Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“Oh my God. How old were you?” she asked, her hand going to her heart for the boy I’d been.
“Seven? Maybe eight. Young. But when you’re young in the Family, especially back in those days, you knew about this kind of shit. Drive-bys and hits. That was shit we were all aware of. So, yeah, it had been shocking, but not that shocking. I think I was more shocked to find my ice cream cone all streaked with red. Still can’t eat that flavor,” I told her.
“Was he… did he make it?” she asked.
“I pushed him back so I could climb out, then I ripped open his shirt. He was hit three times in the shoulder, chest, and stomach. So I pulled off my shirt and kept pressure on the ones that were bleeding the worst until the ambulance showed up. He was in the hospital for a couple nights, but he pulled through. He was a tough old fuck.
“Anyway, when he came home, he had a lot of wound care to do. And my gran was like you. She couldn’t handle that shit. She actually passed out if she saw blood. So my old man would bring me over to go and take care of the wounds. I learned a lot of shit. What to do. What not to do. One of those wounds festered. So I watched as my old man drained it and, okay too much detail,” I said, shooting her a smirk when her eyes went round and her lips pressed together.
“But, yeah, this life means you are going to see a lot of shit. Not always as dramatic as a bullet wound. But knife wounds. Even just broken bones or busted knuckles. And since we can’t go to the hospital all the time, someone has to take care of that shit.”
“And that person was you.”
“Yeah. Until I went away.”
“Who did it then?”
“I dunno. That was under different leadership than we have now,” I told her, tucking my kit into my back pocket. The movement made her suddenly remember that she was sitting there almost naked, so she jumped off the counter, and reached behind the door for a robe that she slipped on.
“Did you ever consider going into the medical field?”
“No, babe.”
“Why not?”
“Because when you’re in the life, you’re in it. This is all there is.”
“But don’t some of the others have actual jobs? Like legitimate jobs?” she asked.
Yeah.
Because we needed to wash the dirty money.
“Sure. But not careers,” I told her, following her out of the bathroom and down the hall.
“Do you need to get that?” she asked, making me aware of the buzzing on the counter just as it stopped vibrating.
The screen lit up.
Ten missed calls.
“Fuck,” I hissed, reaching for it and having to fumble with my goddamn passcode three times before I got it open.
Lorenzo. Emilio. Lorenzo.
Not good.
They didn’t call ten times in a row unless shit had gone sideways.
Just as I was about to call them back, the phone started to vibrate in my hand again.
“What’s wrong?” I answered, looking over at Whitney who actually looked concerned.
“It’s Anthony,” Lorenzo said, tone tight.
“What happened?” I asked, stomach tightening.
“Drive-by,” Lorenzo said, and I could hear Emilio in the background demanding to know where the fuck I was. Anthony was his little brother. Who had the worst fucking luck in the whole goddamn world. Shot, stabbed, shot again. I felt like the bastard was constantly living on my couch so I could keep an eye on some wound he had going on.
“Are you at the office?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m on my way,” I said, cutting the call off.
“Go,” Whitney said, nodding. “You don’t need to explain yourself.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I told her, rushing off to deal with another Family crisis.
And all the fucking while, all I could think about was getting to see her again.
CHAPTER TEN
Whitney
It was kind of sick to be turned on when a guy was treating a wound he was trying to keep from “festering” and “weeping,” right?
I mean… try to tell that to my body.
I tried.
It didn’t give a damn.
All it cared about was how he got down on his knees in front of me and ran his fingers over my skin.
I found myself looking forward to it each shift, looking for him any time the door opened, and feeling a crushing surge of disappointment each time it wasn’t him.
Nothing happened again.
Though, not from lack of wanting.
I tried to remind myself as I walked out of the bathroom with need thrumming between my thighs that it was for the best.
I mean, in what universe did someone like me—a goodie goodie through and through—get involved with an actual member of the New York City mafia?
That said, what red-blooded woman raised on steamy books didn’t have a thing for the bad boys? The ones who would burn down the world to be with you. There was something undeniably sexy about that.