Page 74 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby

I hand him a mug and keep one for myself.

We stand by the sink and drink like it's medicine.

“Explain it to me plainly,” I say. “Not the violence. The part underneath.”

“Underneath is simple,” he says.

“Omertà keeps families from bleeding out when the ground shifts. If one person starts talking to an outsider, no one knows where the edge is. Fear becomes currency. Men make choices for how they look today instead of what keeps a neighborhood intact for ten years. We get funerals. We get kids who learn the wrong lesson. We get a city that forgets its own spine. So we keep our mouths shut except to each other. We settle our business in rooms that can hold it. You don’t have to approve of that. But if you understand it, you see why I’m asking you to hold the line.”

“I hear you,” I say.

I also hear the oath I took when I became a nurse.

I picture a chart on a screen and the knowledge that someone could use a name to open a life.

Part of me recoils.

Part of me says he is right.

I hate that both parts live in the same body and both feel true.

He sees the conflict and does not try to talk me past it.

He touches my wrist instead, thumb finding my pulse.

“You decide where you draw your lines for work,” he says. “I will not ask you to cross them.”

The tea cools.

The light shifts on the floor.

The plant by the window looks a little less tired now that it faces the sun.

I stare at it because It's easier than looking at the truth that is coming.

“What do you need from me right now?” I ask.

“Come away with me for a little while,” he answers. “Nothing that says gone. Leave your plants watered. Put out the trash. Lock the window in the bedroom twice. We go tonight.”

I think about the charge nurse who will read my text and roll her eyes and find someone to cover.

I think about Mr. Cardona, who comes in every other morning for a blood pressure check and a joke.

I think about the agents’ card in my pocket and the way the taller one used the word safety like it was a lure.

“I need an hour,” I say. “To write the message that won’t set off alarms. To leave the keys with the neighbor who forgets hers. Tomake sure my name doesn’t land on a list at work for the wrong reason.”

“You have it,” he says.

I nod and turn.

My bag lives under the bed.

The zipper sticks the way it always does.

I put in flats, scrubs, a sweater, a book I will not read, a photo of my mother that is small enough to pass for a bookmark.

I water the plant and empty the kettle and rinse the mugs.