“I still don’t get it,” Johnny says. “Recon is miles below your pay grade, boss. And on this one?” He thumbs in Lena’s direction. “What could she have possibly done to warrant that kind of attention from you?”
Okay, so maybe I’m not entirely honest with Johnny. Some shit is on a need-to-know basis and the intel I’ve seen on the woman in my lap falls firmly into that category. So, I give him only half the truth. “It’s a whole fucking army below my pay grade, man, but you know how it goes when thecapogives an order. He has his sights on this one and since he’s out of town, Ari is being a total pain in the ass about it, making sure I handle it.”
“And when your brother wants you to handle something…”
“It’s best I do it, no questions asked.” There are only two men in this world who can expect that from me.
My older brother, Ari, and thecapobastoneof the Cerreti crime family and our adoptive uncle, Aldo Cerreti.
Since the day Aldo took Ari and me in as his own, we’ve been unfailingly loyal. My brother and I know that the man we call uncle is the only reason we’re still alive. That’s the kind of debt you pay back with everything you’ve got, including blood. And when Aldo Cerreti made my older brother hissottocapo, his underboss, my loyalty to Ari became one of Family business, not just blood.
I am theirmaestro di giornata. Their right hand man. The general of their soldiers. Their most lethal weapon in our family’s most brutal battles. The protector of all that’s ours. For Aldo and Ari, I do as I’m told, full stop. And report back only when the situation is handled. Except…
My current situation is unconscious in my lap, bleedingfrom a gunshot that literally came out of nowhere and behaving nothing like the woman—the threat—mycapohas labeled her to be. In other words, she is the exact opposite of handled.
Johnny seems to realize the problem the same time I do. We’re blocks from my apartment when he abruptly pulls to the curb.
“Uh, boss—where exactly are we going?”
Fuck. We can’t take her to mine. Ari would be sure to find out and then all hell would break loose. We can’t take her to a hospital because this shit just got extremely complicated and the last thing I need is the police questioning her. Which just leaves…
I lock eyes with my soldier, my brother by choice, my best friend, and give him a look I know he’s seen a million times. A look he knows better than to refuse. “How would you and Bianca feel about a house guest?”
4
REM
Johnny’s wife, Bianca, opens the door before we reach the front steps. Johnny rushes to her, bundling her back into the warmth as he takes her spot holding the door open.
I’m not far behind, cradling a still-unconscious Lena against my chest.
“Hurry. She’s gotta be freezing.” Bianca waves me into the house, past the spacious living area and down a hall toward the ground floor guest room. Before Bianca, Johnny lived in an apartment in the same building as me, sparingly furnished, with enough weights to fill a gym and a kitchen rarely stocked with anything more than beer and frozen dinners.
Now with Bianca, he’s living in a spacious Victorian townhome in a subtly swanky part of the city and there’s always fresh flowers, candles burning, and the smell of something mouthwatering coming out of the kitchen. Bianca runs her own catering business so not all the food is for him, but still. Everything about Johnny’s relationship with Bianca has been life-changing, in the best way. Even on a night when all he did was play getaway driver, her concern for him is palpable. I pretendnot to hear her fussing over him as they follow me to the bedroom Bianca indicated.
They’ve only been together a few years but being married into the mafia seems to suit Bianca; she barely blinks when I put a bloody stranger on her perfectly white bedspread. I’m careful not to jostle Lena when I pull away and pause a little longer than necessary to make sure she’s still breathing. The hit she took is more flesh wound than anything. The fact that she’s still unconscious is making me edgier than I want to admit.
“She’s probably in shock.”
I glance down at Bianca, her head hovering around my shoulder. She looks up at me with concern. For me or for Lena, I can’t tell.
“This is just some run of the mill guesswork, but this young woman doesn’t look like someone who is used to being shot at. Or, um, you know—actuallyshot. She’s probably still in shock, which means she might be out a little longer than you’d expect.”
“Really?” I cock an eyebrow. “Did you pick up a degree in medicine I don’t know about?”
Bianca ignores my comment—one of the few people who would dare—and starts removing Lena’s clothes. Casting a glance at her husband, she murmurs something about supplies and sends him off before any of Lena’s skin is exposed.
I relax my jaw a fraction. Why the fuck I’m worried about Johnny seeing any part of Lena’s body is beyond me, but, shit, it’s been a night of fucking firsts and that’s the last one I have time to analyze right now.
“Take a breath, Rem,” Bianca says. “She’s going to be fine.”
“I’m not worried,” I lie. To Bianca. Definitely to myself. “I don’t need her to be fine. Just conscious. And just long enough to find out what the fuck happened tonight.”
“Hmm, if you say so…” Bianca’s voice trails off as she finally manages to peel Lena’s blood-crusted shirt from her side. The wound re-opens in the process and bleeds sluggishly onto the bedlinen. Johnny returns seconds later, supersized first aid kit in hand, and passes it to his wife. Bianca doesn’t even need to look into the box to pull out the gauze pads. She presses one to Lena’s side.
No sooner does Bianca touch Lena than our patient wakes up with a scream and tries to fling herself off the far side of the mattress.
Bianca squeals in surprise, Johnny curses. I grab the only part of Lena within reach, hauling her back by her leg before she thrashes herself onto the floor.
