Chapter 34 - The Abandoned Monastery
The heavy oak door of the crypt was swollen with rot, but it gave way with a mournful creak under Leo’s boot, opening into a subterranean chamber that smelled of ancient stone, dry dust, and incense long since turned to ash.
Leo carefully lowered Luca onto a stone sarcophagus that sat in the center of the chamber, stripped of its effigy centuries ago. I immediately stripped off my drenched outer coat, tossing it aside, and dragged the waterproof medical kit from Leo’s shoulder bag.
"Leo, build a fire in the alcove," I instructed, my hands moving with rapid, clinical precision born of raw panic. "Keep it small. Use the dry floorboards from the pews above. We need heat, and I need light."
"Elena, are you sure you can do this?" Leo asked, his face pale as he looked at the gruesome mess of Luca’s shoulder. The bullet was lodged deep near the scapula; the surrounding flesh was swollen, angry purple, and hot with infection.
"I was a triage nurse for two years before Papa died, Leo," I snapped, unscrewing a bottle of industrial antiseptic. "Now go get the wood!"
Leo nodded grimly and scrambled back up the stone steps.
I turned back to Luca. He had fallen into a restless stupor, his brow drenched in cold sweat, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack enamel. I took out a pair of trauma shears and cut his shirt away, peeling the blood-caked fabric from the wound. He hissed in pain, his eyes snapping open, wide and wild with delirium.
Before I could speak, his good hand shot out like an iron vise, grabbing my wrist and pinning it against the cold stone. For a second, he looked at me not as Elena, but as an assassin lurking in the dark.
"Luca," I said softly, not pulling away from his bruising grip. "It's me. It's Elena. You're safe."
The feral tension in his eyes slowly receded, replaced by an exhaustion so profound it made my heart ache. His fingers relaxed, sliding down my forearm until his palm rested against mine, his fingers intertwining with my own.
"You should have left me on that boat," he murmured, his chest heaving. "With Leo. Matteo wants me. If they find you with me... they will show no mercy, little maid."
"I made my choice in the bunker, Don Rossi," I whispered, leaning close so he could see the steady resolve in my eyes. "Now shut your mouth and hold on. This is going to hurt worse than getting shot."
I poured half the bottle of antiseptic directly into the open wound.
Luca arched off the stone slab with a muffled, strangled scream, his knuckles whitening as he squeezed my left hand so hard I thought the bones would snap. But he didn't pull away. I grabbed the sterile forceps from the kit with my right hand, biting my lower lip until it bled as I probed the ragged channel of flesh.
The smell of blood and burning disinfectant filled the air. My hands shook violently for a fraction of a second, but then I looked at his face—the chiseled jaw that had once terrified me, the lips that had spoken terrifying commands, the man who had slammed his fist into the wall just to spare me the horror of his own wrath. I forced the tremor from my fingers.
Metal clicked against lead.
"I found it," I breathed.
With a firm, careful twist, I extracted the deformed slug from his shoulder and dropped it into the metal tray. It clattered with a sharp ring that echoed in the quiet stone room. Luca slumped back down, his head rolling to the side, his chest rising and falling in deep, trembling gasps.
Quickly, I packed the wound with sterile gauze, dusted it with antibiotic powder, and bound his torso in tight, overlapping layers of elastic bandage. By the time Leo returned with armfuls of dry splintered pine, Luca’s breathing had stabilized, slipping from fevered agony into deep, restorative exhaustion.
Leo built a small, smokeless fire in an old brazier against the wall, its flickering orange light painting the shadows of the ancient saints on the vaulted ceiling.
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I sat on the edge of the stone slab beside Luca, exhausted to the marrow of my bones. As the warmth of the fire spread through the crypt, Luca’s hand moved in his sleep, his fingers weakly searching the rough stone until they found the hem of my sweater, curling into the fabric as if anchoring himself to the living world.
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