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Vespa had once waited up late into the night as a child, waiting for a father who never came home.
“Fuck,” she muttered, trudging to the wing where her room waited. It was even quieter back there.
In front of the mirror, she winced. Giorgio’s blood still speckled her face and neck. The numbness inside didn’t wear off in the heat of the shower, even though she cranked the temperature to almost scalding.
Once she was clean, she started cleaning her guns on the empty table in the corner. It was a waste of effort. She’d have to ditch them anyway, just in case. The familiar motions settled the thump of her heartbeat, though.
Her phone vibrated against the table. She used a towel to wipe the oil off her hands when she saw the name on the lit-up screen.
‘Checking in,’ Antonio had texted.
That meant he knew what had happened. Of course. Antonio’s network of informants wouldn’t take a break while he was recovering from his own injury.
She reassembled her guns and washed up again to remove the oil, scrubbing until her skin prickled. Her reflection stared back from the mirror. She hadn’t put on her PJs after her shower but wore her usual slacks and button-down. Her guns were back in their holsters, snug under her arms.
Her phone was dimming as she crossed back to it. Another message from Antonio came up when she unlocked it.
‘I hope no thumbs-up means you’re resting.’
Her lips twisted. So he had expected a response. That he’d checked on her at all prompted a silly flare of warmth. She had taken care of things. She didn’t need anyone to worry about her, if that’s what he was doing. Hell, Antonio should be sleeping off more pain pills, not texting her at all.
Vespa gifted him with three more letters. ‘OTW.’ Then she reached for her boots.
Chapter 21
Antonio expected the scowl Vespa flashed his way when she stomped into the foyer of the Di Salvo estate. Her annoyed expression settled the nerves crawling in his stomach.
“What the hell are you doing out of bed?” she snapped, heading straight for him.
“I was shot in the arm, Vespa. I’m not crippled.” His smile felt easy to flash, almost natural, and widened when her frown deepened.
“I’m going to cripple you,” she muttered, and the Di Salvos hanging around the downstairs shifted closer.
Antonio laughed, waving them back.
Vespa looked fine. She was stomping around in a clean outfit with her hair pulled back in a bun as usual. She didn’t look like she’d been caught in a gunfight. The only giveaway was how filthy the sling cushioning her previously dislocated arm looked.
He hadn’t expected to see her that morning, and he sure as hell hadn’t expected her return text to be that she was on the way to him again that night. The spike of adrenaline from getting her text didn’t fade, not even when she grabbed his good arm and started dragging him to his room.
With the grumbling she wasn’t quiet about, all the Di Salvos around the estate would know exactly where she had taken him. Antonio wondered if she’d be embarrassed by that later. She settled him on the bed with a bounce that tweaked his arm, even in the cast.
“A little gentler, please,” he murmured, making her freeze with a hand pinning his chest.
Below her chin, there was a stain of dried blood. Antonio’s thumb caressed her just beneath.
“You’ve got something here,” he murmured before rising and crossing to the bathroom to grab a washcloth. She sat on the bed and lifted her chin to let him wipe the blood away. There were no injuries on her, not that he could see.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Thought I got it all.”
Antonio folded the washcloth and placed it on his nightstand before sitting beside her. “Blood doesn’t bother me.” Except he’d wanted it off of her.
“Me neither. Seen enough of it. It’s just…” Her eyes closed, and her face looked pale. “He was so stupid,” she mumbled, her hand lifting to rub at her forehead. “Didn’t expect him to jump in front of me like that. He had a family, you know? A son, a child whose father won’t ever come home.”
Antonio’s skin crawled at the visual of someone throwing themselves in front of her, dying close enough to her to splatter her with their blood; blood that was supposed to be hers.
Vespa was frowning again, but it was more unhappy than angry. “He shouldn’t have thrown himself in front of me. I could have handled it.”
“Don’t do that,” Antonio said.
