“It’s what they do in films.”
“Oh, well that makes perfect sense then.”
“We can always go to the hospital and have it done properly.”
“No.”
She unscrewed the vodka bottle. “Then shut up and keep still, because this is going to hurt… lean over a little.”
Fists clenched and his teeth locked together, Niccolo squeezed his eyes shut and made not a whimper of sound. He’d felt worse pain.
“Nic, the wound’s deeper than I thought. It needs stitching.”
He took a deep breath. Now that it had been vodkaed, he could feel the depth of it. “No hospital.”
“What about a private doctor?”
“No one.” Amidst the concentration of getting out of London and to Benjamin’s house, a plan on how he was going to get them out of this mess had begun to formulate. It was a different plan from the one he’d made when thinking he only had his own life to consider, but Lorenzo’s death had changed everything. The threats to Georgia had changed everything. The Espositos wanted vengeance, and nothing short of a miracle would stop them from extracting it. Niccolo’s half-formulated plan might just be the miracle they needed. “Bandage it as best you can.”
“If you’re not prepared to have it stitched professionally, you’ll have to let me do it.”
“You? With what?”
She smiled and lifted a sewing kit off the table. “Thought I’d better be prepared for you being a stubborn arse.”
“It will heal without stitches.”
“It will be an open wound prone to infection.” As she spoke, she took a mug from a cupboard and poured vodka into it, then unwound around a foot of string, snipped it, and placed it in the cup. “That should disinfect the string.”
“You are not serious?”
“I’m sure if this were a TV show it would come with the caveat of not trying this at home, but as you’re so adamant about not getting proper medical attention, needs must, so stop being a baby and let me stitch it up.”
She examined the needles closely before selecting one and taking it to the oven. There, she turned the gas hob on and held the chosen needle over the flame. Blowing it to cool it down, she placed it in the vodka cup with the string and then washed her hands thoroughly. Only then did she find a wooden spoon from a drawer and meet his stare again. “You might need this.”
“Have we gone back to the dark ages?” he quipped.
She gave him a look only marginally brighter than her death stare. “Have you got any anaesthetic on you?”
“I left my emergency anaesthetic in my car in Naples. Give me the vodka.”
She pushed the bottle to him. “Save some for me.”
“Since when were you a vodka drinker?” She’d always been a gin or rum woman.
“It’s not for me, it’s in case I need to douse the wound again.” Plucking the string out of the vodka cup, she gave it a quick shake before gripping the sterilised needle and holding it to the ceiling light. Eyes narrowed with concentration, she threaded the string through the needle’s eye.
A deep breath later, she met his stare again. “Ready?”
He took a deep, deep slug of the vodka and nodded.
“Use the spoon too, okay?”
He had another slug of the vodka then put the spoon between his teeth and grinned.
She gave a half smile back, but her large eyes were full of apprehension. “I need you to keep still.”
Now Niccolo was the one to take a deep breath. Pain was nothing new to him. Growing up, his father had inflicted all kinds of injuries on him. He couldn’t remember ever being stitched back together without anaesthetic, though.
