Page 244 of Caterina
Caterina
Adrian is awake for almost four hours straight before I leave the hospital.
I don’t want to leave. Not at all. I’m not suddenly comfortably walking out of his room while he is still pale and bruised and recovering from almost dying on my lawn. Not because he is better, but because my standards for his being better now include him standing up, arguing with me, and making that infuriatingly calm face when I tell him he is being impossible.
He is definitely not there yet.
But he is awake. Mostly coherent. Irritated with everyone. Annoyed by the hospital. He was grateful when Teresa brought him real coffee and then furious when she only let him have three sips.
So he is healing.
And I have work to do.
Not casino work. Not board packets or press statements or compliance language or staff schedules, though all of that still exists in the background like a swarm of angry insects waiting to eat me alive.
This is different.
This is the thing I have been circling for days from beside Adrian’s hospital bed.
The thing I have followed through shell companies, false vendor structures, holding firms, document after endless document. All clearly designed by men who believed nobody would ever have the patience to peel them open layer by layer.
They were wrong.
I have patience.
I have rage.
And today, I have proof.
Or close enough that Papà is going to listen to me.
No matter what.
I have my laptop tucked under one arm as I walk through my father’s house. I have been staying here since the attack because my house is not home to me.
It is a crime scene.
Antonio has assured me they will have the whole place cleaned up. Everything repaired. Blood gone, broken table replaced or restored, walls patched, shattered glass removed, and flowers replaced.
As if that is what bothers me.
As if cleaning it means I can walk back inside and not see the bunker door closing with Adrian on the other side, not see the dead monitors, not see Adrian bleeding on a grainy camera feed, not see yellow roses crushed into spilled wine.
Maybe I should go back.
Maybe if I do not, the place wins. The attack wins. The men who brought violence into my home win.
I do not know yet.
I have not decided.
For now, I am here.
Walking toward his office with my laptop under my arm and my spine straight.
Today, he listens.
Today, I am not the youngest daughter. Not the one to hide in a bunker. Not the one to move from protected place to protected place while men decide which doors lock and which routes are safe.
