Page 118 of Veil of Obsession
I turn to him, voice hollow. “She’s all I’ve got left that feels good in this world, Rom. I let her go, I lose whatever’s left of me.”
He doesn’t say anything. No one does. The room hums with tension, low and lethal.
Finally, Dom sets his glass down and walks past me, muttering, “Then pray to God your girl doesn’t make another mistake. Because if she does…”
He stops by the doorway.
“I won’t need your permission.”
The fluorescent lightsin the ER hum like they’re pissed off to be awake. Or maybe that’s just me. Everything in here feels sterile, wrong, too bright for what just happened.
I push through the double doors, the scent of antiseptic and copper clogging my throat. The nurse at the front desk barely gets a word in before I spot Matteo pacing at the far end of the hall, phone pressed to his ear, voice clipped and sharp.
“I need full lockdown protocols. Firewalls, off-site backup…yes, even that ghost server. Fucking implement it. Now.”
He doesn’t look up when I walk past.
Mara’s sitting on one of the blue vinyl chairs against the wall. She’s still in her dinner dress—blood on her collar, dried and crusted, her hands locked in her lap. She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t cry.
I stop in front of her and crouch. “Mara.”
Nothing.
I touch her knee gently, but she just flinches. No eye contact. No movement. She’s gone somewhere inside herself.
Fuck.
“Where is he?” I ask without turning around.
“Room 3,” Matteo mutters, not missing a beat in his call. “No, not the internal node. Bypass it through the external mask. You want us lit up again?”
I head toward Room 3. The hallway feels longer than it should, like the hospital’s stretching itself just to make me walk through it slower.
My boots echo. I don’t try to soften the sound. I knock once.
“Come in.” His voice is low. Dangerous.
I step inside.
Emiliano’s still in the same clothes from dinner. His white button-down is spattered in blood—Ma’s blood. His sleeves are rolled to the elbows, forearms taut as he leans against the window ledge. His jaw works from side to side, like he’s chewing glass.
He doesn’t turn to look at me. Just stares out at the city like it can give him answers.
“I moved her,” I say. “She’s safe.”
Now he looks. And if looks could kill, I’d be buried beside the fuckers who opened fire in our house.
“You moved her,” he repeats quietly. Too quietly.
“She didn’t know?—”
“Shut up.”
I grit my teeth.
He steps away from the window, slow and measured, like a fuse being lit. “I told you to bring her in. To keep her close until we figured out what the fuck happened.”
“And I did.”
