Chapter 49 Kitty
FORTY-NINE
KITTY
“About time you come and see me,” Currau greeted with a sniff.
Glowering, he tugged on the blankets. “That’s neither here nor there.”
“I think you’ll find it’s both here and there. Did Hunter bring the baby in to meet you?”
Currau grimaced. “Always hated babies.”
“Oh, you old Grinch!”
“It isn’t Christmas.”
“Doesn’t make you any less of a misery. You have a new great-great-nephew! More family, Currau. That’s what matters, isn’t it? Even if they’re pains in the ass.”
He tilted his head to the side. “That sounds like projecting.”
“Have you been watching reruns of Ricki Lake again? I didn’t know they still aired them.”
“YouTube has everything I need,” he declared with satisfaction, then his expression shifted. “In my day, we didn’t involve women in our business.”
“Yes, well, it isn’t your day anymore. It’s ours.” I straightened the blankets he’d ruffled up. “Anyway, I was hardly slinging guns with cops on street corners, Currau. Now, you have to be nice to me. That birthing experience was hella stressful.”
He heaved a sigh that told me all was begrudgingly forgiven. “It’s fitting.”
“What is?” I asked, though I knew what he meant. Hadn’t I thought the same?
“That a baby who’ll cross the lines of the Camorra and Cosa Nostra would be born in his grandparent’s home by his aunt. It’s how we’d have done it in the old days.”
Oh, okay. Our thoughts were not aligned. Aside from the aunt part.
“That fool great nephew of mine was in here earlier,” he continued. “Grumbling about me being possessive when you’re his—”
“Do you mean to tell me that you argued over me?” I blinked. “When were you possessive?”
“I don’t like the other nurses. Lauren squealed on me.” When I pshawed, he smirked. “Valentinis don’t share.”
“Why, is that pride I hear, Currau?”
Before he could answer, my cell buzzed.
“Hello?” I asked the unknown number warily.
“Kitty?”
“Yes?”
“This is Eva Martinez.”
My eyes widened as I held up a finger at Currau and darted out of his bedroom then rushed toward the library, where I knew the men had holed up.
“Oh. Did you want Aidan Jr.’s number?” I feigned confusion until I found Stan, Luciu, and Hunter smoking cigars, drinking from snifters of brandy, and deep in discussion about some guy called Voronov and his ties to that hellhole in Nolita.
Were it not for my unexpected caller, I’d have snorted, so cliché and old-fashioned was the sight of three modern men toasting the baby’s birth.
Instead, I stormed in, earning surprised glances from them, but I lifted a finger to my mouth and switched the call onto speaker as she answered, “If I wanted O’Donnelly’s number, I’d ask my husband. No. This is women’s business, and I heard that Aurora gave birth so you drew the short straw.”
Alarm had all three stiffening.
Considering Rory had given birth to Custantinu mere hours ago, I didn’t blame them.
“How did you know that?” I inquired, trying to keep my tone light.
“Just like I knew what your telephone number was and that Valentini will have you wedded, bedded, and impregnated within the year.” Eva harrumphed. “Look, I have more important things to discuss than the obvious.”
“You’re very difficult, aren’t you?”
Stan’s eyes widened as he mouthed, “Be careful!”
“I was born breech and gave my mother a prolapsed uterus. I consider that one of the main reasons she always hated me as a child.”
“Jeez.”
“You’re a physician assistant. Thought you’d appreciate the imagery.”
“Some things are TMI, Eva. But I’ll talk to you about this if you tell me something first.”
“This is me doing you a favor,” she bickered.
“I don’t care.”
“Fine.”
“Is Beatriz safe?”
“She might not think so but yes. She’s currently arguing with my husband. Honestly, some people are just unappreciative.”
I sank onto the coffee table, smiling when Stan patted my knee. “Thank you for telling me that. She matters to me. Okay, I’ll bite now. What did you want to discuss?”
“Our mutual enemies have been in touch. They want Martinez to call a ceasefire.”
Assuming she meant the people behind all those bombs, I frowned. “Why would you do that? Especially after they killed so many innocents in Cancún?”
“Picked up on that, did you? That great lump of yours didn’t.
Dead To Me brought her war against the Albanians to our front door.
You should remind her when you see her next that she’s no longer welcome in Mexico.
” She mumbled something that sounded like a curse word in Spanish. “As if Martinez would bomb his people.”
“She isn’t welcome in the whole of Mexico?” I squeaked.
“Yes. And the way those assholes have gone about requesting a ceasefire is beyond tedious,” she opined sourly. “Jesus, men are so unoriginal.”
“What did they want?”
“To suck my husband’s dick, of course.”
“Literally?” I sputtered.
“Sent some pretty sluts around. Like that’d tempt him.” She scoffed. “Martinez is a freak for me. I won’t get rid of that man in death.”
“As romantic as that is…”
“Then when that didn’t work, they offered to help Martinez fix the elections.”
Stan leaned forward at that news.
“In the US?”
“Mexico. Keep up, would you?”
“If I knew any of this, I’d be able to!”
“Look, as much as your faction’s trying to fix the elections in the US—” I gaped at that small detail. “—we’re trying to keep Mexico on the straight and narrow. I called because Martinez’s ego is too big to let common sense reign.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to speak with the O’Donnellys for me. Friend to friend.”
“Since when are we friends?”
“Since my man decided to let you live and since he agreed to forget about your little confession.”
Like a gun fired in my face, I jerked at her statement, and Stan, seeing that, snarled, “You want us to help you at all, Eva, then you’ll shut your mouth and won’t bring that up again.”
My heart pounded even as a wicked laugh sounded down the line. “Had a feeling you were listening in.”
“Should have thought about that before you called me a ‘big lump,’” he snapped.
“I was just reminding you—”
“We don’t need a reminder. If we’re allies, we’re allies. You don’t bring up shit like that without repercussions. You hear me?”
“I hear you.” The other woman’s amusement remained. “Tickled a sleeping tiger there, hmm?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“I wouldn’t hurt the woman who brought my man’s beloved niece home.”
“Then why threaten her at all?”
“Because I’m a bitch.”
“That we can agree on.” Dissatisfaction creased his expression, but he wafted a hand at me when no comeback was forthcoming.
Still shaking at the unexpected threat, I rasped, “Look, my family is low down the pecking order, Eva. Selective amnesia or not, you should be talking to Jennifer. She’s an O’Donnelly, for Christ’s sake.
” I ignored Luciu’s scowl because, dammit to hell, she’d been Irish long before a Sicilian had married her! “What do you think I can do?”
“I think that your brother has Aidan O’Donnelly Jr.’s ear.
I think that Jennifer, as much as she’s an O’Donnelly, is a woman and the Irish keep their women out of their business.
Like I said, if I could have contacted Aurora, I would’ve, but this is better in all honesty.
Aurora is Camorra too. Martinez won’t appreciate them sticking their noses in yet.
He didn’t even appreciate Hunter reaching out yesterday! ”
“Are the Camorra,” I verbalized the word carefully because I’d never heard of the organization before, “in danger from the Albanians?”
“Aren’t we all? They’re chaos in the flesh.”
“I don’t understand how they’d be able to help you win the elections.”
“Because of their backers, of course.”
“Their backers?”
“Devere and the rest of the Albanians’ clientele.”
“President Devere?” I yelped.
“Yes, Kitty. Our pedophile-in-chief.”
Sensing the tension in the room had shot up at her words, I hesitated. “What if I fuck up with the O’Donnellys? I’ve barely spoken to any of them before.”
“Then I’ll contact Aurora. But ask your brother. He’ll make the connection. Tell him to let O’Donnelly know that POTUS and his gang of black-balling numbnuts were behind Dead To Me’s attempted murder. That might speed the discussion up a notch.
“And remember, Kitty, you were the one who brought Beatriz back to us. That’s worth more than you can imagine to a man like my husband.”
Before I could ask if that was a warning, a threat, or a boon, she cut the call.
“President Devere tried to assassinate Taube?!” I screeched.
Just as Hunter demanded, “What the hell kind of confession were you two talking about?”