A cold thread moved down her spine.
“How would they know?”
Leo looked toward the rain-dark window.
“Someone inside the hospital sold the donor record.”
Clara’s blood seemed to drain all over again.
“My name?”
“Your name. Your address. Your brother’s school. Your place of work.”
She gripped the back of a chair.
The city outside felt suddenly full of eyes.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because my enemies are thorough.”
“And because your world destroys everything it touches.”
“Yes,” Leo said.
The honesty was quiet and terrible.
Clara looked at him then, really looked. At the bandage beneath his shirt. The faint sheen of pain on his skin. The stillness that was not peace but control layered over violence. This man did not plead. He did not ask. He arranged reality around himself.
Yet someone had put him on a gurney with his life spilling out.
Someone had made him mortal.
“I want to go home,” Clara said.
Leo’s expression changed.
“No.”
The word was soft.
It was worse than a shout.
“My brother is alone.”
“He is not. Matteo has men watching the building.”
“You put men outside my apartment?”
“I put men between your brother and a bullet.”
Clara’s stomach clenched.
“Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“It is supposed to be true.”
The doors opened behind her.
Matteo stepped in without knocking. His face was grim.
“Boss.”
Leo did not turn. “I gave orders.”
“We found a car outside the Hayes apartment. Two men. Lupo crew.”
The name meant nothing to Clara, but it meant something to Leo.
The room changed.
The air sharpened.
“Alive?” Leo asked.
