Chapter 3
THREE
KITTY
I jerked awake as someone sobbed, “STAN,” at one hundred and fifty decibels.
Ears ringing and eyes stinging from too-little sleep, I blinked double-time, failing to remember what had brought me to a private room I didn’t recognize. One where Currau’s endless reruns of CSI didn’t light up the space.
Dazed as hell, my brain struggled to account for the two kings and their queens who suddenly walked through the door like we were on a catwalk.
“Who’s she?”
“The reason we’re here at all, Rory,” one of the kings soothed the heavily pregnant woman.
I glanced at the patient, tried not to be impressed about how much space he took up on the bed despite looking like a scrawny heap of shit, then hid a yawn when a woman strode over to me on heels so high I inwardly applauded her.
Jennifer—wife of Luciu Valentini—was also Paddy O’Donnelly’s daughter.
Irish Mob royalty and Sicilian.
Hers was a face I easily recognized from church.
She crouched in front of me and, before my bewildered gaze, snagged a hold of my hand. “Thank you so much for telling us about him. We know it could have caused trouble for you.”
“I have spoken with your supervisor,” the Don rumbled, stepping over to his wife and helping her stand.
He was HOT. So hot. Honestly, I should be immune considering how many hotties I saw at mass on Sundays, because something in Hell’s Kitchen’s waters bred cuties, but Luciu Valentini was fiiine.
Exhausted, I sat there, dazedly gawping at him.
Jennifer snorted, drawing my attention away from him. “You think he’s gorgeous now? You should see him when he’s holding one of my babies.”
It was a joke. A gentle tease. But also a brand of ownership. A claiming.
My babies.
Italicized, underlined, and in bold.
He belonged to her.
“I’m so sorry.” Mortified, I stuttered, “I-I just finished a double shift and—”
“If anyone understands, it’s me.” Jennifer winked. “Now, can you explain what’s happening?”
Relieved there’d be no hair-pulling or bitch-slapping over my awestruck ogling, I noticed the floor supervisor—Douchebag ‘more hands than an octopus’ David—glowering at me. Until he received a glare from Luciu Valentini. Then he ducked his head.
Wanting to correct my fuckup, I offered, “I’m sure David can explain—”
“We don’t want David to explain.”
God, the other king was handsome too! In a different way, but no less delicious, and yes, I’d also managed to piss off the woman standing beside him, who tightened her grip on his arm.
Nothing about that grip was playful, unlike Jennifer’s teasing warning to back off.
In my defense, a whole lot of delicious man-meat took up space/oxygen in this hospital room and I was only one woman, functioning on barely any sleep, and with zero self-preservation skills.
My fatigued brain raced to provide identification—Hunter De Laurentiis.
Camorran Don of Las Vegas and LA.
Husband of Aurora Valentini.
Cosa Nostra and Camorran Consigliere of NYC, Vegas, and LA.
(And the pregnant woman who currently stared at me like she hoped I’d choke on my next breath.)
Ohhh, wait—I recognized her. From the ER. That incident with the ginger—
“Kitty?”
I blinked at Jennifer’s prompt.
Considering my status as ‘mob-adjacent,’ I shouldn’t be able to put all these names to their faces, but I knew more about the Valentinis than they could ever imagine.
Still, that wasn’t today’s problem—that label belonged to Custanzu.
“He overdosed.”
Before I could say another word, the oldest woman in the room, clearly the family matriarch, wailed in despair.
The ululation reminded me of something from across the Atlantic, deep in the Mediterranean and Middle East where women would hurl themselves at coffins, fists banging against the wood as they screamed at the skies and purged their grief.
I’d always been so jealous of that grief.
To hurl their outrage at God himself—powerful stuff to a woman who’d put hers on lockdown to save her sanity. To preserve her life.
In a soft aside, I explained Custanzu’s current status to Jennifer and Hunter as Aurora and Luciu converged upon their mother.
Because she looked close to passing out, I bustled to my feet, wincing as my damn shoes squeaked, and poured some water into a plastic tumbler from the jug on her son’s nightstand, then hustled over to their parent.
Neither sibling appreciated my presence as I barged in, but I also spoke distressed mother fluently and they didn’t have my certifications. “Please, Mrs. Valentini, you must drink some water. The last thing your son needs is for you to collapse. He’s bound to wake up soon.”
The older woman turned eyes drenched with tears on me, and I just knew she hadn’t heard my assurances. “Will he d-die?”
“In forty years if we at Bellevue have anything to say about it,” I appeased. “Now, please drink?”
Mouth quivering with distress, she sipped at the water as I pressed the cup to her lips and tilted it. Absently, I took note of the shake in her hands that, from experience, I knew had nothing to do with her fear.
“It was kind of you to tell us.”
I patted her trembling fingers. “I’m from a big family too. I knew something was wrong when none of the nurses were begging for space to move in here.”
“How long has he—” She didn’t finish the question, just wafted a hand at the bed as if that were all she could manage.
Ooh, boy.
“Two days.”
“And no one knew?”
The warped shriek had them flinching, but Aurora stepped up to the plate and faced her mother. “You know how he is, Matri. Radio silence until we go and visit him. The only reason he hasn’t gotten in deep shit with either of us is that somehow, he maintains his workload.”
“I told you something was wrong—”
“Lauren,” Hunter chided. “Aurora’s Braxton Hicks started two days ago and we just landed on a flight I let her take because we’re armed with a doctor and a doula onboard.
Jen and Luc have kids. That’s a lot for anyone to handle without a wayward brother—” He broke off, but I could tell he’d been on the brink of criticizing Stan.
And I got it.
Self-destructive siblings were a pain in the ass.
Because I also possessed one of those, I shot him a commiserative look.
“If it’s any help, it wasn’t suicide,” I inserted into the ensuing silence as Lauren chewed on Hunter’s words.
Luciu jolted like I’d stuck him with a cattle prod. “How do you know that?”
“Because he consumed a very niche drug. The toxicology reports are still struggling to name it, but the reactions it triggered in his body—no one would choose that way to go. At least in my opinion.” Death by self-induced heart attack?
Nah. “Also, he used a nitroglycerin spray, which reduces the amount of work the heart has to do to counter myocardial infarc—”
“He was his own guinea pig!” Lauren screeched, interrupting me with words that made zero sense.
Yet his siblings agreed with her nonsensical response.
“For fuck’s sake, Stan,” Rory snarled, perfectly manicured hands forming into fists like she could pummel her younger brother.
Luciu heaved a sigh that sounded as exhausted as I felt. “He must have miscalculated the dose.”
Because I needed my bed and to get away from Valentini family politics, I offered the last insight I had into their brother’s actions:
“He knew something went wrong.” I wearily ambled toward the door. “If it’s any consolation… he called the ambulance.”