Page 34 of The Mad Don
“Giovanni, hide.” Her voice is rising. “Get behind me. Get behind me.”
The door bangs open, and two men stand in the doorway, their hands on their holsters. Behind them, I can hear running in the corridor, more voices, the percussion of boots on the floor.
“Step away from her,” the first man says to me. He has his hand on his gun. “Hands up! Step away from the lady.”
Lucia is on her feet.
I do not know how. Her legs cannot hold her, the body underneath the blanket cannot support her weight, and yet she is on her feet, and she has pulled me behind her with a strength that does not belong to her. She is between me and the door, her arms spread wide.
“Don’t you touch him!” Her voice is not weak anymore. It is high and certain. “Don’t you touch my brother!”
I am behind her shoulder, looking past her at the men in the doorway. My mind is moving fast.
Trying to figure out what is happening?
“Lady Lucia, please, step away from her —”
“I will not.” She is shaking with the effort of standing. Her grip on me has not loosened. “He is small. You can’t have him; you cannot take him from me again —”
“Lucia.” The man’s voice is changing now, less sharp, more careful. “Lucia, that is not — Please, that is not your brother; that is —”
“Giovanni! Stay behind me!” she screams.
The men do not move closer. They stand in the doorway with their hands away from their weapon.
Whatever this is, they have seen it before, and they have orders.
I hear running in the corridor, which feels monstrously fast, and Giovanni appears at the doorframe. He is half-dressed. A shirt thrown on but not buttoned. His feet are bare, and he is panting.
How far did he run?
His eyes find Lucia.
His face is panicked, and the amused arrogance is gone. The performance is gone, and calculating stillness is gone. What is left is something raw and small and frightened in a way I would not have believed his face could be.
“Lucia,” he says.
I expect recognition, but her grip on my wrist tightens.
“Sir.” She isn’t yelling again; she’s pleading. “Sir, please. Please, it’s you; it’s you again; please, please let my brother go; he hasn’t done anything; please —”
Giovanni takes a step into the room.
“Angel,” he says. “It’s me. Look. Look at my face.”
“Giovanni,” she says to me desperately, “don’t be scared. He won’t hurt you!”
He stops. I have watched him for weeks now. I have seen his cruelty and his calm and the particularity behind both. I have not, until this moment, seen him this helpless.
He stands a few meters from his sister, neither pushing nor giving an order. His hands are open at his sides. His eyes have not left her face. There is a wetness at the corners that he is not bothering to hide because every part of him is concentrated on the woman in front of him, and there is nothing left over for managing his face.
This. The thought lands in me.This is it.
Giovanni Mondi has a sister, and he loves her so much that he stands motionless in a doorway, his face one he would never let any of his men see because she is in front of him and does not know who he is.
Lucia is shaking, and her legs are about to give out. Her grip on my wrist is strong, but the rest of her is collapsing in slow motion, and the men in the doorway have started to inch forward because they know what is coming.
I step into her space and slide my arm under hers, the way I do for Kirill’s men going into shock, and I take her weight. I lean in close to her ear, and I press my fingers carefully against the side of her throat, and I press in.
