Chapter 2
TWO
KITTY
TWO YEARS LATER
Playlist recommendation:
cross my heart - Artemas
“35-year-old Caucasian male has just been transferred out of the ICU—”
The background noise grew muffled.
It had a habit of doing that when you were at the end of a double shift the day before your PTO kicked in.
The only reason the words caught my attention at all was because I saw Custanzu Valentini on the gurney.
Again.
Having someone this high ranking in the hospital shouldn’t have been a frequent occurrence. The name, however, I had grown accustomed to hearing, even if I’d only acted as his care provider the one time.
Valentini often made an appearance in the ER. But the ICU was a definite upgrade.
The memory of him using his—admittedly impressive—genitals as a helicopter had me making a mental note to check in with George, who’d moved to Seattle once we’d passed our certification to become PAs.
My bleary eyes scoped out the corridors, on the hunt for Custanzu’s overbearing family.
But he was alone.
Again.
On the other occasions he’d been admitted, their absence had become a source of great discomfort.
My ma pecked over me like a hen when I so much as sliced my finger in the kitchen. Only smelling salts would have kept her upright if I were in the ICU.
This current situation was different than a quick visit to the ER for a stomach pumping. The latter I could excuse. An ICU stay plus their absence? Less so.
My familial sirens blared loud and clear.
Where was his mother? Why wasn’t she threatening to hit the nurses over the head with his chart for daring to approach her precious baby boy with a needle?
Where were his siblings, the twins who ruled over the Sicilian parts of the city with an iron fist?
In fact, wasn’t Custanzu Valentini their iron fist?
When he didn’t spend half his life treating the ER like a vacation hotspot, of course.
I knew he had an overbearing family. Currau had told me they were all up in each other’s business. Allegedly.
Fully aware that my next actions were illegal/immoral/unethical/all of the above, I grabbed my phone from the pocket in my scrubs and hit connect on my oldest brother’s name: Lucas.
“Sis? What’s wrong?”
“Does there have to be anything wrong for your sister to call you?” I chided around a yawn, just for the hell of it.
Lucas took far too much onto his shoulders. ‘Disgustingly responsible’ summed him up.
As I traipsed after the gurney that housed the Capo of the Famigghia, I heard him grumble, “Is it in your job description to give me shit, KittyKat?”
“You know I detest that nickname.”
Fucking Cade. My other brother had made that up. Why Lucas hadn’t drowned him at birth to spare us all is another grudge I should hold against him.
“And I’ll keep on calling you that for as long as you piss me off. Now, what’s going on? I can hear you’re at the hospital.”
“How can you hear that?”
“Your sneakers squeak. Can’t you get non-squeaky sneakers? It’s annoying as fuck.”
“They’re lucky the soles are still in one piece after how much walking I’ve done this double shift. They only squeak when we’re on the home stretch. Anyway, my footwear is none of your business. I have something to tell you.”
“I figured as much. What with the call. At five AM.”
“Oops. I didn’t realize it was so early. Sorry.”
“Liar.”
Smirking, I settled beside the wall of the private room allocated to Custanzu. A couple of the nurses shot me confused looks over my presence, but I just waved at them in greeting.
I’d learned that if you pretended to own a room, the room thought you owned it. It helped that I'd visited this fancyschmancy part of the hospital long enough for them to grow used to the sight of me.
When their attention drifted, I looked through the window and at the man in the bed.
He was too thin yet also, somehow, stacked. His beard neared ZZ Top levels. Salt and pepper sprinkled through raggedy waves that spoke of a desperate need of a haircut.
Lines bracketed his mouth and marred his forehead…
Honestly, it was a crime against nature for a man this hot to look this shit.
I bit my lip as I studied his countenance, uneasily aware that he reminded me of Cade after we’d lost Vinny.
Undereating, overtraining, living off protein shakes and air…
He’d lost someone. A woman, if memory served.
“Kitty? You do know I could be sleeping, right?”
I lied, “Sorry, Lucas.” Go big or go home… “Did you know Custanzu Valentini had been admitted to the ICU?”
“What?!”
Despite the situation, my lips curved at his bellow.
I couldn’t deny that it was fun to flap my unflappable brother.
“Yup. He looks like death warmed over too.”
“Which hospital? Gunshot wounds?”
“Which hospital?” I complained. “My hospital, dumbass. I’m on shift, remember?” As he continued sputtering in my ear, I slipped into the room to check the Capo’s file once the other nurses had left.
“Are you listening?” I half-heard him grouse.
A quick scan had me grimacing. “Overdose.”
Common sense told me that a transfer to the ICU meant his situation must have been dire, but I still winced reading what he’d gone through.
“What?!” came Lucas’s second bellow.
Custanzu’s particulars filled me with the strangest sense of distress. I glanced at the man who technically meant nothing to me then placed a hand to my chest, where an ache had settled.
Even as I stood there watching him, I pictured him standing naked in bay four of my ER, back bowed, whispering, “I miss her.”
My throat felt ridiculously thick. “No family’s with him, Lucas.”
If he died…
“I’ll contact Aidan—” The head of the Five Points, the Irish Mob, and Lucas’s direct boss. “He’ll— Fuck. Is Valentini going to die?”
“He’s through the worst. It definitely came close. When he ODed, it triggered a heart attack.”
My eyes bugged when I saw how long he’d been in our care.
“Jesus.” Lucas’s curse drew my attention back to him. “I need you to keep this under wraps, Kitty.”
“I will. I only told you because he’s alone.” And because the Irish and Sicilians were allies.
The notion sat uncomfortably on my heart.
If they were enemies, would I have made this call?
It was another example of how my brothers’ bullshit encroached on my life. My morals. Assholes.
“You did good, KittyKat,” Lucas stated, shattering my thoughts into a million pieces. Thank God. “Leave this with me. Love you, sis.”
“Love you, Lucas.”
He cut the call only after I’d shared the sentiment. That was our family through and through. We said those words to one another because we knew what it was like to lose someone close to us.
One day, that person bickered with us at the breakfast table, then the next, they could be lying in the morgue…
My throat grew tight as memories plagued me, grief swelling and surging like a tidal wave in my soul.
Work usually helped reset my feelings, but this hit differently.
I’d already intended on hiding on Currau’s floor and stealing his pudding for the forty remaining minutes of my shift, but now the purpose of my visit had gone awry.
No way in hell would I leave Custanzu alone until I could shepherd him into the annoying clutch of his family’s bosom.
Then, my duty would be done.
If something happened and he did pass away, my conscience would be clear. Someone’s Vinny would have a person who cared at his bedside.
I shuffled over to the seat next to his bed, not wanting my squeaking sneakers to wake him, but he released a deep sigh that immediately drew my attention.
Quickly flicking a look at him, I stilled in place when I saw his eyes had opened.
And that they were pinned on me.
The freakin’ Capo of the Cosa Nostra had his gaze locked on me like I was in his crosshairs!
“àncilu.” He breathed the word like an invocation.
My lips trembled as I gaped at him, caught in the freeze portion of flight or fight, half-certain he’d attack from disorientation and—
His eyes closed.
My fear waned with it.
Shoulders sagging, I tumbled into the armchair that wasn’t standard hospital issue—thank fuck for VIP perks, my feet were killing me—and willed my heart to slow down before I had a heart attack too.
Then, to myself, I sniped, “Goddamn mobsters.”
It didn’t make me feel any better.