“Renzo.” Tore’s warning was only background noise as the kiss ended and our foreheads met.
“What was that for?” I asked Renzo, air burning on its way in and out of my chest.
“I love you.”
My breath caught. I searched his gaze for the lie, the scheme, the manipulation. That was the Renzo I knew. Instead, I saw only devotion and passion, not an ounce of deceit, and everyone witnessed it.
“I do,” he continued. “I want them all to know it.”
I grinned brightly. “I love you too.”
There was a collective gasp around us. My gloved hands, occupied and grubby, hung awkwardly over my patient. He kissed my forehead, then pulled back.
“Wait for me,” he said, already a few feet away.
“I’ll be here.”
“Good girl.” Impossibly, my cheeks flamed brighter. “Stay here. Stay safe.”
Like I had any intention of going anywhere else. “You too.”
“Keep an eye on her,” he instructed Natale, who was inspecting the bandage I’d taped over the stitches near his hip.
Tore scowled at me, pointing his index and middle fingers at me, then back at his eyes, before slapping his arm around his cousin and tugging him away.
“What the hell was that?” he asked.
When Renzo swatted Tore’s arm off, I snickered.
“Later,” Renzo replied gruffly.
Who would have thought I’d be smiling like a kid with candy as I went back to suturing? Still, the burn of dozens of eyes pressed between my shoulder blades.
“I suggest you all find something better to do than gawk before I find another use for my scalpel,” I exclaimed at the nosy assembly of injured and healthy Iannelli men.
“You’re good for him.” Natale’s rasped declaration broke the uncomfortable prickle of unwanted attention since Renzo’s departure. Natale sat on the edge of a grouping of two tables, tugging a clean tank over his head. The bullet graze near his hip bone was just one more scar among the multitude of them on his body. “Men like us need women like you.”
I eyed him suspiciously. We’d never spoken much. As the hardened capo managing the Iannellis' security business side, Natale was the type who never tried to stand out, yet somehow always seemed to be there. Before his cheeks were scarred and he lost his eye, he’d probably been handsome and carefree.
“Not sure how I’m supposed to take that.”
“As a compliment, Burch. Strength in vulnerability, it’s a good thing.”
Seeing the looks Massimo and Alfie threw me from their huddle of macho men, I doubted they felt the same. They probably preferred their women meek and quiet.
Unsure how to reply, I forced a smile and took my instruments to the wash bins set on booth cushions along the wall. As they soaked in a cleaning solution, I picked up a new, sanitized set.
One moment, there was a droning stream of soft background conversations and the gentle clink of instruments over the bitter scent of anesthetics and the last cauterization Doc made. The next, a loud boom roared through the entire building. The floor quaked. The windows imploded. Tables and people fell over as dust and bits of ceiling shook down. Anyone awake scrambledto their feet and closed ranks. Ammo was clicked and slammed into guns.
The storefront was still intact, despite the broken glass. Considering the force, the explosion must have happened in the attached deli or apothecary.
Then came the gunfire. A rapidpow pow powthat beat over everything else, from one room over and closing. There were yells and screams. Men poured in through the door adjoining the restaurant and the yoga studio. There was only one assailant I recognized, the last to come in, sheltered behind a wall of his own men—Ilias Dimakos.
“Ainsley!” Natale’s yell was muted against the noise as I pulled Jac, still unconscious, off a set of tables and down to the floor, away from the incoming bullets. I checked his pulse. Still alive.
I had no gun, nothing to defend myself or anyone with. I sifted through the medical instruments laid out on the nearest booth—scalpel handles, scalpel blade packages, epinephrine, bandages, syringes, anesthetic vials, and more. I slipped anything useful into my pockets and waistband.
“Come on.” Natale tugged me around.
