“They’ll finish it.”
Rosa looked at him long enough to understand he meant it.
Men like him did not get shot once by accident.
“You stay here, you freeze before dawn,” she said.
He let his head fall back against the brick.
“That would solve your problem.”
Rosa’s mouth flattened. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it because my granddaughter made a promise.”
Lily looked between them, then immediately resumed pressing the scarf against his wounds with both hands, as if the adults had finished wasting time.
“Can we take him home?”
Rosa should have said no.
Instead she looked at the blood, the cold, the little girl kneeling without fear, and heard herself answer, “Help me lift.”
Between the three of them, it was a disaster.
Dominic was six feet two and built like a man who had learned early that the body was either weapon or target. His weight sagged heavily between them as Rosa got one arm over her shoulders and Lily took the other side, practically disappearing beneath it. They staggered down the alley in short, painful bursts.
Once, Dominic nearly went down, and Lily made a sound Rosa would remember later, not fear, not panic, but determination sharpened into command.
“Don’t fall,” she told him. “You promised.”
