“You get a look at ’em?” I asked.
“No plates. Nice driving, dipshit. Were youaimingfor the wall?”
I was about to tell him to fuck off when Aidan said, “Did you get a look at the driver?” I moved back into my own seat and got out my side of the car. I had to take a second to let the pain die down again, but then I went around to help Aidan.
Carlucci had already gotten him out of the car, but at one look from me, he backed off and let me look Aidan over.
“He had a balaclava,” Carlucci said.
“Is Aidan okay?” shouted a voice from the house.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, and then shoved Carlucci. “You get him back inside, right the fuck now. Boss catches you letting him run around out here after what just happened—”
Carlucci bolted, catching Finch D’Amato halfway down the street. “Aidan!” he called again.
“I’m fine,” Aidan called back. “Go inside, Finch. I’ll be there in a second.”
Mr. D, who had been struggling like a madman, allowed himself to be taken back to the townhouse, although he went backwards the whole way, staring at me and Aidan as Carlucci dragged him.
“Cops’ll be here in a minute,” I said. “You should get in the house. No need to get caught up in these things.”
Aidan shook his head stubbornly. “I want to make sure I explain what happened. I don’t want you—I mean, Finch, to get into any trouble.”
I grinned. “Cops’ll buzz around and try to sting a bit, but they’ll get swatted soon enough. Go on, now, before your buddy Mr. D finds his way out here again. That’d be all we need. Boss’ll be arriving home soon, too, and he’d pop off if I let you stay out here in the street.”
Aidan reached out a hand to me. “Teo—thank you.”
“’S’no bother. Just doing my job.”
He frowned. “No, you weren’t. Your job is to protect Finch, not me. So—thank you. And I’m sorry if I, well. Distracted you with my screams while you were driving.” He gave a watery smile, and I chuckled.
“You go on now,” I said again as the sirens got ever-closer. “Don’t think your Father Raphael would look too kindly on you being asked questions about this. We got it.”
Aidan frowned at that, nodded, and pulled himself off the car, and stumbled. I grabbed him up, ignoring the pain in my side. “Sorry,” he said, putting a hand to his head. “I’m sorry, I think—”
I put a hand around his waist and hooked his arm around my neck. “I got you.” I should have known, I thought angrily, that the poor guy wouldn’t just shake it off. He wasn’t hard like the rest of us. It wasn’t in his nature to just walk away from a near-death experience like it was nothing.
I had to remember that Aidan wasn’t one of us.
We walked together back to the townhouse, and I didn’t want to hurry him, but I also didn’t want him to have to deal with the law, so we moved a little quicker than he would have liked. “Thank you—” he said again as I handed him off to one of the house guards, who escorted him inside. Mr. D was in the doorway, hovering, eyes wild and worried. He grabbed Aidan into a hard hug and pulled him deep into the townhouse.
I watched Aidan’s pale figure receding into the dark hallway.
Chapter Nine
Aidan
Itdidtake three whiskeys this time before I felt okay.
After I’d had the second, a man arrived, whom I’d seen coming once before at the townhouse when Angelo Messina had been recovering here, and he turned out to be a doctor. I had my doubts about whether he was still registered, but he was professional enough in checking me over.
Teo had been right about the police. They came, they saw, they asked a few questions, and then a lawyer had arrived—Carlo Bianchi was the name floated—and the police left.
And now I was alone in the D’Amato townhouse with Finch, Luca and Teo, whom I’d asked to stay as well. I felt guilty about it, but I found myself incapable of swallowing down my feelings on the matter. Usually I found it easy enough to sacrifice my selfish wants, to choose a higher path. Not that night. When Luca had given Teo a nod of thanks and a gesture of dismissal, I spoke up right away.
“No.”
All of them turned to look at me: Luca, Finch, and Teo himself, his eyebrows inching up his forehead.
