Chapter 53

Aldo

I was back in the hospital, though this time, I leaned against the wall of the break room. Arms crossed. Face probably a mask of stoic detachment.

I was supposed to be meeting a vendor about the snack machine, but as yet, he’d failed to show. Irritation churned in my veins.

The fluorescent lights overhead hummed faintly, cast a sterile glow on the room below. Doctors and patients moved past me in a blur of motion and voices, but I remained unmoving.

I wasn’t sure if it was my irritation or the noise or the light itself giving me a headache. Maybe it was the uncertainty eating me up inside. The thoughts perpetually churning around in my head.

For weeks, my mind had been at war. Torn between the duty that had defined most of my life and the fragile yet so powerful urge to take something more. The hope that I could have it, if I tried.

She still hadn’t responded to my offer of a new identity, a new life. I knew she didn’t want to be here. And yet, she hadn’t walked away. And that left some foolish little thread of hope I couldn't seem to cut.

But I’d told her her life was her own to lead. Love was hers to choose. I’d told Carlo I’d made peace with that.

We’d both known I was lying.

“Aldo.”

I’d been so caught up in my thoughts, I hadn’t heard her approach. But, there she was. Layla Bennett, in the flesh. She wore her usual scrubs, and her usual unamused and slightly tired expression.

Was it me who brought that expression out? Or simply the exhaustion of hospital work? I suspected it might be the former.

“Hey, Layla.”

“Oh, it does speak!” she crowed dryly, clearly unamused. “I thought maybe you were just going to stand there brooding.”

“I wasn’t,” I lied. We both knew it was a lie. I had been brooding, or at least standing under a moody cloud.

Layla wasn’t done. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Avoiding you?” My brow furrowed, and I straightened up from the wall. “What makes you say—”

“Yes, you have.” Her eyes searched mine, like she was seeking an answer I’d failed to give. Which, I didn’t know anymore. “You’re doing that thing again, where you’re about to make some Big Important Decision that affects a lot of people—and not talk to them about it.”

I tensed, but said nothing.

“You think I didn’t notice?” she pressed. “Every time you look at me, it’s like you’re weighing some impossible decision.”

I almost laughed. Almost. “You think that’s what this is about?”

“Is it not?” She crossed her arms, cocked her head. “Every time you look like that, I wind up in a new house, living some halfway-broken new life.”

“So, you think, what?” I mimicked her accusatory tone. “I’m gonna force you to change your name and live in a cabin in the Swiss Alps or something?”

“I was thinking probably more like Siberia, but yeah.”

“Is it so bad that I want to protect you?” I growled. Anger and frustration and sadness bubbled up inside me, too powerful to tamp down. “I know how much you hate this world—and I hate it for you, too.”

Layla’s eyes narrowed. “But it’s my choice, you know that, right? Safety isn’t the issue. It’s you taking away my choice—”

“And what about you assuming that’s what I’m doing?” My voice lifted too loudly, startling a nurse right out of the room. “Why do you always assume I’m doing something to wrong you?”

I was panting, my chest heaving up and down. Layla had moved closer, every muscle and line of her body drawn tight with tension. The animosity between us crackled like electricity, nearly tangible.

I was cool and calm and level headed—no, I was furious. Anger tightened my hands into fists at my side, tunneled my vision so I could barely see more than the woman in front of me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I registered movement—

I turned.

Too late.

The hooded figure lifted a weapon, barrel glinting under the fluorescent lights.

The shot cracked—

Layla

Without warning, Aldo dove at me, shoving me to the ground. Anger surged through me in the instant before I registered the crack of a gunshot. My body slammed against the tile floor beneath Aldo’s.

He rolled off, and I slid backwards, trying to get my bearings. The crack of the gun still echoed in my ears. A man stood in the middle of the room, gun lifted. Pointed—

Pointed down.

Pointed down to where Aldo lay on his side, in a pool of blood.

Blood. Aldo was bleeding. Hit. Shot. Bleeding. And the man was going to shoot again …

I didn’t think. Didn’t realize I was going to move, that I was moving, until my fingers found the gun I knew would be tucked into Aldo’s waistband.

The grip was cool in my fingers. The safety clicked as I lifted the weapon. Sighted. Pulled.

Bang. Bang. Bang. My shoulder absorbed the report effortlessly, even as the figure in front of me dropped like a stone. The shots rang and rang in my ears, like maybe I’d never hear anything again.

I froze. On one knee and one foot, the gun still lifted, aimed at mid air.

I’d shot him. I’d shot him.

Breath wheezed from my lungs in short, shallow gasps. My mind whirled, too fast to catch any thoughts, let alone hold onto them. I’d shot him.

A groan from the floor snapped me from my shock. My gaze dropped to Aldo. Still curled on his side. Still bleeding. Shot. He’d been shot.

I shoved the gun into my waistband and leapt towards Aldo. “Aldo. Aldo. Are you with me?”

He turned onto his back, his face pale, a sheen of sweat glinting under the fluorescents. Both his hands pressed into his side, blood seeping through his fingers in crimson ribbons.

His eyes, however, focused on me. Clear, serious. Alert. “Layla.”

“I’ve got you.” I knelt beside him, already buzzing for help. “You picked a good place to get shot, I guess.”

“Right.” His mouth flexed in half a smile. “You saved me.”

“You saved me,” I clarified, nudging his hands out of the way so I could get a better look at the wound. “I was just returning the favor.”

“You didn’t have to.” He gasped as I lifted his shirt from the wound. It looked back—really bad—but I wasn’t about to let him know that.

“Of course I did.” Tears stung at my eyes as I prodded the wound. “Now, shut up. You’re losing blood.”

Footsteps slammed down the hall, and a team of hospital staff plunged into the room. Someone gasped, someone screamed, and someone else turned and ran back into the hallway.

I guess it was a pretty bloody scene.

I barely registered any of it. I had eyes only for Aldo, bleeding under my hands. They lifted him onto a stretcher, pressed an oxygen mask over his nose, but I never left his side.

I kept pace with the team to the OR. Because of course I’d be the one operating. He’d be under my needle, in my care.

Dottore Bennett, they called me, and now I was going to save their don.