getting drunk when Petrov’s got his soldiers searching the city for you,” Matthaeus says, shifting his attention back to the gun.
“I got the lecture from Charlie already. Where is she?”
“Asleep.”
“Did you sedate her?”
“No.”
“Good.” We both knew I didn’t want him to.
I walk into the kitchen and get a beer out of the fridge. Cracking it open I drink a long swallow. My gaze is down the hall. I want to be there. In the bedroom. With her.
“Tests came back clean. No STD’s. She’s not pregnant and hormone levels indicate birth control.”
“Good.” This is something, at least. Matthaeus swabbed her and took blood that first night while she was passed out.
I set the beer down without finishing it and, without another word to Matthaeus, head toward my bedroom. I see her before I step inside. She’s passed out on the chair in front of the window, wrapped up in the thick duvet, her head at what’s got to be an uncomfortable angle. I look at her for a long minute in the light coming in from the window, streetlamps reflected off snow.
Something’s different. I move toward her, peer closer. She’s cut her hair. It’s just at her shoulders now. I reach out to touch it, feel the soft waves fall through my fingers.
She moves, mutters something, but stays asleep. The blanket shifts a little. She’s wearing one of my sweaters. It’s big on her and her shoulder is exposed. I touch the star-shaped birthmark. It’s smaller than it used to be. She’s grown into it.
I push the hair back from her face.
She’s a woman now. I don’t know what I thought when I started this quest. She was fifteen when we learned she was still alive. Still a girl. Now, although I sometimes see glimpses of that girl, looking at her like this, eyes closed, face soft, her lips full and slightly parted, what I see is the woman she’s become. This beautiful, broken creature. A stranger but not.