Page 78 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
He takes the paper from Bellini, reads it once, and hands it to Omar. “Post the schedule in the room. Assign one staff member to track it. No substitutions without Maya knowing.”
My throat tightens.
He says it like an order.
It lands like something else.
Erin sniffles again from the bed. “Is Heath going to be okay?”
The doctor starts to answer, but Stefano moves first.
He returns to the chair beside the bed and lowers himself into it, making sure Erin can see his face.
“Yes,” he says.
She searches him with the brutal intensity only frightened children have. “You’re not lying?”
“No.”
“Adults lie.”
“Yes.”
That answer startles her.
He continues, “But lying now would make you harder to calm, not safer. So I am telling you the truth. He is sick. He is tired. The doctor gave him medicine. He needs rest, water, and quiet. He is going to be watched all day.”
Erin absorbs that slowly.
“By Maya?”
Stefano looks at me.
“Yes,” he says. “By Maya.”
My heart does something inconvenient.
Heath’s eyes open a fraction. “Erin?”
“I’m here,” she says quickly, crawling closer until her knee touches his blanket. “I’m right here.”
His gaze drifts to me.
Still feverish.
Still guarded.
But not gone.
“You came back,” he whispers.
The words almost undo me.
I sit beside him again and take his hand. “I keep doing that.”
His fingers move weakly against mine.
Not quite a squeeze.
