The least I can do is help!!
781 Words
The faint smile lingered on Damiano’s lips a second longer than it should have. It was small, almost reluctant, but it changed his whole face—less like a wounded stranger and more like a man who had just heard something amusing in the middle of a battlefield.
Elena stared at him, arms still folded.
“That’s it?” she asked. “You smile? After everything I just said?”
Damiano leaned back against the pillows, the movement careful. The bandage across his stomach pulled tight.
“You are… unexpected,” he said quietly.
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“Unexpected how?”
He studied her the way someone might study a locked door they had never seen before.
“Most people who see me bleeding in an alley either run the other way or try to take something from me,” he answered. “You dragged me through the rain, hid me, lied to three armed men, and then scolded me for having a phone.”
He paused.
“And now you are standing there asking why I did not call a taxi like it was the most obvious thing in the world.”
Elena let her arms drop.
“Because it was,” she said plainly. “I almost got shot because of you.”
Damiano’s gaze did not waver.
“And yet you stayed.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. For the first time since she had walked into the room, she felt a flicker of uncertainty.
“I do not like leaving people to die,” she said finally. “Even rude ones.”
A soft, low sound escaped him—almost a laugh, but not quite. It hurt him; she saw the quick wince he tried to hide.
Elena stepped closer without thinking and adjusted the thin blanket over his legs.
“You should not be laughing,” she scolded gently. “You are still bleeding under those bandages.”
Damiano watched her hands as she smoothed the fabric.
“You keep doing that,” he said.
“Doing what?”
“Taking care of things that are not yours to fix.”
Elena straightened.
“Someone has to.”
She glanced at the phone still in his hand.
“So… are you going to call your family now? Or do I have to do that too?”
Damiano turned the phone over once between his fingers. The screen lit up, showing a long list of missed calls and messages he did not bother to read.
He looked back at her.
“If I call them,” he said, voice low, “they will come. And when they do, this quiet little orphanage will not stay quiet.”
Elena frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he answered, “you should think carefully before you invite them here.”
She crossed her arms again.
“I am not inviting trouble. I am trying to get you proper help. You were shot, Damiano. In the stomach. People die from that.”
He did not deny it.
Instead he asked, “And what about you?”
Elena blinked.
“What about me?”
“You said they chased you out of your house. You have nowhere to go.” His eyes flicked toward the window, where the rain had finally slowed to a soft drizzle. “Yet here you are, worrying about a stranger instead of yourself.”
She looked away.
“I will figure it out,” she said. “I always do.”
Damiano was quiet for a long moment.
Then he pressed a single button on the phone and held it to his ear.
It rang only twice.
A deep voice answered on the other end—sharp, alert, the kind of voice that expected bad news.
“Boss.”
Damiano kept his eyes on Elena.
“I need a pickup,” he said calmly. “St. Lucia Orphanage. Bring the doctor. And a car for two.”
Elena’s head snapped up.
“Two?” she whispered.
Damiano ignored her.
He listened to whatever the man on the line said, then gave a short reply.
“Thirty minutes. No lights. No noise.”
He ended the call and let the phone rest on his chest.
Elena stared at him.
“You said two,” she repeated.
“I did.”
“Why?”
Damiano met her gaze directly.
“Because I am not leaving you here to sleep on a storage-room floor again.”
Elena’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
He continued, voice steady and low, as if he were stating something as simple as the weather.
- Writer
