32. Vito
It takes me three tries before I actually rap my knuckles against Andy’s door. I don’t know what the fuck’s up with me lately. I’ve lost my backbone. This kind of shit never used to be this difficult. I could smooth talk anything with tits until Andy?—
She opens the door, glares at me, and immediately tries to slam it shut. I get my brown suede Gucci loafer wedged in there just in time.
Only a sliver of Andy and her room is visible. She’s wearing a white hoodie and black yoga pants with white socks. I guess she hasn’t had time to go clothes shopping yet.
“It’s an emergency.”
Her green eyes widen. “Is it Bry?—”
She cuts off when I shove my thickly bandaged hand through the crack in the door, her eyes widening even more.
“Need your medical expertise, pronto.”
“Holy cow, what happened?” But then it’s like she remembers she hates me, and her scowl is back. “Whatever. I hope it falls off.”
“Woah, little harsh, don’t you think? Aren’t you legally obligated to help? Isn’t that part of the hypocritic oath or something?”
Her scowl flattens into a stoic mask. “Hippocratic Oath,” she corrects. “And I’m sure a shot of penicillin will take care of all your symptoms.”
She kicks at my shoe so she can close the door, but I keep my loafer wedged in tight.
“I think I need stitches. It’s pretty bad.”
She blows a strand of pale red hair from her face with an exasperated huff, her eyes flickering to my hand again. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Rope burn.”
Her face scrunches up in disbelief. “Stitches? For rope burn?”
I shrug. “I’m not a doctor.”
“Neither am I, so…” She gives my suede loafer another kick.
“Who’s there, baby?” Viv calls from inside Andy’s room.
I open my mouth, but Andy shushes me with her finger, glaring as she shakes her head. “No one, Mom!”
I lean in close. “Please?” I wave my bandaged hand around in case she forgot how badly injured I was.
She squints at me, her mouth pursed, and then huffs out an annoyed, “Fine. Five minutes.”
“Five minutes is all I need,” I say, giving her a charming smile.
Her eyebrow cocks up. “I wouldn’t be so proud of that.” Leaning back, she calls out, “Just gonna get us some more snacks, Mom. Want something?”
“Ooh, another bottle of this wine, baby!” Viv yells from inside the room. “And more crackers!”
Andy winces as she turns back to me. She shoos me away from the opening and then sidles out, keeping the door as tightly closed as possible.
“Are you ashamed of me?” I ask as I follow her down the hall.
“Bingeing Love Boat with my mom is bad enough. If she sees you, she’ll make you stay and watch with us.”
“You and your mom have some issues to work through, don’t you?”
“She has the subtitles turned on,” Andy says dryly. “But she’s not wearing her glasses, so she keeps asking me to read them to her.”
I laugh, cutting off when she gives me a withering glare. She leads me into the kitchen and pulls out a smaller version of the red bag the nurses kept in Bryan’s room.
When she sees my frown, she says, “Spotted it yesterday when I came looking for a snack.”
“What the hell kind of snack were you looking for that wasn’t in the pantry?”
She rolls her eyes as she starts rummaging through the kit and taking out individually wrapped packages of medical stuff.
“Okay, fine. I was snooping. Can you blame me? I’m in a villa owned by the Domingo cartel.”
“What were you hoping to find? Money? Drugs?” I lean in to whisper, “More money?”
I swear there’s a hint of a smile on her face, but it vanishes when she turns to face me with a pair of scissors. “Hand.”
“You’re cute when you’re bossy.”
The freckles on her cheeks fade into her blush. “Just be quiet and let me work, okay?”
I do as she says in the hopes she’ll reward me if I obey.
She snips through the wad of bandages I wrapped around my hand, growing more and more serious as the strips fall away. When they’re all off, she gently grasps my wrist and turns my hand around.
“Uh…”
“It’s right over there.” I point with my other hand, and she cranes her head to spot the small abrasion on the side of my index finger.
“Geez, I dunno, Vito.” She blows out a breath. “This is way outside of my wheelhouse. Maybe we should take you to the hospital,” she mutters dryly, glancing up briefly at me. “Does your liddle boo-boo hurt?”
“So bad,” I whisper mournfully. “But Doctor Andy will make it better won’t she?”
“Not a doctor.” This time I get a half-chuckle out of her before she slides back her serious face. She tears open an antiseptic swab and wipes it over the wound, giving me a flat stare when I hiss in pain.
“Sadist.”
“Wimp. How’d you get rope burn anyway?” Her gaze flicks me up and down. I’m wearing beige Brunello Cucinelli chinos, a pale blue button-up Tom Ford shirt, and one of my Rolexes. “Yachting?”
“Please,” I scoff. “Like I’d wear this—“ I cut off when she rolls her eyes. “I was practicing my rope work.”
She frowns at me. “Rope…” Then she pulls back like she really does think I have syphilis. “Like, shibari ?”
I prop my free arm’s elbow onto the counter and cup my chin in my hand. “Marry me,” I sigh.
“Weirdo,” she says through a laugh.
“Saint,” I murmur, as she carefully applies a dab of ointment to the wound. “It was a very tricky knot. Been working on it for days. “
Her eyelashes flutter like she wants to look up at me, but she keeps her gaze focused on her work, silent.
“So exactly how does an EMT know about shibari? Did someone forget their safety scissors and you had to use the jaws of life to cut them free?”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” she mutters.
“I could really use a volunteer. It’s not the same when you’re using a mannequin, you know. Skin has better grip than plastic.”
She slaps a bandaid over the wound, and presses down hard as I wince, staring up at me with a vague smile on her face. “Why don’t you ask one of your whores? I’m sure one of the prettier ones will say yes. You’d have to pay her more, of course.”
Before she can take her hand away, I sandwich it between mine. She tugs once, hard, and then stills, her mouth shifting to the side.
“Andy, I am so, so sorry.”
Her face has as much expression as the mannequin I was trying to tie up this morning.
“There’s a reason I said all those things.”
“I know.”
“My father…I don’t even know how to—“ I cut off at an urgent signal from my brain. “Wait…you know?”
She looks up at the ceiling. It could have been worse. She could have rolled her eyes. “I figured you either have dissociative disorder and you’d woken up with one of your alters in the driving seat, or your uncle used to pull the wings off flies when he was a kid.”
I stare at her. It’s not often I’m dumbstruck, but I just realized how different Andy is to every girl I’ve ever met.
And I’ve met many.
“Pity none of it helped, because he still found out who I really am,” she mutters.
“He hasn’t…contacted you or anything, has he?”
She shakes her head and gently pulls her hand out between mine. “I keep to my room. Always let a friend know where I’m going if I leave. And I’m always home by ten.”
“Maybe it’s better if you leave.” It hurts even saying it, because I have a feeling once Andy is out of my life, she’ll be gone for good.
“And go where?”
“I could give you the keys to one of my?—”
“No.” Her smile is frigid. “I won’t let him bully me. Anyway, me and my mom still have a few seasons of Love Boat to watch.”
She gives me another once-over as she tosses me the ointment. “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.”
When Andy walks past me, headed for the wine cellar, the scent of her green apple shampoo hits my nose.
She gasps when I slide my hand around her waist, stopping her in her tracks. I lean in, putting my mouth by her ear. “If you ever need to hide out from the Boogeyman again, my room’s just down the hall.”
“Really think that’s such a good idea?” she whispers, leaning back to look at me. Her frank stare makes my stomach clench and my dick grow hard. “Last time I did that, the boogeyman was waiting at the foot of the bed when I woke up.”
I tuck a strand of her strawberry-blond hair behind her ear.
“Next time, I won’t forget to lock the door.”
I draw her closer, expecting her to push me away, but she’s staring at me with a tiny crease between her brows.
“We could smoke some more weed,” I murmur.
She searches my eyes, but fuck knows what she’s looking for. Some hint that Sergio’s psychotic nature isn’t hereditary?
We’re flush against each other now as I walk my fingers up her side, leaning my head in so close that I can feel her breath on my lips.
“Slip around in my bed.”
Her lips part, her gaze dropping to my mouth as her eyes become lidded, like I’m putting her into a trance with my murmured promises.
“I’ll find that video I was watching and we could?—“
We both jerk when my phone starts ringing. She blinks rapidly and then pulls my arm off her, stepping back and frowning at me like how dare I whisper sweet nothings in her ear.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, ripping my phone out of my pocket. I check the screen, and then take a deep breath before answering. “This had better be good.”
“You said to call soon as the results came in,” Matias says warily.
“The results are back?”
Andy is already halfway out the kitchen. She’s so eager to get out of my fucking way that she’d completely forgotten about her mother’s wine and crackers. But when she hears me, she spins around and stares.
“Courier just arrived,” Matias confirms.
I aim for the front entrance of the villa, beckoning Andy to follow. She claps her arms over her chest and hurries after me, looking concerned and hopeful at the same time.
“We’re on our way. Where are you?”
“I don’t have them, boss.”
I stop walking, and Andy halts reluctantly at my side. “What do you mean, you don’t have them?”
Matias huffs out a breath loud enough that the phone picks it up. “Sergio took them.”
“Ser—” I cut off, glancing at Andy. She shrugs, widening her eyes, demanding an explanation. “I told you those results were for my eyes only,” I growl.
“He was there when the guy showed up. I didn’t have a choice, boss. He went upstairs, so I’m sure you can just find him and?—“
I end the call, because yelling at Matt won’t change anything.
“What? What is it?” Andy grabs the rolled up sleeve of my shirt, and I’m too pissed to even tell her she’ll crease the fabric.
We were a few yards from the entrance, but it might as well have been miles. What are the fucking chances Sergio just happened to be in the area when the courier arrived?
Unless the main gate had orders to message him so he could intercept anything important.
Like a courier from the laboratory.
Andy wanted to have the results sent by email, but anything with a digital footprint is anathema to a cartel. There’s a reason alligators haven’t evolved in millions of years. Once they’d figured out the blueprint for the perfect apex predator, they stuck with it.
Just like cartels.
Just like my dad.
“Go back to your room.”
Her frown deepens. “But the results?—”
“Go, Andy!”
There’s venom in her eyes as she takes a few stiff steps back, before turning on her heel and storming off.
I’m still trying to figure out if it’s best to round up Savage first, or hunt down my father and try to speak to him alone, when a message comes through on my phone.
Dad
I have something of yours.
My finger hovers over the keyboard as I struggle to think of what to type in response. Before I can even start typing a reply, another message comes through.
Dad
It’s been a while since we’ve talked. Let’s have dinner.
Tonight?
Yes. I’ll text you the address. Bring your new girlfriend.