Patched up wasn't the word to describe what we ended up having to do with Daniel. In the end, Uncle Carlo called in a doctor—one who made house calls, took cash, and kept his mouth shut—to seal the hole. “He took it in his trapezius muscle,” the doctor said as he washed his hands afterward in the kitchen. “It was a through-and-through. He's lucky though. Another inch or so toward the neck, and he'd have gotten his carotid or jugular cut. He'd never have gotten off the floor.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Carlo said, giving the man a thick envelope. “Your services are, as always, appreciated.”

“No thanks necessary, Godfather,” the doctor replied. “It's an honor to be at your service. Now, make sure that wound stays bandaged, and leave the IV in for the rest of the night. Then, for the next five days, give him those antibiotic pills I gave you. He's going to need to sleep a lot. He's been through hell. And not just from the gunshot either.”

“Yes, well, that's a family matter,” Carlo said. “Thank you. He'll get the best care we can provide.”

The doctor left, leaving Carlo, Mom and me alone in Daniel's bedroom. He was lying on his bed, his neck and shoulder wrapped, his eyes closed. The doctor had given him a shot to let him sleep, to let his body recover. I sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at his bruised but peaceful face.

“He fought with honor,” Carlo said, standing next to the bed. His voice was soft, almost in awe as he looked down at Daniel.

“He's as Italian as you or me,” I said softly, tracing his eyebrows and feeling the tears coming to my eyes. “Maybe not by blood, but he's been part of our family since he was a baby. He's a good man.”

Carlo hummed and turned his eyes to me. “I owe you an apology.”

I turned my head and looked at him, nodding slightly. “You do. I owe you one as well, though.”

It was the most compromise I was willing to offer. Sure, I had been wrong to ditch his bodyguard, but Carlo had been much further in the wrong having had Daniel beaten and turned into the walking bruise that I saw days later in Carmen's apartment. Still, families were brought together and relationships were mended by forgiveness, even if I wouldn't forget. I got off the bed. “Uncle, I'm sorry that I wasn't up front with my relationship with Daniel and that I ran away from home. Please forgive me.”

Carlo gulped and looked to the sky, then back at me with tears in his eyes. “Oh, Bella, there is nothing I need to forgive. It is I who begs your forgiveness. I tried to run your life as if you were still a little girl, and not the beautiful, wonderful young woman you have become. I insulted you, I insulted the man you love, and in the process, I nearly lost the most important thing in my life. I am so sorry, and I promise that no matter what, I will support you and your decisions from now on.”

I felt tears in my eyes too as I came around the bed and embraced my uncle, hugging him tightly.

We stayed that way for a moment before releasing each other. I blinked and wiped at my eyes. “I forgive you. But there's someone else who must forgive you too—Daniel. He's going to be part of my life, and unless he's willing to accept your apology, we can't be part of this life anymore.”

Carlo opened his mouth to protest, then nodded. “You are right, of course. When he wakes up, let me know. I will come and speak with him, man to man.”

He turned and left the bedroom, leaving me and Mom. She'd been silent since the doctor finished his stitching, standing with her back against the wall, a growing bruise forming on the side of her neck. “You doing okay, Mom?”

She stood there for a moment, then smiled, laughing until she was nearly crying. I understood and went to her, where we held each other for a long time, crying and laughing and holding each other. “Adriana, oh, my baby.”

“I'm okay,” I said, still crying and laughing. “How's your neck?”

Mom let go of me and chuckled, rubbing her neck. “He knows exactly where to put someone down, that's for sure. Considering he's knocked me out and called Carlo an arrogant wop, I'd say he's got more guts than anyone else I've ever known.”

“He called Uncle Carlo an arrogant wop?” I asked, amazed. “And he didn't get shot over it?”

“He was about two seconds from it, according to what I heard,” Mom told me. “When he wakes up, maybe he can tell you the story.”

“I'd like that,” I said, looking back at him. “If you don't mind, I think I'm going to sleep here tonight. Not with him—he needs his rest—but on the floor next to him. He protected me for so long. He beat back the demons that threatened me. I think it's my turn to protect him for a while.”

“I agree, honey,” Mom said. “But first, let him sleep, and you and I will get some dinner. I think there are some leftovers in the fridge.”

“As long as we eat here,” I said, indicating the space in front of Daniel's bed. “He even had a TV in here. What a wonderfully luxurious living situation.”

Mom looked around the tiny broom closet-sized space and chuckled. “I think you might be marrying a monk.”

“Yeah, of the Shaolin variety,” I joked back. “Come on, let's get some food. I bet there will be a report on the fire at the motel on the super early morning news, and I'd like to watch.”

* * *

In fact, the news reports were already on the cable networks, as it had been a relatively slow news day otherwise. While I ate some leftover pizza and Mom ate some lasagna, we got to watch as the fire department struggled with two pumper trucks to get the blaze under control. “Wow,” I commented, munching on a piece of bell pepper, “Pietro really outdid himself with the pyrotechnics.”

“He was rushed. Better to do too much than not enough,” Mom replied. “He probably had to focus on the bed you were kept and the room itself. That's a lot of accelerant in a really short amount of time.”

Daniel stirred behind us, mumbling in his sleep, and we both turned to check on him. He quieted after a moment, and we watched the news story continue.

“In another shocking development, police found the body of a nude man outside the hotel as well. Reports are still preliminary, but sources are telling us that the police suspect that the body might be that of Vincent Drake, the suspect in two recent murders. Please note—these reports are preliminary, and the police are not confirming or denying anything at this time.”

“Guess we're going to have to get the lawyers on this one,” Mom said, taking the last bite of her food. “I'm pretty sure the cops are going to want you to make a statement. You might want to start going over the particulars now. A lot of stuff has gone on, and not everyone is going to be willing to keep their mouths shut. The university, for one. The cops are going to want to know why you took a sabbatical, all that kind of thing.”

“Uncle Carlo can't get this all swept under the rug?” I asked, curious but unafraid.

Mom shook her head. “The police won't be chasing this too hard. Drake was a murdering psychopath, but they will still want to make sure all their paperwork is done right. Drake had military connections and who knows what else. The people who made this monster are going to want to make sure their asses are covered, so as long as they know they won't have someone chasing them down and that Drake is well and good in the ground, they'll keep their noses out of it. Still, they will have questions.”

“And I don't want to give them a reason to keep poking around Bertoli business,” I said. “That's a lot of stress.”

“Which I am sure you will handle well,” Mom said, relaxed. “You're a Bertoli, and less than an hour ago, you got the Godfather of this entire area to tearfully apologize to you. I'd say you've got the nerve.”

* * *

Mom was right. The next day, after I had crashed for six hours from sunrise until noon, I was invited down to police headquarters to make a statement on Vincent Drake's death. Daniel was still sleeping, but Mom promised me that she would stay by his side, so I changed into my best clothes and went down with Uncle Carlo and his lawyer, a guy named Dominic Petruzelli, whom I'd met occasionally but never had the chance to seriously talk to.

As Uncle drove—something totally unlike him—Dominic briefed me in the back of the car. “Miss Bertoli, I strongly stress that you only answer questions related directly to Vincent Drake's murder. The police have no reason to ask you about why you went on sabbatical or your rather—ahem—public display of running away from your uncle's employees.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Plead the Fifth?” I asked, incredulous. “Won't that just make me look guiltier?”

“The law is not about what people know, but what they can prove,” Dominic replied. “The Seattle police, I am sure, know more about your uncle than they will ever tell us. They are probably also quite sure that someone affiliated with your uncle was involved in killing Drake. However, what they suspect, what they know, and what they can prove in a court of law are three entirely different things.”

Carlo chuckled up front. “Listen to him, Bella. The man knows what he is talking about.”

The interview was conducted by two detectives, Fritz and Taguchi, who obviously knew who I was. However, they weren't the cops I'd met before who worked Angela's murder case. “Hello, Miss Bertoli. Would you like a coffee?”

“No thanks,” I said. I took a chair while Dominic sat down next to me. “I did ask Mr. Petruzelli to join us today, guys, just to make sure things are on the up and up. What can I do for you?”

“Why would you have a lawyer if we just asked you to come down so we can clear up some details about Vincent Drake's death?” Taguchi asked. He had a sort of faux hawk look, with the sides of his head nearly shaved while the top was about two inches long. To me, he kind of looked like a rooster. “That makes no sense to me.”

“It makes no sense to me that a man who killed two people, looked like Mr. Potato Head, and was on the wall in every police station from here to Sacramento was able to get within two hundred yards of me on a regular basis and was killed at an abandoned motel less than a mile from a police station,” I replied evenly. I nodded to Dominic, who reached into his briefcase and took out a digital recorder, which he placed on the table and turned on. “Now, I'm not interested in pursuing the Seattle PD for being incompetent, or for putting my personal safety at risk. I just want to make sure I'm not turned into some sort of scapegoat by someone looking to cover his own ass. That's all.”

Fritz and Taguchi exchanged a look, and I knew that I'd won. Despite what they'd said, they were hoping to use the investigation to get something, some sort of angle that they could use to pry at the Bertoli family. They weren't going to get that from me.

Fritz sighed and opened his case file. “All right then, Miss Bertoli, can you tell me . . .”

The interview took two hours, and at the end, I could see that both cops were cracking. Each time they strayed from anything other than the time surrounding when Vincent was killed, Dominic was there, shutting them down. They tried tricking me. They tried cajoling. In the end, they were both nearly crying, they were so frustrated. I realized that Dominic was right. Fritz and Taguchi knew what had happened. They knew that Mom had driven her Maserati in the area of the fire. They didn't have a shot of the license plate though, because of a supposed weird trick of light that didn't allow the traffic cameras to get a clear image. They knew that a Beretta had been used to shoot Drake. They knew that Drake had also fired his own pistol, having dug a bullet out of the burned wall. They knew that someone had been strapped to a table. They were sure I'd been kidnapped, and they were sure of so many things. They knew. They knew.

But they couldn't prove a damn thing. Maybe in the future, if Daniel's DNA was ever logged, they'd be able to fix him to the crime scene. Maybe, if some cop wanted to track it down and some prosecutor was willing to run the risk of taking a man who killed a multiple murderer to trial. But until then . . . they could prove nothing.

The afternoon sun was low in the sky, the day still bright and clear when I walked out of police headquarters with Dominic. Uncle Carlo dropped us off to head to work, promising that he'd send a car if we wanted it afterward. “You handled yourself like a pro in there, Miss Bertoli. Sure you haven't done this before?”

I smiled and looked at Dominic out of the corner of my eyes. “Now, Dominic, after all that talk you gave me about suspecting, knowing, and proving, are you really going to ask me to confirm something to you?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “No, not at all. But if I may say, Miss Bertoli, you have the guts and brains of your father and uncle. If your cousins don't want to take over the family business, you might entertain the idea of doing so yourself.”

I shook my head, still smiling. “No thanks. I'm perfectly happy being a budding artist. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to take the public transportation back home. It's been a long time since I felt safe doing that, and I'm going to enjoy the experience.”