Chapter 11
ELEVEN
STAN
Matri was awake when we arrived.
Hell, the whole house was—lights blazing in each room, illuminating the property in its grandeur.
“She’s pulling out all the stops.”
“You really live here?” Kitty tsked. “Not sure why I’m surprised. This is tiny in comparison to the other place.”
“This one’s nicer, but it’s where Matri lives.”
“And you don’t want to live with your mother?”
Her gentle taunt took me aback. I’d expected her to be catatonic, shaking in my embrace, trembling whenever I dared to touch her, not poking fun at me.
Was it the nurse in her? The daughter of a mobster?
Or was she everything I’d ever dreamed of in a woman come to life?
A warrior who I didn’t want to engage in battle but who could handle anything my world threw at her? ‘Anything’ I’d kill to keep her safe from?
By the time Giovi had pulled up outside the house, I’d managed to shift her off my lap.
I held out my hand for her once I stood in the driveway and she took it.
Only when she was beside me did I ask, “Can I carry you?”
Her expression turned mutinous, but I noticed the slight hunch of her shoulders as she struggled to manage her pain. “I can walk.”
“Why would you when I can carry you?”
She didn’t have a chance to answer before the crunching of the gravel heralded the arrival of my mother. Who, of course, decided to embarrass the living shit out of me: “Oh, Stan. I knew you had it in you to be a romantic!”
Like her namesake, Kitty’s eyes gleamed. “Nice to meet you, ma’am. I just wish I looked less like hell warmed over.”
The comment definitely took Matri aback. But not me. Kitty was living up to her new nickname—liunissa.
Matri’s shoulders straightened as she glanced at me then Kitty as I cautiously swept her into my arms. “My dear, it is an honor to meet a woman who can endure what you did tonight and is still... this.” She gently took ahold of her hands.
“Now, if you feel like breaking down and having a good old sob, we have some hot chocolate in the kitchen and I make mean s’mores.
They’re a fabulous thing, you know. We don’t have them in England, but I told my daughter that they need to be transported over there immediately.
It isn’t the same as digestive biscuits—” When I groaned, she babbled, “Oh, dear. Where are my manners? I’m Lauren.
You can call me Lauren or Matri, and of course you don’t want to know about snacks… ”
My eyes widened as she continued rattling on.
Jen, who’d given her grandchildren, and Hunter, who’d practically lived at our house as a kid, had never been given the honor of calling her Matri.
“Oh, Lauren, um, that’s so kind of you, but I think my ma would be jealous. She’s from Ireland actually. You might find an ally in your ‘make s’mores international’ campaign.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to meet her then! Irish, you say?” She shot me a pointed look. “None of my children told me that.”
“Can we stop talking on the front stoop, already?”
“Like you can’t carry a thing this slight for hours on end,” Matri reprimanded.
“But you’re right. We have the nosiest neighbors.
Honestly, I’m the one who should be spying on them with the amount of surveillance equipment they have on-site.
I’m telling you, son, it’s suspicious. Now, come, come. In you go!”
Rolling my eyes at Kitty as she shooed us, I trundled into the house.
When she noticed the painting in the living room to the right of the hall, Kitty gasped. “Is that a Rembrandt?”
“Oh, yes, dear. It is. Some of my children’s loot.” Matri was back to beaming before she practically growled, “That’s retribution in the flesh right there.”
“Matri doesn’t care that it’s worth a hundred million dollars,” I said wryly.
Understanding hit as Kitty read between the lines, sensing that my mother had a steel backbone beneath the chatter.
“Of course not. What’s money when vengeance is at play? Now, are you staying in your room, Stan?”
“Where else would I go?”
“But that’s where I intended to put Kitty.” Her expression was perfectly innocent. And as much as she was a living saint for putting up with us, innocent would never describe my mother.
“Oh, um, would it bother you if we shared a room? I-I don’t feel like being alone,” Kitty admitted, jolting when Matri clapped her hands together.
Only I felt her recoil at the sudden movement.
“It wouldn’t! My dear, not at all. Stan’s hardly a shrinking violet, but he’s never brought anyone home so I wasn’t sure.”
“Never?” Kitty asked, the question aimed at us both.
I shrugged, but Matri answered on my behalf: “No, my dear. He’s as stubborn as a mule. Takes after his father. It was my fault for naming him.”
“My father was Custantinu,” I shared.
“Ohhh. Stubborn? I’d never have guessed.”
I shot her a long-suffering look that had her giggling, which made this entire ordeal worthwhile.
“Now,” Matri continued, “I do think we require hot chocolate—”
“After she’s seen the doctor, Matri.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” She patted her chest where her glasses hung around her neck. When she plunked them on, she winced and gingerly tapped Kitty’s arm. “I’m so sorry, my dear. I’m blinder than a bat without these damn things.”
“It’s fine, Lauren. Honestly.” Kitty gave her a timid smile. “I really would like a hot chocolate. If you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind at all! Victor is in the sunroom, Stan,” she informed me.
As she departed for the kitchen, we headed through the house to the doctor Rory had sent in.
“You have doctors who work for you?”
“They work for a hospital. But we usually have some blackmail material on them. Not that Rory would approve of me telling you that.”
“Huh.”
“Huh?”
“No, nothing. I … Some doctors live above their means, you know?” She frowned. “I wonder if Fratelli is—”
“Mark Fratelli? Yup. He’s one of ours.”
“Knew it. Bastard. I don’t like him.”
I tensed. “Has he offended you?”
“By supporting the Bulldogs and being a jerk? But no, he hasn’t offended me. Why? Would you cut out his tongue if he had?”
My brows lifted at her laissez-faire tone. “Depends on what he said. First offense, I knock out teeth.”
“How reassuring!”
Before we entered the sunroom, I commented, “You’re taking this rather well, Kitty. Not that I’m… We all have coping mechanisms.” Mine would ordinarily include banging her through the wall as I burned off the adrenaline after a night like tonight. “But I thought you’d be more distraught.”
She pursed her lips. “You have to do what you have to do. I’m too pragmatic for my own good. I choose to do no harm, Stan. But it’s also my decision to revoke that choice when people hurt me and mine.”
I released a breath.
“What?” She tilted her head to the side. “Don’t you agree?”
“I do. Wholeheartedly.”
“What was with the sigh then?” she grouched.
“You’re perfect and I can’t show you how perfect you are yet.”
“Oh.” She blinked then tucked her chin into her chest. “Yet. Hmm?”
“Yet.” I kissed her temple, which only made her snuggle into me more. Once we were in the sunroom, I tipped my chin at the doctor. “How are you doing, Victor?”
He shot me a kind smile. “All’s well with me, Stan. I’d ask the same but… who do we have here?”
As he tended to her, going through the motions of ensuring she was well and cleaning up the wounds on her face, I watched on, fully aware that she hadn’t asked me to leave.
I turned to give her privacy when he checked out the rest of her. His grunts and tsks only confirmed what my eyes had told me the first time I’d seen her.
“We need an X-ray—”
“No! I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“If you’d let me finish, Ms. Frasier, we have a digital X-ray. Please, lie back.”
“Holy crap, you have the RT-987 model?”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m a physician assistant and I work in the ER,” she returned.
A quick over-the-shoulder glance assured me Victor helped her lay back on Luciu’s antique mahogany table.
Ten minutes later, he proclaimed she had no broken bones or internal bleeding.
“Can you manage a urine sample?”
“I’ll carry you to the bathroom,” I offered immediately.
Matri stuck her head around the door. “I’ll help her, dear.”
“Eavesdropper,” I accused, but both women ignored me as I carried Kitty to the bathroom and Matri took over.
Once the urine test was complete and came back clear, my worst nightmare hit.
“Do you think a rape kit is necessary, Ms. Frasier?”
She’d said they hadn’t, but if any of those pezz'i miedda had raped—
“And who’d prosecute this?”
Her cynicism wounded me. It hurt even more that she was right. “Duci.”
“It’s fine,” she lied.
I turned to face her. “Do you want to take Plan B or STI tests?”
Her gaze softened. “He didn’t rape me, Stan. None of them did.”
Victor continued tending to her until he’d done as much as he could—it was mostly bruising—severe—which he couldn’t exactly fix.
Still, I tuned in when he advised aftercare and the best way to handle her concussion, because I figured she’d be a nightmare patient and I’d have to wade in, and then he was gone.
And we were alone.
“House calls and five-hundred-thousand dollar X-ray detectors??” she sputtered.
“Hospitals aren’t always an option for us.” I walked over to her. “Can I cup your cheek?”
“Are you going to ask me if we can hold hands?”
“Were you kidnapped earlier today?”
She wet her lips then hissed as it tugged on a cut. “If it’s affectionate and not sex-driven, you can touch me, Stan.”
Satisfied with the concession, I did as I’d said—let my thumb smooth over her jaw. “You can hit me, you know?”
“I wanted to punch you earlier.”
“You did? When?”
“When you were stating the obvious.” Her eyes closed and the tiniest pucker slashed her brow. “I don’t want to anymore.”
“You should. It’s the least I deserve.”
“Hardly.”
“My enemies abducted you,” I bit off.
Her shaking fingers tapped my chin in reprimand. “You got to me in time. You fed the fire in me. I can’t hit the man who saved me.”
I stared at her, aghast. But seeing that she meant it, that she expected so little of me, I pleaded, “With everyone else in my life, I’ve always shown up too late. But for you, I will never be late. Capisci?” Her gentle nod had me continuing, “You’ve no idea what I want to do to that man, Kitty.”
“Does it involve more than breaking his spine?”
I hesitated. “You mad at me about that?”
“Unsurprisingly, no.”
“I don’t know. I think that comes as a shock. Two days ago, you saw a man die—”
“He was someone dancing in a nightclub! He didn’t deserve to bleed out on a dance floor because Miguel Martinez got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.”
“But Dante does?”
She pulled a face. “I refuse to discuss philosophy with you right now.”
Which meant yes.
“Fine, but we agree that I can torture Dante?”
Her tone darkened. “We agree.”
“Bonu,” I crooned, satisfied that her bloodlust made a reappearance when it counted.
“Stan! Kitty! Your hot chocolates are ready!” Matri hollered.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.” She pursed her lips. “I’m fine, Stan. I am. Really. You can baby me all you want so long as you know that I would have gone to the hospital if I needed to.”
I knew that was a lie. Just because she didn’t want anything getting back to her family via the Five Points’ surveillance system.
Still, my matri hadn’t raised a fool so I tugged her into me. When she let me hug her, when she hugged me back, so gingerly that I knew it hurt her, I recognized that tonight wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. But she was here and that was what mattered to me.
“STAN!”
She snickered at Matri’s second call, but I shook my head. “You laugh now. Just you wait.”
Kitty’s lips curved as far as they could without her wincing. “My ma’s Irish, Stan. You think yours is bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet.”