Complications

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Michel

Matteo

My house. Now.

Michel

On my way.

“What’s the emergency?”

The clipped message I’d received from Matteo hadn’t given me much to work with, but when Matteo Leone called, I responded immediately. He didn’t pull me out of my practice unless it was urgent.

“Elio’s gone and done something stupid,” Frankie said as he escorted me down the hallway toward the guest bedrooms, which told me everything I really needed to know.

Oh. That made sense.

Matteo and I had been friends since college, both of us growing up in a world we never had to explain to each other, which was perhaps the only reason our friendship had survived as long as it had.

Over the years, I’d patched Matteo up more than once, though lately his focus had shifted elsewhere.

He referred to Elio as his nephew, though I’d never quite understood the exact mechanics of that relationship since Matteo had no siblings.

It didn’t matter. Blood was blood in this world, even when it wasn’t.

And Elio had a talent for doing something foolish and getting himself hurt in the process.

He liked to think of himself as part of the family business.

Typically, he preferred to hover around the edges of things that were far bigger than he understood, but every damn one of them knew he was only playing at the fringes.

A bored rich kid looking for something to do, except the something usually ended up with him bruised or bleeding.

It annoyed me to no end, but he wasn’t afraid to back up his mouth.

I had grudging respect for that, though I was sure not everyone in Matteo’s organization felt that way.

“Your patient’s in here, Doc.” Frankie opened the door and stepped aside.

The room was quiet. The bed was empty, but movement from the couch in the corner pulled my attention.

Elio looked as he always did—rumpled in the deliberate, expensive way that said he’d spent good money to look careless.

A T-shirt and jeans tailored within an inch of their lives clung to a body that had no business being that distracting.

He had dark hair like his uncle’s, broad shoulders, and thick thighs. Absolute perfection.

But his face carried a softness Matteo had never possessed. The family’s brown eyes were sharp and clear, framed by long dark lashes and heavy brows that made him look almost innocent if you didn’t know better.

He looked like a fallen angel.

And I was out of my goddamn mind for noticing. Noticing meant acknowledging that I wasn’t immune, and I had worked very hard to convince myself that I was.

“What have you done to yourself this time?” I asked, setting my bag down and sitting on the heavy wooden coffee table so I could examine him properly.

There was a shallow abrasion on his cheek, but it was his hand that concerned me. His knuckles were already swelling, the bruises blooming fast enough that I didn’t need an x-ray to know at least one finger was broken.

“Why do you act like you’re not happy to see me?”

His tone was flirtatious, but it meant nothing. Elio flirted with anything that moved—male or female, it didn’t matter. As long as they were adults, they were fair game. He liked reactions. He liked attention. He liked pushing boundaries just to see who would hold firm.

He’d been poking at me for years. I’d ignored the pull for just as long. But his antics were escalating.

What had once happened maybe once a year was now happening every couple of months, and his last patch-up had been only weeks ago. At some point, it had stopped being a coincidence and started being a pattern.

Elio was playing a dangerous game. Matteo might indulge him up to a point—he’d roll his eyes and smooth things over—but there was always a line, and Elio was edging closer to it with every impulsive decision. Business was business, even with family.

“Because I’m not. Whose boyfriend did you piss off this time?” I dabbed antiseptic onto his cheek, and the instinct to soften the sting with my breath rose uninvited before I crushed and turned my focus to his hand instead.

“Stretch your fingers.”

His sharp inhale told me the injuries weren’t as minor as he wanted me to believe, but he moved them—except for his ring finger. A diagonal bruise continued to darken across the knuckle, the swelling tight and angry. It was practically happening in real time and, yes, clearly broken.

“If you kiss it, it’ll feel better,” Elio drawled, watching me instead of his hand. “You could kiss lots of places and make them feel better.”

The deliberate seduction in his voice scraped along nerves I preferred to pretend didn’t exist. Elio was forbidden fruit in the most literal sense, and it had been too damn long since I’d allowed myself any kind of distraction.

He seemed determined to remind me exactly how soft his mouth looked, how easily he could make things complicated.

“Behave.”

“Make me.”

“That job belongs to Matteo,” I said evenly, “and he’s got his hands full right now.”

The past few months, Matteo had been singularly focused on making sure Connor felt safe and secure in their new relationship. Given the abuse Connor had suffered before being brought to Matteo’s home, it was understandable. The man had poured all of his energy into protecting what he’d claimed.

Elio at least had the decency to look chastened.

I wasn’t trying to make him feel bad, but he needed to knock his shit off before he crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

Matteo protected the family, but Connor had become his priority.

If Elio’s antics created a risk, Matteo would cut him loose without a moment’s hesitation.

Elio needed to realize that before he went too far.

My worry pissed me off more than I wanted to admit.

“I can bring the x-ray machine over if you want absolute certainty, but I’m fairly sure it’s just the one break. It’s going to be sore as hell and bruised, but there’s enough movement in the rest of the hand. I’ll splint your ring finger and wrap it. You can change it yourself.”

“But don’t you want to?” he murmured, and before I could step back, his uninjured hand came up to trace along my jawline, fingertips warm and deliberate.

The contact created lingering sparks of awareness and heat. My cock swelled from the intensity of his gaze. And that was enough of that.

“I’m here to patch you up, not flirt with you. Try that on someone else.”

I needed to keep my side of the street clean.

Matteo and I might be friends, but there were limits to everything.

I knew Elio’s place in the family. The perpetual screw-up.

The indulged one. The one who didn’t actually work in the business but hovered near it like proximity alone could grant him purpose.

“How did this happen?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s really not my fault.”

“Strange because that was the exact same thing you said the last time I patched you up.”

“All right, I didn’t mean it that time because I was fucking around with someone. How was I supposed to know he had a boyfriend?”

“You could’ve maybe asked him?”

“That’s on him to share.”

I rolled my eyes in pretend exasperation. Even though his logic was sound, there was no way in hell I’d give him the satisfaction of knowing I agreed.

“All right, so what happened this time?”

“You know I was supposed to represent Matteo at the mayor’s event tonight, right?”

“How would I know that?” I snorted, waving for him to continue.

“I was coming back from having a smoke—and yes, I know it’s bad for me—and one of the mayor’s aides was being hassled by a guy. So I stepped in.”

“And security decided you were the problem.”

“Security didn’t appreciate my interference,” he said lightly. “I might look like shit, but he definitely has a broken nose.”

“Christ on a cracker.”

“Worth it.”

A discreet knock cut through the moment, and Frankie appeared in the doorway.

“Matteo wants to see you.”

“Me?” Elio asked.

“If you’re smart, you’ll hide for a while. He’s pissed.” Frankie’s gaze shifted to me. “He’s asking for you, Doc.”

Frankie had always been polite to me, but I never forgot what he was capable of. Growing up in this world hadn’t hardened me, but it had given me a healthy respect for the men who enforced its rules.

“Elio, do not move off this couch. I’ll finish bandaging you after I speak with your uncle.”

“Should I wait for you on the bed instead?”

I didn’t bother to answer before I walked out to see his uncle. Elio had stepped up his game and his fights. The problem, for both of us, was how close I was to letting him win.

“The good news is he’s in zero danger of dying from getting into a scuffle,” I offered by way of greeting. I sank into one of the leather chairs across from Matteo and let him brood. It had always been one of his favorite pastimes.

“Did he say what happened?” Matteo finally asked after letting me sit in silence for a while.

He used to do that back in college too—sit and think and sit some more before speaking, like he had a quota of words and once he exceeded it, he wasn’t allowed any more.

“He said it was at the mayor’s event. Got into it with security after interfering with someone who was hassling a member of the mayor’s staff.”

Matteo steepled his fingers beneath his chin before continuing. “I’m not saying it’s not true, but didn’t he use that excuse last time too?”

“Yeah. I mentioned that to him.”

The silence in Matteo’s office was almost oppressive. I’d been in here countless times before, but never with something I needed to hide. Elio was, potentially, bad for my health.

“He’s just so fucking reckless.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Teo. He’s young yet. Give him time to grow into things.”

“Young? He’s twenty-nine. That’s a goddamn adult. Hell, Connor is five years younger. You think he’s a kid?”

“No. Connor was forced to grow up fast. It’s not the same situation.” A diversion was needed, and with Teo, there was only one that was guaranteed to work every time. “Speaking of Connor, where is he?”

“Repotting in the conservatory. Orchids, I think.”

“Last time I was in there, it looked like a botanical garden.”

Matteo glowered at me.

“Relax, Teo. You were with me.”

The tension immediately left his squared shoulders, and he offered me a grin instead.

“Dammit, I forgot about that.”

“Yeah. I don’t have a death wish.”

“You might not, but that idiot nephew of mine does.”

I kept silent because the last thing I needed was to admit that Elio’s flirting was getting under my skin.

“What am I going to do with him?” Matteo muttered. Silence was best. Truly. “I guess I’d better figure it out while I still can.”

“You need anything else from me?” The walls of his office felt like they were closing in, and I needed out while that was still an option. “His hand still needs to be bandaged. Nothing broken except a finger.”

Matteo waved me off, and it suited me just fine. The less scrutiny, the better.

I wasted no time getting out of the office and into the hallway, where I could breathe again. Matteo had been my friend far longer than he’d been my client, and I intended to keep it that way. And our friendship wouldn’t stay intact if I became involved with his screw-up of a nephew.

Those thoughts were still racing through my mind when I walked back into the bedroom where Elio waited.

“I knew you couldn’t stay away.”

Elio had stayed on the couch, but he now lay sprawled across it, head resting on the arm. One leg remained bent on the cushion while the other had dropped to the floor, leaving the juncture of his hips open and unapologetically available.

And, holy hell, semi-hard.

“Like what you see?”

“Quit. Give me your hand so I can wrap it.”

I kept all of my attention fixed on the medical task at hand. I refused to think about his dark-pink lips, the way his tight jeans outlined his cock, or how the stubble along his jaw would feel against my face.

Slowly—like it was goddamn foreplay—the man who would undoubtedly have a starring role in my X-rated dreams tonight placed his hand in my lap.

Given the nature of my work, I always kept a variety of splints in my bag. As carefully as possible, I braced and taped his finger.

“That feel all right?”

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

The huskiness in his voice matched my own. We both knew I was moving slower than required, that my touch lingered longer than it should, but Elio didn’t pull away.

He widened his legs instead.

It was too much.

“You’ll be fine. Keep it taped for three weeks, and if it feels all right after that, you can take it off.”

Then I fled like the coward I hadn’t realized I was until that moment.