“Liar.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Hush.”
“Won’t.”
“Should.”
“Can’t.”
“Will!” She chortled. “We’re either going to get ticketed or you’re about to be arrested for parking in an illegal zone.” She pointed in a direction beyond the car.
I glanced around to see what she was looking at and noticed a traffic cop approaching us. I stared at him. Gaze locked. Brow arched.
His throat bobbed before he touched a hand to his cap in a salute and drifted back where he’d come from.
“That’s so cool,” she whispered.
I turned to her with a smirk. “There have to be some perks to being the Capo’s woman.”
“The Capo’s woman.” She hummed. “I think I prefer being yourliunissa.”
“Good thing. You’ll always be that.” I cupped her chin. “What’s going on, Kitty?”
She bit her lip. “I enjoyed the meeting with Storm and the meal with Dmitri, Sofia, Ilya, and Taube too much. I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Luc and Rory tend to handle that side of things.” I tugged on a lock of hair that had fallen out of the bun she’d styled it into earlier. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Her hand grasped my wrist, circling it, nails digging in deep.
My Kitty had claws.
“Didn’t you find it… Didn’t you get a rush?”
“More like a headache.”
“Is it strange that I did?” she ruminated.
“No. You’re new to this bullshit. It’s bound to be interesting. Especially when no one is bleeding or in any pain at that point in time.” I sighed. “This life is a brutal one,duci. I want you at my side but… after what happened, I want to shield you from it too. And as much as you might have gotten buzzed from the meetings we attended, that isn’t my role.”
“You sound apologetic.” She huffed out a strained laugh. “There’s no need. I’m being stupid.”
“No. You’re not. At all.” Stroking a hand over her hair, I reasoned, “You can want to do more than one thing with your life. What got you into nursing in the first place?” Her blank expression offered no clues so I prodded, “Are you tired of nursing?”
“Would you believe me if I said Neev is why I’m a nurse?”
I barked out a laugh. “She really was a troublemaker, wasn’t she?”
“Still is. Little fucker.” Her expression pulled taut. “In her defense, she lost both Da and Vinny at a messed-up ageandwithin a short space of time. It screwed with her childhood in somany ways. Ma struggled to find an equilibrium and things were rough for a long while.”
“What happened?”
“Aftereverything… she started doing drugs. I found her one day. Overdosed. I realized I wanted to help people. I wanted to make sure that no one had to lose a sibling and that if they were in this position, there’d be someone to help save them.” She tried to swipe at her cheeks, but I didn’t let her—I used my thumb to blur the tracks that tears left behind. “I didn’t do that much. But in I went, thinking I could be someone’s savior. Talk about naive. And arrogant.”
My frown made another reappearance. “You were not naive. Or arrogant. That’s often how vocations begin, Kitty. In trauma. And what are you talking about—youdidsave me. You have and you do so every day.”
“I-I suppose. We both have that fire in us, don’t we? A fire that’ll never be sated and will burn our whole lives. But mine doesn’t tear me apart like yours does.”
I smiled, but it was faint. “I’m okay. A part of me… I’ve been where Neev was, Kitty. Sometimes, it feels like drugs have fucked up shit for me my whole life. I didn’t have an excuse. Neev had lost her father and her brother. Me? I was an idiot.”
