Frank frowns. “Yeah, I hearda you. You treating Huddie-boy right?”
“Yes, sir,” Gio says. “Yes,sir, to the best of my ability.”
“Okay, then.” Frank drops the gruff act and steps forward to offer his left hand—the other one is a prosthetic—to shake. Hudson Taylor, who is kind of like my own little Underboss at Kismet Nightclub, is pretty near and dear to Frank’s heart. For one thing, he’s the biological uncle of Frank’s kid.
“We, uh,” Gio says, awkwardly shaking with his own left hand. “Me and Blondie—I mean, Hudson, me and Hudson, we’ll look to move out now that you’re back in town, sir.”
Sometimes I forget that Hudson was only house-sitting that Upper West Side brownstone for Frank and Cee. We knew my brother-in-law and my outlaw sister were not going to come back to New York for a long time. So it made sense for Hudson, who had been staying there with them, to look after the place. It actually belonged to me first, passed on in Tino Morelli’s will as one of many properties he owned, and then Luca and I gave it to Frank and Cee, who have been letting Hudson stay there.
Frank’s next words send my heart plummeting.
“Shit, no,” Frank snorts. “It’s just me in town. The wife and kid ain’t with me, so you and Huddie sit tight. I only need the spare room, or the sofa if that’s too much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble, no trouble at all, sir. I’ll call Hudson right now and ask him to make sure we got sheets on that bed in the spare room.” Gio backs out of the room, pulling out his phone as he goes, nodding at me in his usual gesture forstay the fuck right there.
As if I’m going anywhere.
“Cee’s not with you?” I ask Frank forlornly once the door closes again.
Frank gives me the kindest smile he can from among the wreckage of his face, and gives the back of my neck a comforting squeeze. “Didn’t want to pull the girls into this mess. Besides, our life is in Italy now.”
This is all news to me. I mean, not that Brother Frank and Sister Cee are in Italy. But that they want tostaythere. “I thought it was just until Bubbles—I mean, Marcy—was out of danger.”
At the mention of his adopted daughter’s name, Frank’s face softens, the crags and valleys smoothing over. But what he says is just as hard to hear as everything else he’s told me so far. “And when will that be, Finch? Eh? There are always enemies here for us. Always.” He hauls me upright as my knees buckle. “Hey, watch out there. I don’t want Georgie bitching me out if he wakes up and you’re lying right there next to him. Come on, come and sit down.” He half-supports me over to my usual chair next to Luca’s bed, and looks me over critically. “Ain’t no one taking care of you?”
There’s a soft knock at the door and it begins to swing open. “Of course people are taking care of me,” I say, feeling a little better when Aidan comes into the room, blinking in concern at me. “Aidan, for one.”
“I brought you these,” Aidan says, handing Frank and me a coffee each. “The café said you’d been waiting on an order. I handed out the rest,” he adds quickly, as I open my mouth again.
I give a little sigh of pleasure. “Thanks, A.” I’ve drunk so much coffee in the last few days that I can’t stomach it anymore, but it gives my hands something warm and comforting to gather around. Frank downs half of his in one go, making a face as he does.
“Used to the Italian style now,” he mutters. “But fuck me, I need the caffeine. That flight knocked me around some.”
“I’ll get you another,” Aidan suggests, gliding out of the room. I know he’s allowing us time alone, with each other and with Luca, and if I had any gratitude left in me, I’d feel it now.
All I can feel these days are the more uncontrollable emotions. Anger. Fear. Hatred, sometimes. But also love, and overwhelming devotion to the man lying in that damn hospital bed. I set down my coffee and cross to him, stroking a hand across his brow, running the backs of my fingers down his jaw, just to remind him I’m here with him. I’ll have to trim his facial hair again tomorrow, keep it tidy and sharp the way I know he likes it. Darla helped me do it yesterday because I knew he’d hate how much it had grown.
“Can’t believe he’s lying there so…” Frank rumbles, trailing off, as he comes to stand next to me. “It’s nothim.”
It’s exactly what I’ve been thinking the past few days. From the moment I met him, Luca has been a fiery beacon—and not just to me. His ambition, his drive, his desire; those qualities made him unmissable even in a crowded room.
His fire has dimmed so much now that I can barely see it.
“What’s the doc said?” Frank asks.
“That, in so many words, my husband is a lucky son of a bitch. He took several bullets, but only one of them was the real problem.” I try to keep my voice steady through the next sentence, because there’s no point making Frank as worried as I am. “Plus he had a head injury, which they think is why he hasn’t woken up yet.” There were a whole lot of complex medical terms that the doctors told me, and I was thankful to Darla, who’s been interpreting for me. “But he will. Hewill.”
Frank’s jaw clicks as he works it, staring down at his brother. “How in the hell did this happen?”
It’s what I’ve been asking myself. What every other Morelli Family member has wanted to ask me, too, but hasn’t so far. Maybe they’re sensitive to my emotional state. Or maybe, like Teo and Nick, they just feel too guilty to talk about it.
Frank doesn’t have those handicaps. He turns to me, more insistently this time. “Huh? How’d it happen? Why the hell wasn’t there more security with you two? How’d the Irish get in the house? Was there another Family involved? Did someone sell you out? Why—”
“Frankie,” I sigh, and I put a hand on his arm and pull him away from Luca’s bedside. “Please don’t. Not right now. I don’t want Luca getting stressed out while he’s lying there.”
“No,” Frank says, and the pugnacious jut of his chin is too familiar. “I wanna know. And I wanna knownow, Finch. Because it sounds to me like some heads need kicking, if this fucking Family don’t have its shit together enough to take care of my little bro.”
I rub a weary hand across my face and nod. “Alright. Come with me.”
