The word hung in the sterile air like a death sentence.
"Two."
"I was wrong." I dropped to my knees on the cold linoleum. The tears came then, hot and silent, carving tracks down my face. "I was wrong. Please."
I did not dare. I could not gamble with Nonna's life. Not again. Not in this lifetime.
Salvatore ripped the phone from my hands and hurled it against the floor. It shattered on impact, the screen splintering into a web of fractured glass, the casing splitting apart and scattering across the tiles like broken teeth. A shard sliced across the back of my hand. Blood welled in a thin red line.
He looked down at me with the flat, empty gaze of a man watching an insect drown.
"As long as we're alive," he said, "you will never touch Rosalia again."
They left. Their footsteps receded down the corridor, unhurried, absolute.