Chapter 149 -

Chapter 149 -
Nia woke up to Rosa's voice.

She lay still with her eyes closed and listened to it for a moment before she opened them.

Rosa was in the chair beside the bed. She had a cloth in her hands and the expression she used when she was managing something difficult and had decided that competence was the correct response.

"There she is," Rosa said.

Nia looked at the ceiling. The room was familiar. It was her room. The light through the curtains was the particular grey of late afternoon.

"How long have I been here?" she said. Her voice came out rougher than expected.

"Forty-eight hours," Rosa said. "Your body decided it had enough and took what it needed." She set the cloth aside. "Dr. Vera says you are fine. Physically. She said the word she used was shutdown. Like a system that was overloaded and needed to be reset."

Nia lay still and let that settle.

"The wedding," she said. "What happened after?"

"Christian's men handled it quietly," Rosa said. "The guests were managed. The families were told what they needed to be told that there was a security incident, that it was resolved, that the new head of the Cimmera handled it himself."

She paused. "Garza sent a letter the following morning expressing his full support. Ferrara called personally. The Vasquez family: Eduardo, not Hector sent flowers." Rosa's voice was dry. "Hector has been removed from his father's operations. Eduardo came to the estate yesterday to say so in person."

"He came here."

"He sat at Leo's table and drank his coffee and looked at the man who had just shot his nephew's hired assassin at his own wedding reception and said I want no part of this conflict. The eastern route deal was signed this morning." Rosa poured more water. "Leo closed three outstanding situations in forty-eight hours while you were sleeping. He did not stop moving."

"He never stops moving," Nia said.

"No," Rosa said. "He didn't know why. I think he does now."

"Jordan," she said.

"He's gone," Rosa said.

"Santiago?"

"Also gone." Rosa poured water from the jug on the nightstand and held it out. "Now, drink."

Nia sat up slowly and drank. The water was cold and clean and her body received it with the specific gratitude of something that had been running on nothing.

"The Don," she said.

Rosa was quiet for a moment. "He is still here. He knows everything that happened. Leo told him the morning after the wedding." She looked at her hands.

"He said, and these are his exact words, that he was glad to know it was finished before the end." She paused. "He asked about you when you didn't wake on the first day. Leo told him you were resting. The Don said good. He said you had earned it."

Nia looked at the window.

"Christian," she said.

"Healing. The arm will be fully right in three weeks. He has been insufferable about being confined to light duties." Rosa's voice carried the dry warmth she reserved for the people she loved most.

"Lucia has been managing him. She is very good at it, it turns out, when she decides to be."

"Gabriel."

"He's completely fine. He does not know what happened in the corridor. He knows there was an incident and that everyone is safe and that Uncle Nardo handled it. He accepted this and then asked if he could have two biscuits instead of one since it had been a difficult week." Rosa pressed her lips together. "I gave him three."

Nia almost laughed. It came out as something quieter but it was the same impulse.

"Isadora," she said.
"She's also fine. She and Micheal have been…" Rosa paused with the careful precision of a woman choosing language. "Talking. A great deal. In the garden, mostly. Sometimes the kitchen." She folded her hands. "I do not ask questions."

Nia looked at her. "Micheal."

"He makes her laugh," Rosa said simply. "That is enough for now."
Silence settled over the room before Nia broke it.

"Where is Leo?” Nia said.

"Outside the door," Rosa said. "He has been outside the door for most of the last forty-eight hours. He slept in the corridor chair last night. I brought him food at midnight and he ate it without looking at it."

Nia looked at the door.

"Send him in," she said.

Rosa rose and knocked twice and opened the door and said something quiet into the corridor and then came back to collect the water jug and the cloth and moved to the window to give the room to the two people who needed it.

Leo came in.

He looked like a man who had not slept properly in two days, which was accurate. He crossed to the bed and sat on the edge of it and looked at her with the expression he only wore in private, the one with nothing managed or controlled in it.

"You're awake," he said.

"As you can see," she said.

He reached over and took her hand. She felt his grip tighten slightly.

"I need to say something," he said.

"Then say it."
"I need you to stay," he said. "Not as a political arrangement or protection. Because I have spent two days sitting outside that door and the only coherent thought I had was that I cannot run this organization or this life without you in the center of it." He looked at her steadily.

"If you want to leave, if you want a life somewhere quiet where none of this reaches you, I will make sure you get there safely. No one finds you unless you want them to." He paused. "But if you stay, I will love you for the rest of my life. Without condition."

Nia looked at him.

"Leo," she said.

"Yes."

"We got married four days ago."

He was quiet for a moment. "I know."

"The answer was yes then," she said. "It's still yes now." She held his gaze. "It was always going to be yes. You know that."

"Yes," he said. "I know."

He brought her hand to his mouth and held it there for a long moment, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, and outside the door the house went on: kitchen sounds, Gabriel's voice somewhere asking a question, ordinary and hers and home.