The Sister Who Shot Me Got Everything I Had Chapter 05
One More Minute
I sat in a nest of broken crystal, the base of my skull pounding.
Blood ran down my palm to my wrist. More blood soaked through the silk at my waist where the old surgical scar had split open.
Gia had a single cut on the back of her hand. But she was already sobbing that her fingers felt numb, that she was scared she’d never be able to hold a pistol steady on Sunday.
The Family doctor arrived in twelve minutes. He took one look at the blood soaking my dress and his face went gray.
“Miss Sienna needs to be moved. Now.”
“That fusion hardware in her lumbar is not stable. If we don’t get her under an MRI in the next few hours, she could lose feeling in her arms too.”
He glanced at Gia.
“Miss Gia has a surface laceration. Needs stitches. Nothing life-threatening.”
“Who goes first?”
Mama didn’t hesitate for a second. “Gia. She just got home. She can’t take any more stress.”
Papa’s voice was low and final.
“Sienna’s is an old injury. Gia’s hand—if it scars, she can’t hold a piece at the ceremony.”
Matteo stepped in front of Gia like a bodyguard.
“Enough drama out of Sienna for one night. Let her sister go first.”
I looked up at them, and suddenly it was like watching a movie I’d already seen.
Seven years ago, after the pistol went off, I lay on the study floor with a hole in my back and my mother screaming Gia’s name.
Not mine.
Gia sobbed that it was an accident, that she didn’t mean to. And they crowded around her, told me to hold still, don’t scare your sister.
Luca’s face went white when he saw the blood at my waist.
He took one step toward me.
Gia grabbed his sleeve. “Luca. My hand. It hurts so bad.”
Luca stopped. His throat worked but he turned to the doctor too. “Take Gia first.”
Then he looked back at me. “Sienna. Baby. Just hang on one more minute. I’ll come back for you.”
One more minute… That was the phrase I’d heard so many times over the years.
“Sienna, your surgery—one more minute.”
“Your nerve reconstruction—one more minute.”
“Your seat at the table—one more minute.”
“Your sister’s not ready—one more minute.”
I watched them wheel Gia out of the house on a padded stretcher. Luca held her uninjured hand the whole way.
The door closed.
The parlor went quiet. Just glass on the floor and the slow drip of my own blood pooling on the carpet.
This time, I didn’t wait.
I got my hands back on the wheels. I dragged myself upright in the chair.
My arms were shaking. The old scar tore a little wider when I moved, but I kept moving.
I rolled to my room.
I already had a duffel bag packed under the bed. Passport. Medical records.
I booked a plane ticket to the farthest destination I could catch on a red-eye.
Get out of here—as far away as possible. That was the only thought in my head.
Then I opened the family group chat.
Two hundred and eighty photos of Gia over seven years. Every birthday. Every Christmas. Every recital. Every ski trip.
Not one of me.
I hit *leave group.*
I unlocked the burner phone I’d bought hours ago, ported my SIM and killed the old number.
I sent one text before I turned the old phone off. To my father’s private assistant— “I’m out. Tell my father not to send anyone. If he wants to talk to me, he can go through my lawyer.”
Then I powered it off and dropped it on the pillow.
I set the old hearing chip Papa had given me at fourteen—the one that let me listen in on his call logs and learn the family business from the inside—on top of the phone.
…
At two in the morning, the black car I’d hired pulled up in the alley behind the brownstone.
The driver was a made man from a neutral crew. He owed me a favor from a bookkeeping fix I’d done for his cousin.
He was a smart man. He didn’t ask questions.
He lifted me from the chair to the backseat. Folded the chair into the trunk. Never met my eyes.
I looked at the brownstone one last time through the window.
Every light was still on in the front room, waiting for Gia to come home.
Nobody had thought to check on me.
Good. Because I was done being carried too.
Goodbye. May your beloved Gia have everything you planned for her.
As for me? I won’t be your liability—or your burden—any longer. Papa. Mama. Brother… and Luca.