Chapter 139 141

Chapter 139 141
Hazel

The next few hours pass in a kind of haze. An albino man, who I’m guessing is the Albino I’ve occasionally heard Emily mention in passing, carries Carlo to a van and puts him in the back. I climb in with him and do my best to get out of the way as a little man with wire-framed glasses starts wrapping him in bandages.

“He needs the hospital,” the man says matter-of-factly. “Soon, Maury. Very soon.”

“I’m fucking driving,” the Albino growls. “Dio ci salvi.”

I sit next to Carlo, holding his hand, hoping he can feel it.

“You are bleeding,” the little man says. “Your leg. Come here, miss.”

I don’t have the energy to fight as he quickly patches up my leg. He tells me it’s a flesh wound, that I just need to rest and let it heal. But I don’t even hear the words. I just squeeze Carlo’s hand and try to feel for a hint of life in him. I keep thinking about Benjy lying dead back there. I don’t care about Dad, or maybe I do, but only because he’s my family. But Benjy redeemed himself. Especially if he didn’t really hurt those kids.

I feel like crying forever.

Finally, we pull up outside the hospital. Maury and the little man hustle Carlo toward the entrance. I trail behind them, largely forgotten until Carlo is on the stretcher being wheeled into emergency surgery. Then the Albino touches my shoulder and gestures at a doctor.

“Check on her right now. She is pregnant. A full check, do you understand?”

“I want to be with Carlo,” I protest. “I want to—”

Maury leans close to me. “I found Ubert half dead on the floor of your apartment. Do you know what he said to me? He said: ‘Keep her safe no matter what.’ That’s not even mentioning what Carlo would do if he discovered I let you join him without making sure you were safe first.”

“Wait, so Ubert’s alive?”

“Yes, but critical. Just like Durante. Just like Nario. We’re all fucking critical in this Family.”

I’m hustled off to a doctor’s room where they re-clean my wound and give me stitches, and then bandage me up. They do a whole bunch of tests to make sure the baby wasn’t harmed. Apart from the wound in the leg, I’m okay. But I’m not sure if I can say the same for Carlo. When I’m finally allowed to leave, he’s still in surgery. Sil and her children come running up to me in the waiting room.

“It’s a good omen,” she says. “Nario is out of the danger zone. Those men were always close, always alike. They were each other’s shadows growing up.”

Shadow. My shadow.

“He will pull through. I know he will.”

Maury leans against the wall and next to him sits Emily, Alda standing close behind her, her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. They’re all deep in conversation but when they see me, Alda comes running over and Emily isn’t far behind. She throws her arms around me, her veil tickling my cheek, as Emily sort of squeezes onto my elbow. They only step back when it looks like I might stumble on the crutches.

“Sit in my lap if you want,” Emily giggles, though she looks sick. She glances at the door that leads to Carlo’s room.

“What’s happening in there?” I must look as panicked as I feel, because Alda puts her hand on my shoulder and leads me to the seats.

“They’re fixing him, dear,” she tells me. “Making him all better.” The baby talk would be patronizing if it wasn’t so reassuring.

We wait, we wait, we wait. I wonder what’s going to be worse: this or labor. Somehow, I think I’ll regret even putting that out there in the universe, but right now I don’t care.

Just let him be okay.

“At least I have an ending to my book now, right?” Emily smiles through her tears. “The barbarian and the lady fight off the bandits together. The barbarian is wounded but recovers. The lady gives birth to a beautiful baby. The End. Right?”

I put my hand on her shoulder. Alda does the same. We make a triangle of support.

Then the Albino is standing beside us. “I am sorry,” he says. “But the police will want to speak with her soon. I have done my best to hold them off, but Carlo is injured. They are vultures. It will not take them long to descend.”

Alda sucks in breath through her teeth, looking every inch a mafiosa queen for a few moments. “That is business you will have to discuss with Hazel.”

He turns to me with an apologetic shrug. “I can’t force you to come with me, but it will help protect our Family, your family.”

I nod and stand. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

The old Hazel never would’ve agreed to lie to the police. The old Hazel never would’ve told them that she doesn’t know why she was abducted, that she was kept blindfolded the whole time, that she had no clue her father and her brother were criminals. But that Hazel saw the world in black and white, and didn’t understand that it takes men like Carlo and Ubert and Durante and Nario and Maury to keep men like my father from taking over this city.

Because both of these police officers are Irish, and one of them gives me a sour look as I answer their questions. He knows I’m lying because he used to play poker with my father. I’m sure I recognize him. But he can’t say it in front of his colleague, who maybe isn’t as corrupt as him.

“We’ll be seeing you,” he says, tipping his hat. “Ma’am.”

I don’t pay them a moment’s more attention as I spin around and basically sprint through the hospital. Well, sprint as fast as my crutches will let me, anyway. Which, to be fair, isn’t much of a sprint at all. But either way, I make it back to the waiting room.

“He’s out of surgery,” Alda tells me. “He made it. He’s going to live.”

Just like that, it all comes crashing down. It’s like I’ve sort of been holding off on feeling my emotions before I knew what was happening with Carlo. But now all of it drops on my head: Dad, Ben, the baby, Ubert, and now Carlo. I’m crying like a baby, that’s the truth of the matter. Alda holds me, rubbing my back.

“Hush,” she whispers, the mother I always wanted. “It’ll be okay, dear. Everything will be okay.”

Waiting in a hospital for three days is both boring and stressful, which is a combination I never knew existed before. I don’t leave Carlo’s bedside. I twitch every time he twitches, thinking he’ll wake up. Even if the doctors have told me he won’t yet. Alda brings me a change of clothes and some toiletries. Emily reads snippets from her novel to keep us all entertained.