Page 32 of The Wrong Man

“I almost did,” Liam admits. “But then I thought about what it must have cost you to make this call. Dante, the man who never asks for anything, calling a person he barely knows to beg for medical advice. That’s not nothing.”

“It doesn’t make up for what I did to him.”

“No. It doesn’t. But it’s a start.” He pauses. “Call me if he gets worse. Day or night. And Dante? Be gentle with him. Whatever happened, whatever you did, he’s going to need gentleness more than anything else right now.”

The line goes dead.

I sit there for a long moment, phone in hand, staring at Dylan’s sleeping face. Be gentle. Such a simple instruction. Such an impossible task for a man like me.

But I’m going to try.

I get up and head to the kitchen to boil water for steam. I’ll need to make some calls, acquire the antibiotics Liam recommended. I have contacts who can get me pharmaceutical supplies without questions.

When I return to the bedroom with a bowl of steaming water and a towel, Dylan’s eyes are open. Barely. Just slits of hazel green peering at me through the fog of fever.

“Dante?” His voice is a ragged whisper.

Something clenches in my chest at the sound of my name on his lips. It’s the first time he’s used it since I told him what I was called. The first time he’s addressed me as anything other than a nameless threat.

“I’m here,” I say softly, setting down the bowl. “I’m going to help you breathe easier. Just some steam. Nothing that will hurt.”

He watches me with those fever-bright eyes as I arrange the towel, creating a tent to trap the steam. His expression is wary, uncertain, but he doesn’t flinch away when I guide him to lean over the bowl.

“Breathe deeply,” I instruct. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. Let the steam loosen things up.”

He obeys without protest, too weak and sick to argue. The sound of his breathing gradually eases as the steam does its work, the terrible rattling becoming slightly less pronounced.

“That’s good,” I murmur. “You’re doing well.”

I don’t know if he can hear me through the towel and the steam and the haze of his fever. But I keep talking anyway, a low, steady stream of encouragement and reassurance. Words I’ve never said to anyone. Words I didn’t know I had in me.

When the water cools, I help him lie back against the pillows I’ve arranged to keep him propped up. His eyes are closed again, his breathing still labored but less frightening than before.

I settle back into my chair beside the bed and watch him sleep.

This is my life now. Sitting vigil at the bedside of a man I nearly destroyed. Monitoring his breathing, changing his compresses, counting the hours until I can give him a dose of antibiotics.

It’s not penance. Nothing I do will ever be enough to make up for what I’ve done.

But it’s something. It’s a start.

And right now, that’s all I have to offer.

Chapter eleven

Dylan

Iwake to the sound of my own breathing.

It still rattles. Still catches and scrapes in my chest like something is lodged in there, something wet and heavy that doesn’t belong. But it’s better than yesterday. Better than the day before. The iron band that was crushing my lungs has loosened slightly, letting me take breaths that actually feel like breaths.

Progress. Small, pathetic progress, but I’ll take it.

I lie still for a moment, taking stock of my body. The fever has broken, I think. My skin no longer feels like it’s burning from the inside out. Instead I just feel weak. Wrung out. Like someone has taken everything I am and twisted it until all the strength drained away.

And filthy. Sweet Jesus, I feel absolutely filthy.

Days of fever sweat have left my skin tacky and unpleasant. My hair is plastered to my skull in greasy clumps. I can smell myself, a sour, sickly odor that makes my stomach turn. I’ve always been fastidious about cleanliness. The thought of lying here marinating in my own sweat for another minute is almost unbearable.