Page 48 of The Mad Don
“She is not staying,” I say carefully. “She is a guest. She will be going home soon.”
“Mm.”
“Angel.”
“I heard you.”
She is drifting now. The medication is taking her down. She turns her face into the pillow.
“But I like her,” she murmurs. “Let her spend time with me while she is here. Will you let her?”
It is not a question I can answer. The answer is complicated and dangerous, and I do not have the time to sort out the answer in this moment, with Lucia falling asleep in front of me and my own hand still bleeding through my fingers where I am holding it pressed against the cuff of my shirt.
She does not need a complicated answer. She needs a soft one. She needs to fall asleep without the next episode being triggered by my refusal of something her brain has decided she wants.
“Yes,” I say. “I will let her.”
“Good.”
She is almost gone.
A nursemaid steps in quietly with a tray. A glass. A syringe. Two small bottles. She begins the afternoon medications.
“What is that one?”
The nurse looks up. “Don Mondi?”
“That ampule. The clear one. I do not recognize it.”
“It is — I’m sorry, Don Mondi, I do not recall the name from memory. I can —”
“Who cleared it?”
She hesitates.
“Fabiano, sir. Yesterday evening. He brought it from the doctor’s office himself. He said the doctor had recommended a small adjustment.”
I look at the ampule.
“I want a full report tomorrow. Every medication she is currently receiving. Alongside the name of the doctor or specialist who prescribed each one. Direct to me. Not through Fabiano.”
“Yes, Don Mondi.”
I bend and kiss Lucia on the forehead. Her skin is warm. She is already breathing in the deep, slow rhythm of sleep.
Yana is in the study when I return.
She has not sat. She is standing near the window where Lucia was, her arms at her sides, her face composed. The shards on therug have not been cleaned. A small smear of my blood is still on the floor.
I close the door behind me.
I go to the desk and lean against its edge.
“There is an art show,” I say, “in a few days. I have business there. I will be attending as Giorgio Ferrante. You will come with me.”
“As what?
“As his assistant.”
