Chapter 51 Stan
FIFTY-ONE
STAN
“Can’t you talk to Lucas about this?”
“Is this you… whining?”
Her gasp was pure melodrama. Honestly, it was enjoyable to behold. It was normal. This was normal. Her. Me. Us. Me poking fun. Her complaining. Me grumbling. Her chiding. Fuck, I wanted it all. Everything wouldn’t be enough.
“I’m not whining! I’m not a mobster, Mr. Mobster.”
I hid a smile as I drove us out of Brooklyn and into the city, Storm’s orchid on the back seat. We were heading for the Acuig building, where Lucas, Conor, and Aidan Jr. lived, but Lucas was our initial stop, then Aidan, and finally Patricia.
As much as Luciu had several ins with Aidan Jr., there was a reason for this. Eva wanted to wade Kitty deeper into this mess. Almost like…
“I wonder if Dea—Taube—fuck, I’ll never get that straight—I wonder if she knows Eva.”
“She knew a lot about her attempted murder so I’m guessing Taube’s on Eva’s radar, yes,” Kitty remarked, but at least she wasn’t grousing about talking to Lucas anymore.
“I mean well. Could they be friends?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“Taube keeps trying to show you how I’m a bad man.” I shrugged. “Like you didn’t already know. But she’s giving you living examples of it. Is this the same?
“With Eva’s request, she’s bringing you into a discussion that you don’t need to be in. One that you’ve never been in. If anything, you’ve chosen not to be in it your whole life too.”
“Like the Irish would let their women join crews.”
Her derisive sniff had me shooting her a look as we pulled up at a stoplight. “What’s Star if not on a crew?”
“She’s unique.”
“Aurora works—”
“Aurora’s also unique,” she said wryly. “And Sicilian.”
“Do you remember I told you about that time I was kidnapped?”
“What about it?”
“And how that situation came about because of how sexist the council used to be?”
“You’re not sexist.”
“No. But everything’s unique until the first instance is in the past.” Her lips firmed so I shot her a wink and teased, “Wanna be on my Stidda?”
“You’d… want me there? As part of your Stidda. What do you call them? A Stiddari?”
That she didn’t outright jump in refusal took me aback.
“Well, no. Because you’ve made it clear several times that you don’t like the lifestyle, duci.”
“But there’d be a place for me if I wanted to work with you?”
That she persisted with this line of conversation had me pulling onto the side of the road as soon as traffic permitted.
When we were parked, illegally, in a loading bay, I turned to her, one arm on the wheel. “Liunissa?”
“I don’t want to be on your Stidda, Stan.” She laughed. But it rang false. “I’m asking, if I did, would you have me?”
Perplexed, I assured her, “Of course, I would.”
“Because I give good head?”
I corrected, “The best head.”
“Okay.” This time, her laughter rang true. “I give the best head. Enough for me to be a part of your Stidda?”
“No. Because you’re damn smart, your healing skills are a boon, and you’d be close.”
“What do your Stiddari do?”
Confused by the question, I rubbed my jaw. “Mine tend to… use their hands a lot.”
“Which means they’re more prone to accidents?”
“That’s one way of describing it. What’s this about, Kitty?” I’d genuinely been teasing but clearly she wasn’t.
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Hush.”
“Won’t.”
“Should.”
“Can’t.”
“Will!” She chortled. “We’re either going to get ticketed or you’re about to be arrested for parking in an illegal zone.” She pointed in a direction beyond the car.
I glanced around to see what she was looking at and noticed a traffic cop approaching us. I stared at him. Gaze locked. Brow arched.
His throat bobbed before he touched a hand to his cap in a salute and drifted back where he’d come from.
“That’s so cool,” she whispered.
I turned to her with a smirk. “There have to be some perks to being the Capo’s woman.”
“The Capo’s woman.” She hummed. “I think I prefer being your liunissa.”
“Good thing. You’ll always be that.” I cupped her chin. “What’s going on, Kitty?”
She bit her lip. “I enjoyed the meeting with Storm and the meal with Dmitri, Sofia, Ilya, and Taube too much. I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Luc and Rory tend to handle that side of things.” I tugged on a lock of hair that had fallen out of the bun she’d styled it into earlier. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Her hand grasped my wrist, circling it, nails digging in deep.
My Kitty had claws.
“Didn’t you find it… Didn’t you get a rush?”
“More like a headache.”
“Is it strange that I did?” she ruminated.
“No. You’re new to this bullshit. It’s bound to be interesting.
Especially when no one is bleeding or in any pain at that point in time.
” I sighed. “This life is a brutal one, duci. I want you at my side but… after what happened, I want to shield you from it too. And as much as you might have gotten buzzed from the meetings we attended, that isn’t my role. ”
“You sound apologetic.” She huffed out a strained laugh. “There’s no need. I’m being stupid.”
“No. You’re not. At all.” Stroking a hand over her hair, I reasoned, “You can want to do more than one thing with your life. What got you into nursing in the first place?” Her blank expression offered no clues so I prodded, “Are you tired of nursing?”
“Would you believe me if I said Neev is why I’m a nurse?”
I barked out a laugh. “She really was a troublemaker, wasn’t she?”
“Still is. Little fucker.” Her expression pulled taut. “In her defense, she lost both Da and Vinny at a messed-up age and within a short space of time. It screwed with her childhood in so many ways. Ma struggled to find an equilibrium and things were rough for a long while.”
“What happened?”
“After everything… she started doing drugs. I found her one day. Overdosed. I realized I wanted to help people. I wanted to make sure that no one had to lose a sibling and that if they were in this position, there’d be someone to help save them.
” She tried to swipe at her cheeks, but I didn’t let her—I used my thumb to blur the tracks that tears left behind.
“I didn’t do that much. But in I went, thinking I could be someone’s savior. Talk about naive. And arrogant.”
My frown made another reappearance. “You were not naive. Or arrogant. That’s often how vocations begin, Kitty. In trauma. And what are you talking about—you did save me. You have and you do so every day.”
“I-I suppose. We both have that fire in us, don’t we? A fire that’ll never be sated and will burn our whole lives. But mine doesn’t tear me apart like yours does.”
I smiled, but it was faint. “I’m okay. A part of me… I’ve been where Neev was, Kitty. Sometimes, it feels like drugs have fucked up shit for me my whole life. I didn’t have an excuse. Neev had lost her father and her brother. Me? I was an idiot.”
Suddenly, she no longer sat in the passenger seat but on my lap. Right in front of me, her expression furious, she grabbed my ears and waggled my head. “I don’t believe that. You’re too smart—”
“That’s no excuse.” I gave in and let my forehead rest against hers. It was becoming one of my favorite places to rest. She was becoming that for me—a safe haven. My piece of heaven I didn’t deserve.
“What made you get high the first time?”
My lips twisted as I thought back to that night. “Accursio, my best friend my whole life, he said we were dumb for trying but we wanted to fit in at a party. There were a bunch of girls we wanted to impress.”
“I’d have thought your face did that.”
I kissed her. “Compliments get you everywhere.”
“Good to know,” she jeered.
“Problem with my face is that my brain comes behind it. I was… awkward growing up. Thought I knew best. Couldn’t rein in my thoughts.
I wasn’t popular. I bombed out of classes for a good couple years.
Boredom. I couldn’t focus on such trivial BS.
So I got a reputation for being dumb as well as a truant.
“The whole rebel shit got me more action so it worked. Accursio literally said to me one time, ‘How much pussy do you need?’”
“I think I’d have liked him.”
“He’d have liked your sass. You’d have driven him crazy.”
“Good!”
“I guess the drugs weren’t about fitting in or peer pressure but escaping too.
” I gusted out my cheeks. “Whatever, I got tangled up in it and it led to you sitting on my lap. I don’t deserve you, duci, but I can’t let you go.
Anything you want or need, tell me, and I’ll make it happen.
Hell, I’ll even put you on my Stidda if—”
“This isn’t a transaction, Stan. I’m sitting on your lap for you.
Because we have this beautiful link that keeps pulling me toward you.
Even when I’m scared of your life, your world, I know this is the safest place for me.
” She wiggled on my knee. “What happened at Sofia’s was a revelation.
I’ve only ever seen the destructive side of the mob because my family wasn’t high-ranking enough to be anything other than armed muscle.
I-I guess it enthralled me. The moving and the shaking. ”
“Did you want to go into politics before everything happened with Neev?” When her eyes dropped to her knees, I tutted. “Hey, now. None of that.”
“It’s dumb.”
“How is it? We’re allowed dreams.”
“My da was in the Irish Mob. Like I said, dumb.”
“And so’s Seamus O’Donnelly’s and his family are working to get him into the White House.”
She wet her lips. “I still can’t wrap my head around that.”
“I’d start because the Five Points is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and they’re not afraid to use it to get what they want.”
“I’m not sure I like that.” She tsked. “America’s voting system should be a democratic process!”
I snorted. “It’s sweet that you think Devere got in via a free and fair election.”
Her shoulders drooped. “True. Was that…”
“Dirty money’s what’ll get him reelected. That has nothing to do with the mafia and everything to do with Citizen United. This whole mess stemmed from corporations being ‘people too.’
“If it’s any consolation, Jen says Seamus is a sweet kid with big dreams for the country.”
“No, that’s not reassuring. I was a sweet kid at one point and look where that got me.” She compounded that with another wiggle.
Chuckling, I ran my thumb over her jawline. “I have a confession to make.”
In for a penny…
“Another confession?” She took in my expression, paused. Groaned. “What have you done now?”
“That day at the airport—”
“The day we met?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m the reason your flights were upgraded to first class.”
Her lips formed an ‘O.’
“The hospital… the day I left and you came in… I lied about not remembering you. I’m sorry, duci. I should have been honest with you—”
“Why weren’t you?” she sputtered. “You made me feel like a real dick at the airport.”
“I know. I was mad at you.”
“Mad at me?”
“When I paid to upgrade your flight, I found out your already unsafe trip to Key West was a lie. You intended on traveling to Mexico instead, which was infinitely worse considering the current lay of the land there.”
“Oh.” She scrunched her nose—fuck, adorable. “Right.”
At least, she didn’t argue about how bad an idea visiting Cancún was.
“For weeks, I couldn’t get the sight of you out of my mind. I felt certain you were an angel.” When her eyes bugged in bewilderment, I persisted, “Fucked up, I know. But…
“Cristu, when you were standing in the doorway of my hospital room, you had this halo at the back of your head, and you were suddenly all I could see.” She blushed but, thank God, didn’t run screaming for the hills.
Taking it as a good sign, I cupped her chin then slid my fingers back to take the weight of her skull.
“All I wanted to see. All I could think about.
“Without knowing it, you pushed me to recover, to jump through all the hoops the doctors insisted on, because then, I promised myself I’d find out who you were.”
“You had me investigated?” Her voice was so soft I barely heard it over the traffic rushing past us.
“Sort of—”
“You orchestrated the whole thing! You son of a bitch, that’s why I’m wearing this damn ring.”
“Se.” Her nostrils flared, but I grabbed her right hand as she tried to pull it off her finger. “Everything up to the seats being together, I manufactured. The rest wasn’t. The chemistry, our link—” I unapologetically used her words against her. “—that was us.”
“Stalker,” she accused with a blacker scowl.
“Only for you,” I said with a wince, relieved she was only grumbling and not slapping me across the face.
That earned me a shove in the shoulder. “Jerk.”
“Infinitely,” I agreed. “What can I say? It runs in the family.”
Regret filled me. Not for my actions, not when they’d brought us together, but for confessing my sins to her—
No.
No.
I’d had to do this.
She deserved to know the measure of the man who’d claimed her.
And fuck, did she make me wait for salvation or ruination.
Kitty studied me for so long, and with such silence, that my earlier relief seemed unfounded.
I’d fucked up so many things with her, so I felt sure that this had to be the tipping point.
And as I vowed I’d do whatever she bade of me, that I’d let her scramble off my lap and jump out, that I’d let her go, she surprised me.
“Where is Evangeline buried?”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“Do you have too much wax in your ears?”
“No. But… why do you want to know?”
“Take me there. Now.”
My mouth worked but, like the sometimes smart man I could be, I nodded.
She scrambled off my lap but didn’t head onto the street, so I’d take that as a win. Instead, she locked in her seatbelt and eyed me expectantly.
Utterly confused but willing to comply after my admission, I drove us away from the direction we’d been heading in and took her across town.
Alina could never have afforded a plot in Green-Wood cemetery. That was Rory acting on my behalf—I’d been so fucked up after Evangeline’s death that I’d let her down even more and had asked my sister to arrange the funeral.
Like a chump.
My entire life had been like that. I could see it so easily.
Fucking up, using some bullshit to escape, to fade out, terrifying my family with the repercussions, and then using violence to find a new equilibrium.
Whether it was violence that came with a knife or the violence of a mind that let me formulate such terrible creations.
As we drove in silence, I vowed I’d break that cycle.
No more relying on my family to get me out of shit. Not now that I had her to protect and my siblings had children.
Not if she let me near her again and we had kids of our own.
It was time to grow the fuck up.
I owed it to Kitty to be a better man.
If it meant working every day for the rest of my life to make this right—then I would.
Because no Sicilian would let an angel walk out the door without a fight.
But more than that… this man could never let his woman go.