Chapter 4 Rem
REM
Johnny’s wife, Bianca, opens the door before we reach the front steps. Johnny rushes to her, bundling her back into the warmth as he takes her spot holding the door open.
I’m not far behind, cradling a still-unconscious Lena against my chest.
“Hurry. She’s gotta be freezing.” Bianca waves me into the house, past the spacious living area and down a hall toward the ground floor guest room.
Before Bianca, Johnny lived in an apartment in the same building as me, sparingly furnished, with enough weights to fill a gym and a kitchen rarely stocked with anything more than beer and frozen dinners.
Now with Bianca, he’s living in a spacious Victorian townhome in a subtly swanky part of the city and there’s always fresh flowers, candles burning, and the smell of something mouthwatering coming out of the kitchen.
Bianca runs her own catering business so not all the food is for him, but still.
Everything about Johnny’s relationship with Bianca has been life-changing, in the best way.
Even on a night when all he did was play getaway driver, her concern for him is palpable.
I pretend not to hear her fussing over him as they follow me to the bedroom Bianca indicated.
They’ve only been together a few years but being married into the mafia seems to suit Bianca; she barely blinks when I put a bloody stranger on her perfectly white bedspread.
I’m careful not to jostle Lena when I pull away and pause a little longer than necessary to make sure she’s still breathing.
The hit she took is more flesh wound than anything.
The fact that she’s still unconscious is making me edgier than I want to admit.
“She’s probably in shock.”
I glance down at Bianca, her head hovering around my shoulder. She looks up at me with concern. For me or for Lena, I can’t tell.
“This is just some run of the mill guesswork, but this young woman doesn’t look like someone who is used to being shot at. Or, um, you know—actually shot. She’s probably still in shock, which means she might be out a little longer than you’d expect.”
“Really?” I cock an eyebrow. “Did you pick up a degree in medicine I don’t know about?”
Bianca ignores my comment—one of the few people who would dare—and starts removing Lena’s clothes. Casting a glance at her husband, she murmurs something about supplies and sends him off before any of Lena’s skin is exposed.
I relax my jaw a fraction. Why the fuck I’m worried about Johnny seeing any part of Lena’s body is beyond me, but, shit, it’s been a night of fucking firsts and that’s the last one I have time to analyze right now.
“Take a breath, Rem,” Bianca says. “She’s going to be fine.”
“I’m not worried,” I lie. To Bianca. Definitely to myself. “I don’t need her to be fine. Just conscious. And just long enough to find out what the fuck happened tonight.”
“Hmm, if you say so…” Bianca’s voice trails off as she finally manages to peel Lena’s blood-crusted shirt from her side.
The wound re-opens in the process and bleeds sluggishly onto the bedlinen.
Johnny returns seconds later, supersized first aid kit in hand, and passes it to his wife.
Bianca doesn’t even need to look into the box to pull out the gauze pads. She presses one to Lena’s side.
No sooner does Bianca touch Lena than our patient wakes up with a scream and tries to fling herself off the far side of the mattress.
Bianca squeals in surprise, Johnny curses. I grab the only part of Lena within reach, hauling her back by her leg before she thrashes herself onto the floor.
I don’t want Lena flailing her way toward more blood loss, so I hold her to the bed, one hand squeezing her right calf, the other pinning her left wrist to the mattress, our chests one heavy breath away from touching.
“You.” It’s more accusation than recognition, but I find perverse relief in hearing her voice, even though it’s weak and full of venom.
“Me.” My face hovers above hers and we stare at each other for one beat, two, before Johnny coughs. He works for me, not the other way around, so I stare down at Lena a little longer, as if her eyes will show me the answers to everything that went wrong tonight.
When nothing but anger, pain, and a healthy dose of fear stare back at me, I release her limbs but continue to invade her personal space.
With one hand propped on either side of her shoulders, one knee weighing down the mattress between her thighs, and my other foot on the floor, she’s captured beneath me.
It’s time our patient gets a reality check.
“Lena, you’ve been out cold for at least thirty minutes. You’ve been shot. You’ve lost some blood.” I strip the edge from my voice when she gets even paler. I don’t want her passing out again. “You’re in a safe place, now. You need to let us clean and bandage your wound.”
The look she gives me is pure defiance. Lena snakes the arm on her uninjured side toward the unoccupied side of the bed, as if some escape route is hidden there.
When all she finds is too many frilly pillows and empty air, she slaps the mattress in frustration.
And cries out when the motion jars her body.
That does it.
Anger I’ve been trying to keep in check flares, hardening my expression.
I track the second she registers it. Lena freezes beneath me.
Before, in her apartment, even in the dark, we were close enough I could identify the carousel of emotions passing through her eyes.
When you’ve lived the life I have, you get very familiar with people’s reactions to danger and imminent death.
Shock, horror. Defiance, desperation. Sometimes even acceptance.
But the emotion in Lena’s dark eyes as she stares up at me is just one thing: pure undiluted fear. She’s more terrified in this moment than when we were dodging bullets.
I’ve let my mask slip too far. I’ve let her glimpse the true Rem and it’s too much for her, for this situation, especially tonight.
My capo believes this woman is a danger to our family. Ari and I have seen the evidence ourselves.
Every piece of intel I have about Lena Haywood says she’s a threat to the Cerreti family. Which makes her an enemy of the Cerreti family. One that, if we were back in the old country under strict ‘Ndrangheta rule, I’d be required to dispatch without thought.
But we’re in Chicago, in my city, and I’ve never held with killing women and children, especially when my instincts are telling me something about this situation is much more complicated than it appears.
My instincts have kept me alive for thirty-three years. I see no reason to start ignoring them now.
With a deep breath, I rein in my anger and school my face into a blank expression.
Lena is still watching me so carefully, her pulse jumping at the base of her throat.
She’s doing a valiant job of keeping her emotions under control, but that vein is giving her away.
Watching it makes something uncomfortable prickle in my chest. I admire her fight, her survival instinct, I do, but I don’t want her fighting me.
Not right now, not when she’s injured and we’re wasting precious time tending to her wound.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She blinks but doesn’t relax. No acknowledgement of what I’ve said. No acceptance. No trust.
Apparently tonight has fucked me up more than I thought because the inexplicable need to have Lena trust me hits me upside the head so hard, I have to blink away stars.
By all accounts, we’re enemies. She hates me. I suspect her. But as Bianca’s sweetly smelling guest room starts to take on the sour scent of blood, I know I’m not going to resolve the mystery of Lena Haywood without giving a little ground. Conceding a battle to win the war.
Slowly, so she can keep track of my movements, I get up from the bed.
Lena, Bianca, and Johnny all watch as I take several steps back and fold my arms across my chest. The move pushes my Beretta away from my waist in a way that undermines the overall message, but, you know, nothing about this night is going according to plan.
“Lena.” I wait until her eyes travel from my gun to my face.
I meet her expression and keep myself still.
Only when she’s sure I’m not going to pounce on her again does her breathing even out.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice the slight flush that hits her cheeks. Or how beautiful she is, even now.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” I gesture to the couple behind me. “Neither are Bianca or Johnny. You’re in their house. You have a bullet wound in your side that we need to clean and bandage. It’s not serious, a flesh wound only, but we need to make sure it doesn’t get infected. Understand?”
Her eyes never leaving mine, Lena nods. Thank fuck.
Point made, I come to the edge of the bed.
My hands are still carefully tucked away, but I’m using my sheer size to emphasize the next point.
“Someone tried to kill you tonight. I don’t know who and I don’t know why but I know that they were fucking serious and it’s only by chance you’re still alive. ”
“And because of you.” Carefully pushing herself upright, Lena glares at me as she grits her teeth against the pain. “You shouldn’t have been in my apartment, you were breaking and entering, and you still haven’t told me why.”
I look down at her, silent. I haven’t told her why and I’m not planning to start now.
“But,” she forces out between clenched teeth, “you’re also the reason I’m not dead. Knocking me to the ground, getting me out of the apartment while under fire… You know, all that.”
Yeah, I do know all that. I feel uncharacteristically unsettled every time I think about the red sniper dot seeking out the back of Lena’s head while she watched the news on her computer.
There’s a voice inside my head, one I’ve never heard before, that keeps whispering how glad it is I was there to pull her down before the bullet found its mark.
The look Lena and I exchange is knowing, intimate in a way that only happens between two people who have shared the same intense experience. “Yes. All that.” It comes out on a rough cough and, without warning, Johnny whacks my back. “Che cazzo?!”
“Sorry, boss. Thought you were choking.”
“Fucking asshole.” I shove him, releasing some of my tension in the process.
Ignoring our bickering, Bianca pushes past me and resumes pulling supplies out of the first aid kit.
“Okay boys, that’s enough.” Bianca uses one hand to press gauze to Lena’s side and the other to help her lean back into the bed.
“Rem is infuriating and high-handed and can be a total pain in the ass, but right now you don’t need to worry about him.
This is my house and our focus for tonight is getting you fixed up, rested, and ready for a proper breakfast in the morning. No male interference allowed.”
With that, Bianca shoos me and Johnny into the hall, putting a solid door between me and the woman who has just gone from a job to a very serious problem.