Page 226 of Ricardo

Only my son’s name and Julia’s voice.

“Which hospital?” I ask.

She tells me.

I am already moving before she finishes.

“Stay there,” I say. “Do you hear me? Stay there.”

“Ricardo—”

“I’m coming.”

I end the call and turn toward the car.

“Hospital,” I say to Alessio, already opening the door. “Now.”

Again, I'm out of the car before it has stopped.

Alessio says something behind me. Lorenzo is already moving at my side, phone to his ear, asking for the surgical floor, the trauma intake, any name attached to Dante Conti.

I hear none of it clearly.

Hospitals have a smell I have always hated. Antiseptic. Burned coffee. Plastic. Fear beneath fluorescent lights.

Tonight, it hits me in the throat.

“Dante Conti,” I say to the woman at the desk.

She looks up, startled by my voice, then by my face.

“Sir—”

“My son was brought in with a gunshot wound. Dante Conti. Where is he?”

Her hands move to the keyboard. Too slowly.

Lorenzo steps in beside me, smoother, saying the same thing in a less frightening tone. That is where Lorenzo excels, remaining calm when everyone is unreasonable and panicking.

The woman checks the screen.

“He’s in surgery,” she says. “Family waiting is down the hall and to the left. I can have someone—”

I am already walking.

Lorenzo follows.

The hall stretches for too long. White walls. Blue signs. People sitting in plastic chairs, some with their hands folded in prayer. A child cries somewhere.

Then I turn the corner and see her.

Julia.

She is standing near the end of the waiting area, still in the green dress.

For one second, my mind refuses to put the pieces together.

The dress I thought about all night.