Page 74 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
“No,” he mumbles.
“I know. It’s annoying.”
“No doctors.”
“Doctor is already coming.”
His head moves weakly on the pillow.
Stefano’s voice cuts in, low and controlled. “Heath.”
Heath’s eyes open halfway.
Stefano doesn't soften. He doesn't become someone else. He remains exactly what he is, which may be why Heath pays attention.
“No one is moving you,” Stefano says. “No one is touching Erin. The doctor works for me. That means he follows my rules.”
Heath blinks slowly.
“And my rules,” I add.
Heath’s gaze shifts to me. “You don’t have rules.”
“I have several. Most involve annoying Omar.”
From the doorway, Omar mutters, “Clearly.”
Erin lets out a tiny laugh through her tears.
The sound loosens something in the room.
Heath’s hand twitches near the blanket. I take the chance and slip the thermometer beneath his tongue. He makes a miserable sound but allows it.
Small mercy.
The reading is high enough to make my stomach tighten, but not high enough to make Stefano’s face change when I show it to him.
“He’ll be all right,” he says.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep needing to hear it.”
I glare at him.
He accepts that without comment, which is the closest thing to mercy I have received from him.
The doctor arrives in eighteen minutes.
Not twenty.
Stefano gives me one brief look when Dr. Bellini steps into the room, as if daring me to notice.
I do.
I do not thank him.
The doctor is in his late fifties, compact, neatly dressed, with silver hair and tired eyes that sharpen the moment he sees Heath. He carries a black medical bag that looks old-fashioned until he opens it and reveals enough equipment to remind me this is not a house that waits for ambulances unless it chooses to.
