Mia throws a glare my way.
“I am not waiting. I can stitch him up.”
I grit my teeth.
“I don’t need you to cause more problems. Better to have a trained professional.”
She stands up straight and accepts the bag that Gio gives her.
“I will have you know that my mother used to treat all kinds of gangsters in our kitchen every other night. I started assisting her when I was seven. I did my first stitch when I was twelve. I am probably even more qualified than your precious doctor. If you are done, I have work to do.”
I am shocked. We compiled a dossier on each girl, but that didn’t come up in our research. I suppose her former clients took their omerta seriously.
She sets the bag on the table and starts digging through it.
“I need a lighter and a bottle of whatever alcohol you have.”
Gio goes to the liquor cabinet kept in this room and grabs a bottle of bourbon and takes it over to Mia. He then pulls a lighter out of his pocket and hands it to her.
“Thanks. I need you and Lorenzo to hold him still. This is going to hurt like hell.” She holds the bourbon out to Lorenzo. “He needs to drink as much of this as possible while I sterilize the needle.”
I look to Matteo and see him grimace in pain, but he is holding together well. I make a mental reminder to give him a bonus.
“Is he going to be okay?”
I look down and find tears in Sofia’s eyes. My sweet, strong Sofia. She didn’t cry when she was being shot at, but now she is crying for Matteo. This woman has more layers than I could imagine.
“He will be fine. It went through his shoulder. He will need some recovery time, but he will be okay.”
I wipe the tears from her face.
“Let’s go sit in the den while they finish up. Lo, you are in charge. Find out who the fuck did this and report back.”
He glances back and nods his head. As we as just closing the door, we hear the first scream rip from Matteo’s throat. Sofia whimpers, but the scream is cut off when the door is completely shut.
“Come on, Tesoro. Let’s wait over here.”
I pull her into the den and without giving her a choice, I sit in the chair in front of the fire and I pull her into my lap. The only light in the room is coming from the fire. Sofia doesn’t fight me. Instead she curls up into my lap and lets her tears fall.
“He is hurt because of me. If he hadn’t gone out first, he wouldn’t be shot right now. If I hadn’t called him in, the guy might not have even aimed for him.”
“Shhhsh Tesoro. It is not your fault.” I stroke her hair. “Matteo knows the job he signed up for. He knew there would be a possibility of getting hurt. Hell, in our life it is more like an inevitability. He will be fine.”
“You think that guy was trying to kill me?”
I feel the calmness I was gaining from holding her evaporate.
“I don’t know, Tesoro. Lo was only able to give me a quick rundown of what was happening. We can’t be sure if he was aiming towards you or the others. Let’s not worry about that now. You are safe here with me. Let’s just try to relax while we wait for them to finish up.”
“Okay.”
Her tense body takes a while, but eventually she relaxes completely into my embrace.
I continue stroking her hair as I stare at the fire.
I wasn’t completely honest with her. The man was there for her, we just don’t know why. It could have been because of her new connection to me. We haven’t had an attempted hit in Brooklyn in a decade, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. It’s not like we have men at the boarders stopping people from coming through. It has been more of a mutual understanding with the commission that unless it was for legitimate business, we would not venture into each other’s neighborhoods.
Something in my gut told me that wasn’t the case though. Matteo called and told me about how the man reacted at the restaurant. He dressed in a way to mimic us, but he didn’t pull it off well. That screams someone posing as mafia, but what does it mean? I have a feeling it is tired to that piece of shit ex of Sofia’s.
