Chapter 6
SIX
STAN
A MONTH LATER
Playlist recommendation:
Bleeding Out - Chance Pena
“You’re crazy.”
I studied my sister-in-law in the elevator’s mirror. “I know I am, Jen.”
Crazy for angels that made me lose my mind and reason and—
My sister-in-law stacked her hands on her hips. “If Luc had any idea I brought you here, Stan, he’d—”
I didn’t let her finish the sentence. “My darling frate won’t find out from me. Anyway, we’re related now. It’s not that strange for a Sicilian to be on Irish turf.”
“Why couldn’t you go to Hunter about this? He’d help—”
“Because he’s Sicilian too. I.e., overly emotional. Unlike your New Yorker-self, who is infinitely pragmatic.”
Her nose wrinkled. “You had a heart attack six weeks ago!”
“That hasn’t stopped Luc from piling on the work. Anyway, I’m fine.”
I’d gone through recovery and everything. Six fucking weeks of doctor’s appointments and physio.
Six weeks of pushing myself to the limit. Of obsessing over a vision.
An entity.
My dream girl.
The doctor had signed off on me today. That crap was in the past and I could finally get my answers.
She heaved a sigh. “He’s worried about you. We all are.”
“Maybe I’d have less to do if he’d calm the fuck down.”
Sympathy had her pulling a face. “Just don’t leave the building without me. The last thing I need is you getting shot.”
“Do you know how high my IQ is, Jennifer?”
“Yes, Einstein. I’m sure the great man himself overdosed on his own drug.”
“I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
“No. You’re not.”
“I’ve followed every measure the doctors asked of me.”
“I should hope so! But you’re not eating enough and you’ve been acting weird since you got out of the hospital—” She didn’t have time to further berate me because the elevator doors opened to reveal a very perplexed Conor O’Donnelly surrounded by cats and dogs like a billionaire Dr. Doolittle.
“Jen?” he greeted, wary eyes scanning me. “Custanzu.”
Despite having met several times at my nieces’ christenings, I held out my hand. “Stan, please.”
He studied my hand for so long, I wasn’t sure he’d take it, but after plopping one of the cats down onto a dresser, he grasped and shook it before correcting himself. “Stan.”
Impatiently, Jen tapped her toe. “Can you two play nice while I visit Savannah and Star?”
Conor arched a brow, but I answered, “I come in peace, Jen.”
“You’d better.” To Conor, she ordered, “If you have to shoot him, aim for a foot.”
His lips curved. “Sure thing, cuz.”
Scoffing, she hit the button for the apartment below the penthouse, where her friend lived. “Don’t let him leave without me.”
“God, she treats me like one of her kids,” I complained once the doors were shut.
“I heard that!” she called through the elevator.
Conor might have chuckled, but he still turned to me with a bemused frown. “Well?”
“I need your help.”
“And that necessitates subterfuge?”
“I didn’t think you’d meet with me if Jen didn’t act as my go-between.”
“Perhaps. I heard about your stay at the hospital… so maybe I would have.”
“Goddamn grapevine.”
“You didn’t mean to overdose?”
“You heard correctly. Now, I think I’m talking to a man who’d go to the ends of the earth for his woman, no?”
“My air miles back me up.”
“Then you’ll understand. I made a vow and I have to fulfill it.”
“And that involved you overdosing?”
“In a sense. I was trialing a drug.”
“Red?”
I might have created Red, but it remained the source of my greatest shame.
Red was my golden goose. Not only incredibly lucrative but also highly addictive. A drug that helped men fuck all night long.
The side effects, however, were brutal.
Men and women had died because of it.
People who weren’t worth less than Evangeline.
My moronic younger self had failed to calculate how often my fuckwit clients would take the drug and trigger monstrous adverse reactions.
Even so, I couldn’t lie to myself.
I’d needed an income to develop the medication that could have saved Evangeline’s life and a product to get my siblings off my back. Red had provided me with both solutions.
Even though I was close to a breakthrough on the medication front, that didn’t stop me from knowing how badly I’d fucked up with my other creation.
“No. Red’s…” My hands balled into fists. “…an aberration.”
“It’s certainly made things complicated around here,” Conor mused, but there was a surprising lack of judgment in his voice. I wasn’t sure if I’d be so generous in his shoes. “Want a beer? Looks like you could use one.”
I sucked in a breath. “A beer would be great.”
The offer gave me hope, but when he led me into his kitchen, where report cards were stuck onto the refrigerator, someone had stacked a kid’s textbooks on the counter, and all the family pets seemed to converge around us, relief filled me.
He was going to hear me out.
Deciding to be upfront, I began, “I’m trying to create a drug that—”
Conor raised a hand. “Look, as much as I’m curious, the less I know about that the better.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I still needed to explain. “I let someone down. They needed medical care that the doctors couldn’t provide. She died.”
I hated that it was getting easier to utter those two words.
The last time I’d even said them, I’d thrown a lamp into my TV.
Eyes softening, Conor sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“No more than me.” I accepted the beer he passed me with a nod of thanks. “I’m close.”
His brow arched. “The overdose would indicate otherwise.”
“I was testing the doses.” After invoking an episode of tachycardia… He definitely didn’t need to know that part. “Prior to drafting in patients for preclinical trials.”
“Smart,” he mocked. “Isn’t that what animal testing is for?”
“With how many people Red has hurt, it was the least I could do for the initial tests.”
“Very Catholic of you.”
I conceded that with a nod.
“You’re trained for… this?”
“In another life, I intended to be a chemist. When I met her, she was already sick. I was stubborn enough to think I could find a cure.”
“So, why are you here?”
The moment of truth.
Was my dream girl… a dream?
“Because I need to know if I’m going insane and you’re the only person I can ask who won’t hold it against me if I am.”