Chapter 16 Kitty
SIXTEEN
KITTY
“Is this the quietest Kitty’s ever been, Lucas?”
I scowled at Cade then doubled down by pinning my oldest sibling with a glower.
Not that I had to pin him hard. We were stuck in traffic and they’d shoved me in the back seat, where kids’ safety locks on the doors kept me in place.
“You kidnapped me from work,” I seethed. “You chumps!”
“You needed kidnapping. What the fuck happened to your face? You shouldn’t have been at the hospital—”
“I quit!”
“You were quitting?” Lucas boomed, twisting around to gawk at me. “What the hell’s going on with you? You spend a few days in Key West and come home a different person!”
“I have another job lined up.” I hated that my derisive tone didn’t pack its regular punch.
Tired, aching, sore, I just wanted back in that tub of Stan’s more than I wanted a pint of ice cream in my stomach.
“What kind of job? Why is this the first time we’ve heard about it?” Cade’s confused frown would have been endearing if I didn’t want to throat punch him—he’d been the one to lift me over his shoulder.
Which had hurt, thank you very much.
Sharon at reception had met my brothers before. It was the only reason she hadn’t called the damn cops!
“Because I only got it today.”
“You mean to tell us,” Lucas exclaimed, “that you went on a job interview looking like death warmed over?”
I slammed my fist into his headrest then regretted the vibrations that juddered through me. “Raisin sent you, didn’t she?”
“Raisin didn’t do shit. She told us you were at the hospital when we asked.”
Because I knew my brothers, I also knew to read between the lines. It spoke of my exhaustion that today my dipshit translator had blown a fuse. Likely, Star Sullivan had tattled, and in a lose-lose situation, keeping my mouth shut was in my best interest.
At my continued silence, Lucas ground his teeth. “At least tell us what happened to you?”
Talk about leading the witness.
It wasn’t the first time they’d asked, but it was the first time the temptation to answer stirred in me.
This was one of those ‘you dig your own grave’ types of questions, though.
So I stayed quiet.
Mulish.
Lucas wasn’t the only one of us to inherit Ma’s stubborn streak.
That he’d stolen my new purse before Cade had fireman-lifted me out of the hospital infuriated me the most. Said purse was currently perched on the floorboard beside my brother’s expensively shod foot so I couldn’t warn Stan or explain my disappearance—that I’d be worrying him made me want to cry.
By the time we reached our building, Cade must have texted the family because they waited on the curb for us.
As did Luigi. Thank god.
When Ma pulled open the door, she gasped at the sight of me. “Catriona Caitlin Frasier!” she wailed, using my rarely spoken full name. “What happened to you?”
Okay, so Ma didn’t know.
I cut looks at my sisters, who appeared equally as stunned.
Cade might have updated them that I was incoming but hadn’t looped them in with the details.
Even as I contemplated the many and various curses I intended on hurling at Star Sullivan when we were next at church together, Conor O’Donnelly’s fiancée be damned, I sighed. “I got into a fight with a brick wall.”
Sobbing, Ma levered me out of the car.
As the years had passed without Da coming back to her bruised, and with Lucas and Cade dealing with their injuries in the privacy of their own homes, she didn’t handle this type of thing well anymore.
“I’m fine, Ma,” I assured her, but it was a lie.
“Let me,” Lucas broke in, carefully dislodging our mother from where she hovered, swooping in to lift me against his chest.
To Luigi, I directed, “I’m fine. Tell Stan what’s going on?” The guard retreated a step with a polite nod. To Lucas, I hissed in his ear, “You asshole. I wanted to spare her this!”
“Liar. You wanted to spare yourself,” he growled, utterly unapologetic. “You think we don’t know what went down because you—”
“What? Thought you didn’t know,” I mocked.
His eyes narrowed at me.
“Anyway, what was I doing? The Valentinis are allies!”
“They’re a different faction. Sure, we’re allied for the moment—” Didn’t that sound ominous? “—but alliances fall.”
“Aren’t you the voice of doom and gloom?” Neev chirped, her voice cheerful, a stark contrast to the worry in her expression. “Leave her alone, Lucas. She’s gone through enough without you sniffing for blood. This isn’t the time.”
I shot her a grateful smile as Raisin opened the door to let Lucas and me into the building. He strode over to Ma’s front door, shepherding me in like an unwilling sheep.
When he dropped me on the couch, I slapped his arm. “Thanks for being so gentle, jerkface.”
“Be careful with her!!” Ma screeched, barreling toward me so she could fuss.
“Cade picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder, Ma,” I whined, smirking at them while she busied herself arranging the cushions around me.
“Cade Frasier! You did not treat your injured sister like she’s a bag of cement!”
When both of my hellion siblings squirmed under Ma’s rage-filled glares, I settled back with a weary yawn.
As they justified their unjustifiable actions to her, I asked Neev, “Could you get me some ibuprofen, sis?”
“Sure thing.” She reached for my hand then dithered, unable to follow through with the pat when she saw I was bruised there. “Be back in two.”
Looking around the room, I spied Raisin hovering by the coffee table. Her concern washed over me like a hug. “I’m okay, sis.”
Her throat bobbed. “Doesn’t look like it to me.”
“No,” I faltered. “But I will be.”
“Now, what on earth happened to you?” Ma cried once the boys had been adequately reprimanded, pivoting on her heel as, for whatever reason, she marked the sign of the cross on her chest.
Maybe she thought the Holy Spirit would take away my aches and pains better than an NSAID could?
While Neev doled out ibuprofen like she was the nurse in the family, I took the pills slowly to delay me actually having to answer.
I could ignore my brothers, but Ma? Not so much. Especially if she wept.
“The last thing I know you’re in bed, throwing up like it’s going out of fashion, and then Neev tells me you went out to see some boy?”
Neev chortled. “Hardly a boy, Ma.”
“They’re boys to me unless they’re my age or older,” she disregarded, hands worrying the cross pendant Da had given her after Neev’s second birthday—which said everything really. “I had a vision that one of us would be in the hospital this week, but I thought it was you at work!”
I managed not to roll my eyes at her talk of ‘visions.’ Barely. “I like him, Ma.”
“Like him,” Lucas scoffed. “He’s Sicilian!”
Ma’s focus tripped over the bite Stan had left behind on my throat. “He isn’t the reason you’re in this state, Kitty? You can tell us—”
“No!”
“Yes,” Cade corrected.
I glared at him as best as I could when my eyes refused to behave how I wanted. “If you know what happened, then why am I the one talking? You think it’s comfortable? This is precisely why I wanted to stay away until I was better! I want to be left alone, goddammit—”
A knock sounded at the door.
Followed by the buzz of the intercom.
Then a pounding came next.
My heart sighed in relief, as I knew that would be Stan. I was so goddamn grateful for his stalker tendencies that I could have cried.
“That’ll be him.”
Ma perked up like a bristling cat. “Who?”
“The Sicilian,” Cade sneered.
“His name’s Stan, Ma. I love him.”
“Love him? Jesus Christ, Kitty!”
“You barely know him,” Raisin protested, ignoring Lucas’s outburst. “Did he drug you or something?”
“No! Of course he didn’t—”
“Or something,” Lucas ground out. “My prickly sister vacations in Key West and returns with the love of her life and more bruises than brain cells!”
“You’re lucky that it hurts to walk or I’d knee you in the balls, asshole.”
When another pounding sounded at the front door, amazingly loud considering the number of walls separating us, Ma’s brow puckered but she stepped over to the doorway to punch the video call button.
Upon studying the face on the screen, she asked, “Who’s that?”
“I’m Custanzu Valentini, ma’am. I’m here for your daughter.” He cleared his throat. “Catriona.”
Her brows soared but her gaze turned approving. “You the reason she looks like the back end of a bus?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “But not by my hands. I was betrayed, ma’am.”
“Betrayed. Ha.” Lucas crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t let him in—”
Ma pressed the buzzer. “I’ll be there in a second, boy. Wait for me.” To her eldest, she jabbed the air. “You’ll shut your piehole, Lucas, or there’ll be no food from me for a month! I want to know what’s going on and this lad seems willing to tell me.
“If I want answers from you, I’ll have to go three rounds of conversational gymnastics with you quoting Aidan O’Donnelly like he’s the gospel, and a mother has no patience for that!”
While Lucas’s mouth worked in outrage, Ma stomped off, and I scampered upright with a pained moan when I heard Stan’s voice.
“How can you love him so fast?” Raisin locked her eyes on me, but I had zero desire to justify my feelings.
In the bosom of my family, I was safe, but I felt so much better knowing Stan had come for me. That he was here.
When he stepped into the apartment, his gaze darting left and right, the second it fell on me, I burst into tears.
Like a girl.
I’d be ashamed tomorrow.
Instead, while my siblings gawked at me, I focused on him and held out my arms.
“Stan,” I warbled. “They wouldn’t let me call you. I’m sorry if you were—”
“Duci,” he crooned. “It’s okay.” But he glowered at my brothers before approaching the couch.
Lucas, living up to his title of “Major Dick,” grabbed his arm to stop him.
“You can punch me later, Frasier.” Stan’s fists clenched. “Right now, your sister needs me. Whatever stunts you’re planning to toss at me comes second.”
“Let go of him, Lucas.” Ma whacked his arm. “There’ll be no fighting under my roof! Not unless you want me to take you down to the church first thing.”