Chapter 39 Don't Go

It was deep into the night. The air in the study felt so still that it was hard to breathe. Alessandro had been working for ten straight hours. To keep Eastside from erupting again, he ran himself into the ground, treating his body like a machine and dismissing every warning the doctor had given him. When Lucia pushed the door open, she caught him reaching for the whiskey at the corner of his desk. "You can't drink," she said, crossing the room fast and taking the glass before he could. "You need to rest." Alessandro lifted his head. In the dim light, his face had a sick, feverish flush. Cold sweat beaded across his forehead, and his lips were split and dry. Even his black eyes, the ones that usually pinned a room into silence, looked hazy now. "Give it to me," he rasped. His voice sounded like he'd swallowed sand. "I'm not giving it to you." Lucia set the glass on a shelf behind her, unyielding. "Your wound's infected. When I changed the dressing earlier, the gauze was stuck to