Chapter Forty-Four
They took Grease into surgery, and he was gone a few hours, which was hellish for me for two reasons. One, he was fighting for his life in there, and there was nothing I could do to help him.
Second, I was stuck in a waiting room filled with bikers, and mafia, and I didn’t really know any of them. I could tell who was who by who wore cuts, and who wore suits, but that was it.
Those two bearded guys were there briefly, calling people ‘bruv’, and generally annoying them all, but thankfully they left fairly quickly, and then it was just me, and a bunch of people I really didn’t know.
“You’re Jamie, the cop?”
I lifted my head as a man sat beside me. He wore a shirt and jacket, although the jacket sleeves were crumpled, like he’d rolled them up more than once, and he was clean shaven, but somehow unkempt, even among all the bikers in the room.
“Yeah.”
He nodded, resting his elbows on his knees and taking a deep breath, letting it out so slowly that it almost made me snap at him.
All that stopped me was the knowledge that he was probably armed, and quite honestly, I was the odd one out in this room.
The one outsider among a bunch of very dangerous men.
“I’m sure he’ll be okay.”
I tilted my head at the mafia guy. “Really. That’s helpful, thank you.”
“I was only trying to-”
“Offer up a worthless platitude, while you’re probably the one who’s going to be putting a bullet in his head later. Excuse me if I don’t feel-”
“Whoa. Do you bust his balls this much?” He laughed suddenly, and that unapproachable meanness seemed to dissipate with it.
“Sorry. Yeah. I think he likes it though.”
Another chuckle. “Yeah. Masochistic fucker probably does. I’m Luca.”
I’d heard his name before, of course. Luca Vanotti, probably, the Don’s second in command, if my limited knowledge could be relied on.
“If you’re planning on killing him, you should know that I’ll get between him and any bullets you aim his way,” I hissed at him, despite his suddenly friendly demeanour. He was still an enemy in my eyes, and not because he was a bad guy, and I’m a cop, but because he was a threat to Grease.
“I’m glad you’re in his corner, Jamie. Truth be told, I don’t think anyone wants to see him die. He’s a good man. And uh…” he glanced around us, and lowered his voice, “I’ve never seen him happier than he’s been undercover. That slobby biker life seems to agree with him.”
I swallowed hard, fighting a ton of emotions, ranging from terror and heartbreak, to frustration at having to hold a conversation right now, especially with someone from the Don’s camp.
“He loves it there,” I gritted out, and Luca nodded, dragging a hand down his jaw as he groaned.
“Yeah. Look, some of us will be here for him until he’s out of surgery. Beyond that, I uh…”
“I’m going nowhere, so feel free to fuck off back to whatever pretentious mansion you live in.”
He laughed again. “Starting to see why he threw it all away for you. Anyway, I know you both got in the way of bullets to save the Don, so thank you.”
I lifted my head to watch him as he stood up.
“Will it save him?”
He lifted his shoulders, smoothing his jacket as he seemed to straighten up and get even taller. Why was everyone in these bad guy groups so bloody tall?
“I hope so.”
He tipped his head at me, and turned to leave, joining the other suited men once more, and that’s when a woman sat beside me next.
“Jamie, I’m Sophie, Micro’s wife.” Oh, that’s right. We’d met briefly once or twice, but only spoken once, I think.
“Hi. Thanks for letting us borrow Micro the last few nights. He and Torch were… well, not exactly nice, or pleasant, but… well, not really helpful either, but…”
She giggled, patting my arm. “I completely understand. They’re like a double act, right?”
I clasped my hands in my lap, wondering if being joined by people was really any more preferable to sitting alone to wait for news.
“Grease will be okay, Jamie. He’s a stubborn son of a… I mean, he’s strong, and they say the bullet went right through.”
That still didn’t sound like a good thing, did it?
“I just need him to wake up, so I can call him all the assholes under the sun for getting himself shot. Shot, Sophie. He was shot!”
She nodded, shooting a glare across the room at her husband, of all people.
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’m actually surprised it wasn’t my damn husband this time. He’s like a bullet magnet.”
Micro had stood up to join us after that glare, and he rested his hand against his chest.
“Oh, baby, that hurts. I’ve only been shot a few times. You say it like it happens weekly.” I couldn’t enjoy their banter, not until I knew Grease was okay.
That doctor guy from the ambulance stepped in from the corridor, and headed for me, dropping down into the seat beside me, as others crowded around us, mafia and bikers alike.
He was wearing scrubs, but no gloves, and there was blood on his top, which just had to be Grease’s, right? Oh god! I’d wanted this update so desperately, but suddenly I was so terrified of the words he’d speak, that I wanted him to never open his mouth.
“Okay, he’s out of surgery, love.”
I waited for more, for something good, or bad, but that was it. He nodded, patting my shoulder.
“He’s moving into recovery, so give us a little while to get him settled, and we’ll bring you in to wait with him.”
“Wait. That’s it? He’s really okay?”
“Like I said, it was a simple gunshot, and he’s fine. He took a blow to the head as well, but we’ve done scans, and there’s no issue there.”
“He’s… he’s going to live?”
“It’s just a bullet, dammit, he’ll walk it off,” one of the mafia guys grumbled, but Jeffrey, whose name I just remembered, just rolled his eyes.
“No organs were damaged, although he lost a lot of blood. Now let’s arrange to get you in there before he wakes up. If bikers are anything like the men I know, he’ll be raising merry hell in there as soon as he’s awake.”
A low cheer erupted around the room, with some unsavoury comments I chose to ignore.
“Thank you. My god, I don’t know where you came from, but thank you!”
He nodded, and left the area as rapidly as he’d appeared.
“He’s amazing. He’s the club doctor?”
Micro laughed. “We don’t have one. I mean, the other chapter do, but no, not him. He’s connected to those club guys.”
And they let him help us? Maybe they weren’t so bad after all.
A moment later, that was disproved, as Luca let out a string of curses, while looking at his phone.
“They’re already making demands for favours to be repaid?”
“Who?”
“Those fucking London mobsters. Pair of uncouth assholes. I’ll put them in the ground myself.”
Tesio / Grease / Dead Meat
Waking up in a hospital bed was frustrating, but at least my little pain was right there beside me.
She was asleep, with her face on the bed beside me, but she was right there with me.
There was nobody else in the private room, and no shadows at the door, so whether there was a mafia presence here, I had no idea.
What mattered was that she was here with me.
I didn’t want to wake her, but I found myself stroking her hair with an admittedly heavy arm, as exhaustion seemed to practically pin me to the bed.
“Wha… Grease! Oh my god, you’re awake!” She moved in my direction, and then hesitated, eyeing me with concern.
“What?”
“I want to hug you, but I don’t want to injure your uh… where you were injured.”
“Oh, that’s basically just a flesh wound, baby, get up here.”
Her eyes widened at me. “I most certainly won’t ‘get up here’. I’m too mad at you!”
What the fuck. “Mad at me? What the hell did I do?”
That was so definitely the wrong fucking question.
She launched into a high pitched tirade about danger, and mafia, and bullets, and me being a prick, but soon dissolved into tears instead.
The poor thing. It might be just another day for a man like me, but this was all too much for someone who’d lived a more sheltered life.
“Aw baby, I’m sorry, come here. Seriously, let me hold you.”
She gave me a watery glare, and scrambled up onto the bed, practically draping herself over me, as she sobbed into my chest. Fuck me. We’d been through a lot, and we’d spent a lot of it sniping at each other, but this could break me.
Her sorrow was getting to me too. I wasn’t scared of taking a bullet, because unlike Ice, I was good on the front line, but the fact that I could have lost her, by dying on her, was a fucking gut punch.
Someone gasped in the doorway, and a nurse stood there, a hand over her mouth.
“It’s okay, love. Can we just have a minute?”
She pointed at the bed, or at me, or Jamie, who the fuck knows?
“She shouldn’t be… your stitches…”
I tightened my grip on my woman, and glared at the nurse until she disappeared, and the door closed again.
“I was… so… scared!”
“I know, baby, I’m sorry. If it helps, I was definitely trying to avoid being shot.”
She smacked my chest as she sat up, straddling me as she dragged her hands over her face, and did she bump my side in the process? I sure as hell wasn’t about to tell her, even if it had roared with pain again, and wasn’t calming down fast enough.
My head felt groggy enough from the pain relief already, so there was nothing we could do about it.
“You weren’t hurt, right?”
She shook her head, biting at her lip, as more tears trickled down her cheeks.
“You landed on me, but I’m not hurt.”
I grabbed her wrists and dragged her closer. “You followed me? For fuck’s sake, Jamie, you could have been killed!”
Her eyes narrowed sharply at me, and I knew I was treading risky ground. I mean, I’d run right into danger, and been shot for my troubles, so could I really bitch at her for risking the same?
“Next time, you stay the fuck away from guns!”
Hey, look at that, apparently I could.
“Dickhead.”
I racked my brain, trying to remember exactly what went down.
“The Don? He’s okay?”
Jamie rolled her eyes. “Yes, okay? Your precious Don fucking survived, not that he deserved to.”
“I see.” We both turned to see Don Rossi himself standing in the doorway, those eyebrows raised imperiously at us. Beside him was a grinning Tori.
“Ah.”
“Oh shit.”
Jamie scrambled off the bed, while I bit back a grunt of pain when she jostled my stitched side again. No, it hadn’t been the best idea to get her up on the bed, but you know what? If it was all I’d get before this guy put a bullet in my face, it was worth it.
Jamie immediately stepped between our visitors and me, with her arms folded, looking so petite and vulnerable, while her spine was tight with fucking outrage, and the sexiest feistiness.
“Why are you here?” She demanded, not realising that the Don’s eyebrows were already almost at danger level.
“Jamie. Little pain, dammit!” I tried to lean forward to reach for her, but fuck me, don’t do that when you’ve just been shot.
“Fuck,” I hissed, as I rested a hand over my throbbing side, “baby, get back here.”
She hurried to my side, trying to lift the blanket to check on me, while I exchanged a helpless look with the boss I’d spent my life working for, and his daughter, who looked far more approachable right now.
“Sorry. She’s a bit protective.”
“I see that,” Tori said, tucking her arm through her father’s, and dragging him further into the room.
The Don received a glare from his daughter, and cleared his throat.
“Ahem. I see you survived,” he said unnecessarily, and I caught hold of Jamie’s sleeve, as she started in his direction again. She opened her mouth, and I cursed, dragging her practically into my lap, so I could cover her mouth, feeling her teeth almost instantly.
“Please. Just shhh, please.”
“What my father’s trying to say, but seems to be too much of a mafia Don to admit, is that you both saved our lives. And we’re grateful. Right, dad?”
The Don briefly glared in her direction, then turned to look at me again. Some of the stiffness left his shoulders as he nodded.
“You risked your lives to save us, and I’m incredibly grateful, thank you. I’m still not clear on why you were there, although I think I can guess who blabbed.”
Blabbed. Sometimes he sounded nothing like himself, and more like one of us. It made me wonder how much of his stiffness was just for outward appearances. Maybe he’d been around Reacher and the others more than I’d realised.
“You’re welcome. I assume the shooter was one of Amato’s?”
His face tightened, and he gestured to the chair by the bed.
I was still in an awkward holding pattern with my little pain, who was sharing less than a little amount of pain with me, with her teeth tightening on my fingers, and her weight pressing on parts of me that really didn’t need pressure right now.
I nodded, and he sat, while Tori took up position by the door, like a guard. I guess her part was said now, but what the hell would he come out with next? Even his thanks sounded like a spanking.
“The shooter?” I prompted, because for once I wasn’t willing to accommodate his frustrating silences.
“We believe it was a setup, yes. Retaliation will be swift, and incredibly bloody.” His eyes darted to Jamie for a moment, and I finally sagged, releasing her, and groaning as pain bloomed in all the wrong fucking places.
“Grease?”
“Tesio,” The Don hissed, almost like a recrimination.
“You know that’s not who he is anymore,” Jamie snapped, pressing the button for a nurse, as she started fussing over me again. I already knew I was bleeding again, and she’d have a hissy fit, and that was just going to annoy the Don even more.
“Was anyone else hurt?” I asked, as Jamie made a sound of dismay, and for some reason, slapped my chest, like I’d done something to offend her.
“Jesus, will you stop beating on me, woman? I was shot, remember?!”
The Don suddenly chuckled, and the rest of us froze. Was that a genuine chuckle, or the ‘I’m amused, because you’re all already dead’ kinda chuckle?
“It’s just a bullet-wound, Tesio. Man up.”
I laughed, and tried covering Jamie’s mouth again as she opened it to snap at him.
“Why don’t we go find a nurse,” Tori said then, gesturing to Jamie, who immediately turned to glare at the Don, then leaned close to me.
“Is this a trick so he can kill you?”
“Oh, I never get my own hands dirty, I assure you,” The Don responded, proving she hadn’t been as quiet as I’m sure she tried to be.
“It’s okay, go with her. Please. You know I need to talk to the boss.”
She fixed him with another glare, and I swear, every time she did that, he seemed to approve a little more.
After they left, he raised his eyebrows at me.
“You’ll have your hands full with that one. I like her.” That almost sounded like a possibility of survival, but who was I kidding? I still betrayed him, and that doesn’t go unpunished, no matter what happens after.