Less than a minute later, the blue uniforms are replaced by a scared-looking hospital administrator in a suit that’s two sizes too big. He peers through the window, then gestures to his people to clear the hallway, silences the alarms, and does anything he can to make this go away.
The hospital is moving on instinct. A crash team arrives, puts Ana into another bed, and rolls her out. A doctor barks orders I approve of because they sound likefix-it-now,nottalk-about-it-later.
I hover, as close as they’ll let me, hand on the bed rail while they push. Her lashes flicker. Nothing else does. They roll her into a new room with fewer windows and more machines, and I take the spot at the foot like I'm a paid rent a cop.
Dre slides in beside me with his tablet and a look I know. "There's more."
I don't look away from the unconscious form on the bed, drawn to her in a way I can't explain. It's not tenderness.Thank fuck. But this newfound possessiveness isn't me. "Talk."
"There was an incident this morning at Teterboro. It’s still hush-hush; the press hasn't got wind of it yet. A Cessna landed off-schedule, a woman got out, then shots were fired, leaving several Venezuelans dead." He jerks his chin toward the corpses cooling in the other room. "Like these two. Thirty minutes later, this woman was brought here. By an Uber."
Who the hell is this woman?
My gaze moves over her still form. She's taller than most women, and she looks athletic from what I can see with the sheet covering her. Trim, fit. I take her right hand, as if it will give me all the answers to the questions running through my head, and pull it up to my nose. It's barely there, but enough for me to recognize: gun oil—acrid and metallic, like a match struck in a room that’s already on fire. This woman fired a gun not too long ago. Several times.
"Yeah, it's her," I confirm Dre's suspicion.
"Who the fuck is she? Do you recognize her?"
I stare from the swollen face to Dre pointedly. He shrugs. Indicating her body, inferring I should recognizeit. My hand itches with the urge to deck him. For looking at her,that way. What the fuck is wrong with me? No, I'm not going there. Not now. Not yet.
Venezuelans. Pops into my head. Thank fuck.
Always the fucking Venezuelans.
Voices in the hall turn my attention. I jerk my head at Dre, who goes to investigate. "Right here."
From the corner of my eye, I notice movement. My men have arrived. They'll bar the door to anybody who isn't involved in this woman's medical treatment. Even the cops, as one gets into a heated discussion with Dre and I catch…can't talk to an unconscious woman, you idiot.
Dre comes back in, "Kyle is going through security footage, both from the airport and here. Mallard is on the Uber driver."
"Good."
With a sigh, I pull out my phone and hit a contact I’m not finished being angry at. Raf answers on the second ring, in a voice that sounds too casual to be anything but. Not too long ago, he worked for me. Now he's a capo, and I'm still not sure if I want to invest in a bullet to send through his head or take him out for a drink.
"Stephano." He greets me with the same reserved emotion that’s running through me.
"Tell me everything that happened in Caracas." It's a conversation that's been long overdue, but… things have been happening.
"That's a long conversation," he answers evasively.
I remind myself that he no longer works for me, that, in fact, he and I arepeers. It's been a long time since a self-made man made his way up to capo. Not that his illicit blood relation to Edoardo hasn't helped him, but still, the organization he built from the shadows is quite impressive. I have to give him something before he will give me the information I need.
"I’m at St. Raphael’s, at the bed of a woman who was shot twice by Venezuelans. Before they operated on her, she claimed to be my wife."
I ignore Raf's sarcastic chuckle. He knows I don't have time for women, let alone for marriage. "There was also an incident at Teterboro this morning that left several Venezuelans dead and landed said woman here."
He whistles softly. I don’t need to elaborate. Raf deals in information and secrets, and he’s one of the best hackers I've ever met. He'll figure out the details.
"You all right, Steph? You sound… stressed."
I run a hand through my hair. There was a time when I would have considered Raf my friend. That was before I found out all the shit he'd been doing behind my back. I look at the bed. At the red hair. At the pulse under gauze, the one I didn’t know I needed to hear until I did.
"No." The admission isn't easy. But I need to know where Raf and I stand. I won't trust him again. Ever. But he might make a decent ally, like the other capos.
"Caracas was a shitshow," he admits, "Don Edoardo sent Roberto and Donna Margarita there to clean up a mess with a cargo ship."
He's omitting that Roberto's lovely wife, now widow, Sophia Giordano, was there too, but I let it slide. I have a feeling that I'll soon find out what it's like to feel the need to protect a woman. And it will probably have something to do with the one whose hand I'm still holding and don't seem able to let go of.
