Page 262 of Ricardo

“Sit,” Victoria says.

“I’m okay.”

“Sit anyway.”

I sit.

She pulls out the chair across from me and lowers herself into it carefully, one hand at her back for a second before she settles. The movement reminds me that she is pregnant, that she spent last night in a hospital waiting room while Dante was in surgery, that she held me together in a bathroom while I fell apart over a toilet.

“You should be resting,” I say.

“So should you.”

“I don’t think I remember how.”

Her mouth curves faintly. “That makes two of us.”

She pours tea into a cup and pushes it toward me.

I take it because my hands need something to hold.

“Any updates on Dante?” I ask.

Her face softens. “Stable. Still unconscious.”

My breath leaves me too quickly.

“Has Ricardo gone there?”

“Yeah,” she says softly. “He wanted to wait for you, but he wanted to let you sleep. He'll be back shortly, though.”

I nod and take a sip of tea.

I can't work up the energy to be upset.

Victoria picks up a piece of toast and puts it on the small plate in front of me. “Eat.”

“I don’t know if I can keep it down.”

“Just take it one bite at a time.”

I look at the toast.

It seems impossible that I’m expected to eat right now.

But my stomach is empty enough to ache, and the tea has helped settle the rawness in my throat. I break off a corner of toast and put it in my mouth. It tastes like butter and salt and feels too normal.

Normal feels wrong.

I swallow carefully.

Victoria watches me and doesn't bother to pretend she isn’t.

That kindness nearly undoes me.

For a few minutes, we sit in quiet. I manage another bite of toast. Then half a strawberry. The tea warms my hands through the cup. Outside the window, Ricardo’s property stretches out beneath the pale morning, the driveway watched by people I can barely see but know are there.

Extra security.