“Good for her,” Jericho said. “Howbadis it?” he repeated.
“We may require the service of a Mulvaney or two for clean-up, or maybe even one of Thomas’s special friends. This is too much for just the two of us,” Nico said before dropping his voice. “We’re also going to have to find a place to stash Casey.”
“You think they’ll come after her again?” Jericho asked.
Nico’s gaze dragged to the 49 tattooed on the dead man’s shoulder. “Yeah, I can all but guarantee it.”
Jericho hesitated, then gave a sigh. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nico locked eyes with Mal, who gave him what he hoped was a reassuring nod. “Well, the guy she killed…her attacker? He’s got a 49 inked on his shoulder.”
“No fucking way.”
“Very much yes fucking way,” Nico said, then leaned down enough to snap a picture and send it to Jericho.
“Goddammit.”
“Maybe it’s fake?” Nico supplied reluctantly. “Maybe he’s some kind of poser who wants street cred.”
“Getting caught with a tattoo like that when you don’t belong is a death sentence,” Jericho said.
“Why the fuck would they come here?” Mal asked. “This can’t be another territory grab like Micah tried to do, right?”
“If it is, we’re screwed,” Nico said, once more gnawing on his lip, staring hard at the 49. “Even the Mulvaneys aren’t going to go up against the triad…right?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Jericho muttered.
“It’s the fucking triad…here…in our city…” Nico muttered. “I don’t think it pays to lag behind.”
Mal stiffened when Casey’s voice softly asked, “What’s a triad?”
“Does it hurt?”
Casey shook her head, eyes trained critically on the needle piercing her skin, watching intently as Freckles tugged the thread through the raw edges of her wound, drawing it closed one stitch at a time. She was shockingly calm about it. Nico probably would have puked watching someone sew him up like this at her age.
He sat sprawled in a chair on the opposite side of the small dining table where Freckles had made up a makeshift workstation. Doctor and patient sat catty-corner to each other, her hand resting on a white napkin-like object Freckles had called a drape. A number of bottles and bandages were strewn on the table as well as the open suture kit.
Nico was only half-watching as he towel-dried his shower-damp hair, his borrowed sweats a tad too big, making them pool at his ankles. He couldn’t be positive but he was at least fifty percent sure these were Seven’s sweats, left behind from when he’d had to clean up at the penthouse after a different job.
It wasn’t anything new. They were always arriving in one set of soiled clothes and leaving in different clean ones. Nico felt a little bad. It wasn’t like Coe could ask their housekeeper to do their bloody laundry, which left Jericho or Freckles to handle it themselves. The idea of Freckles doing laundry made Nico’s lips twitch. He couldn’t picture it.
He shook the thought away as Casey—who had yet to shower—looked up at Freckles and asked, “What’s it made of?”
Freckles gave her a curious look. “What’s what made of?”
Casey nodded towards her hand. He’d already closed the two smaller cuts and was working on the largest one down the center of her palm, which was deep but not so deep it had severed muscle or tendon. At least, according to Freckles.
“The stitch stuff. It looks just like the thread we use when we’re sewing bags.”
Atticus nodded. “It is. It’s nylon. They commonly use it in manufacturing handbags, upholstery, and outdoor equipment. Anything that requires a strong stitch.”
Leave it to Freckles to know that.
“It’s safe for my skin?” she asked, her tone suspicious.
“Of course. It’s actually ideal for sutures. It’s tough, flexible, waterproof, and causes minimal irritation to tissue,” Atticus said, like he was addressing a group of medical students and not a thirteen-year-old girl.
Jericho smirked from his spot in the kitchen where he was making Casey a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his pajamas. It was the only thing Freckles trusted Jericho to make in his kitchen. Not that Jericho had any burning desire to be in the kitchen, at least not for any reason that didn’t involve molesting his husband while he cooked for their children, who were—thankfully—sleeping through this ordeal. They usually did. But Nico understood that. Trauma tended to make one a heavy sleeper.
