by Nia Farrell
Cracking open his eyes, he turned his head toward the center of the kitchen and saw his angel of mercy watching him. She was lying on a throw rug that she’d dragged in, adding a pillow for a makeshift bed.
And she was dressed.
Fuck.
If she’d found her clothes, she’d found everything else that he’d hidden in the laundry room dryer. His cash. Her purse. His cell phone.
His keys.
Interesting.
She could have left, but she was still here. Too bad she’d found her clothes. The best part of this whole ordeal had been the sight of her naked body.
“Hey,” she said softly. Thankfully, she sounded more concerned than pissed at him.
“How long have I been out?”
“Fourteen hours, give or take.”
“Christ.” He struggled to turn, intending to get up and dressed.
“You stay right there, mister. Don’t make me shoot your sorry ass.”
Doc waved his gun in his general direction. He’d be worried if it had a bullet in the chamber and she was taking serious aim with the safety off. Right now, she was all show and no go.
“You were bleeding internally,” she told him. “I had to cauterize an artery. I removed the bullet while I was in there, by the way. If we can keep you from post-op infection, I’m hoping that you’ll be nearly as good as new. If nothing else, you have another scar and a souvenir that will trump any of your buddies’ ‘what I did on summer vacation’ stories. Try to move too soon, and you probably won’t live to hear them.”
“I need to go,” he insisted. “You don’t understand—”
She waggled the empty gun at him. “No, you don’t understand. If you’re too weak to get up off the floor, how in the hell do you think you’re going to drive? You’ve lost a lot of blood. I washed your clothes after you pissed them, but I found a stash of sweatpants and tees. You’re wearing sweats until I say otherwise.”
Well, that explained how she found what he’d hidden in the clothes dryer so soon.
Doc had plaited her hair into a long, brown braid that looked like it would reach her waist. She pushed a stray wisp away from her face and eyed him as intently as his father did anyone who was granted access to his presence.
Time for a change of tactics.
“If you’re going to make me stay down here, can I at least get a rug to lie on, too? This hard floor is killing me. And water. I need water. And something for the pain.”
“Yeah, well, manage to keep water and liquids on your stomach and we’ll see if you can keep pills down, too. You seem to be well-stocked with food here. I’ll heat some broth to try after the water. Let me get you a drink, and I’ll help transfer you to the rug after that.”
She put his gun on the island and padded barefoot to the sink. Opening the closest top cabinet, she took a glass tumbler from the shelf, added a few ounces of water, pulled a kitchen towel from a drawer, and brought everything to where he lay. Kneeling by his good shoulder, she draped his upper chest with the towel, slid her hand behind his neck, and helped him sip from the glass that she held.
He drank every bit that didn’t spill.
Matteo was weak, yes, but not as weak as she thought. Still, the loss of blood was problematic. If he could get a cell phone signal, help would be here in forty-five minutes to an hour. Ninety minutes tops. Once he’d been seen to, it would be her turn. A shame, but she’d served her purpose.
His father’s doctor knew enough about the family business to be trusted to deal with this part of it, too.
These things happened when you were a Visconti. Bullets and risk came with the territory. His grandfather hadn’t become Dom by playing nice. He played hardball. His father Giovanni—the current Dom—did, too, albeit with more finesse. Matteo had yet to develop the subtle touch that Giovanni Visconti wielded, but he got results. Ultimately, that’s what mattered most.
Last night, though, he had disappointed his father. He failed to avenge the wrong done to their family. He had helped rescue Reaper’s most recent kidnap victim, but Reaper had escaped.
Matteo vowed to find him if it was the last thing he did.
For now, though, he played the invalid. He managed to sit up with Doc’s help and work his way onto the rug that she slid into place beside him. While it was a temporary fix, it wasn’t what his body needed.
“Listen,” he said, “I should be sitting with my shoulder elevated, preferably in a bed, on the side closest to an en-suite. I might not be able to walk to a bedroom, but we can make it if you’ll find an office chair with wheels and push me. Will you do that for me? Find a bedroom with an en-suite and an office chair to get me there?”
She cringed, clearly mortified that she hadn’t thought of it first. “Well, duh!” She smacked her brow and shook herself. “Yes. Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. Let me go look.”
Doc was back in a matter of minutes, pushing a large, leather office chair built to fit a businessman—or, in this case, the real doctor who had built this place as a weekend getaway. Now it was a safehouse, owned by the Avenging Angels MC.
The physical therapist backed the chair against the end of the island, where it couldn’t roll, and helped him to a stand. It took every bit of strength to shuffle to his makeshift wheelchair, keeping his good arm around her shoulders and leaning on her for support.
With her help, he managed to turn and sit without falling.
“Whew!” She blew out a sigh of relief. “Don’t be offended, but I’m going to strap you in, to make sure that you don’t spill out when I’m pushing this thing.”
He didn’t argue with her. Instead, he nodded and watched her rummage through drawers. Rather than tie four towels together, she used a single extension cord to bind him to the chair, wrapping it around his chest and knotting it in the back.
He could still smell the subtle scents of jasmine and vanilla that lingered on her skin. She hadn’t showered since yesterday. She’d probably spent the entire time watching him, making sure that he was breathing, that he hadn’t gone and died on her.
He’d passed the first hurdle. Hopefully, his finish line was another fifty years down the road.
The chair moved smoothly across the hard kitchen floor but balked at rolling onto the living room carpet.
“I’m going to pull you,” she said, “rather than push you. That should help overcome the resistance.” Turning the chair so that he was looking back into the kitchen, she came behind him, grabbed hold of the seat just above the arms, and pulled, moving him just as she had hoped. He added his feet, pushing when she did until they made it to the first bedroom. Fortunately, the hall door was wide enough to pull the oversized office chair inside with him seated in it.
“You’ll be able to use the shower in here before any of the other rooms’ en-suites,” she explained, rolling him to the far side of the bed, closest to the private bathroom. “It has benches to sit on and handheld spray heads in addition to the body jets and rain showerheads.”
“I’m more concerned about the toilet,” he admitted. “You’ll need to leave the chair. I can at least push myself to the door, even if it won’t fit through.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “Until that happens, I’ll find something for a pee jar.”
She turned down the covers of the bed, piled the pillows against the headboard, and helped transfer him from the chair to the bed. Balancing himself on his straightened good arm, he pushed his feet and worked his hips back until he was sitting against the backrest that she’d made.
“How does it feel?” she asked, eyeing the bank of pillows. “Do I need to adjust them? I’ll try to find a small throw pillow to use behind your head. And pillows to stack for armrests. That will reduce the strain on your neck and shoulders. Be right back.”
She was gone in the blink of an eye. Returning with her arms full, she fashioned an armrest for his wounded side, then made another one to match. When she failed to find the perfect pillow, she rolled a folded bath towel to
fit behind his neck.
“Better,” she pronounced, looking pleased with her work. “Let’s get some more water in you, and I’ll warm you some broth.”
She left again and came back, armed with a pitcher of water, a small serving tray, a drinking glass, and a large plastic deli container.
His pee jar.
Christ almighty.
He didn’t say a word when she put it on the nightstand within reach. The tray was next, protecting the wooden surface underneath it from the pitcher and glass that she added.
She poured the glass half-full this time and helped him drink it. Setting it back on the tray, she added the same amount of water.
“Thank you, Doc.”
She snapped her gaze up, clearly startled. Whether it was because he’d thanked her or because he called her Doc, he couldn’t say. She blinked and shook her head. “Beth,” she said. “My name is Beth.”
She looked at him expectantly.
He shook his head. “The less you know, the safer you’ll be.” It was a lie, but he didn’t dare tell her that her fate was all but sealed. “If you need to call me something, call me Al. Like Capone.”
She did smile then. “Funny you should pick that name. I had relatives who were friends with him—or at least did business with him. During Prohibition, Al controlled Chicago and my family controlled Illinois south of it.”
“So,” he said, “you’re a Shelton?”
She gave him her best deadpan look and tsked. “The less you know, the safer you’ll be.”
He couldn’t tell if she was serious or joking. His physical therapist was proving to be an enigma that begged solving.
Discomfited by his study of her, she stepped back and turned to leave.
“Stay,” he said.
“Broth,” she answered. “We’ve got to start building you back up, and you need something for the pain. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll see if I can find a bell or timer, something you can use that I’ll hear if I’m not in the room. If I can find canned broth or bouillon, it shouldn’t take long. Ten or fifteen minutes tops.”
She came back with another tray, loaded with two coffee mugs of broth, a sleeve of saltine crackers, all of the analgesics that they’d bought, and a digital timer that would start beeping a second after it was punched. She also brought another kitchen towel to use as a bib. Looping it around his neck, she secured the ends with a small bag clip and picked up the first mug of broth.
“You strike me as a beef man but you’re getting chicken to start. If you can keep down liquids, after an hour or so, we’ll try crackers, then pain meds. Otherwise, they’re just going to eat your stomach before they come back up.”
As much as he’d love to argue with her, he knew that she was right. He had to be wise about this. That included governing his body’s reaction to her whenever she came near. One whiff of her skin and all he could see was how she looked naked, unaware, and vulnerable, totally at his mercy. He could have done anything that he wanted, but that would have made him no better than Reaper.
Even crime families had values.
He’d left her pretty much alone—although he’d felt one of her breasts, to see if they were natural or enhanced. She was built like a swimmer or runner, with toned legs, a trim waist, and beautiful C-cup breasts. Her nipples were a soft, rosy pink. The nest of curls at the juncture of her thighs was two shades darker than the crowning glory of her long, brown hair.
She had braided it to keep it from misbehaving. He wanted to see the waist-length curls flowing down her naked back and teasing the dimples at the top of her shapely hips. He wished that she would whisper his real name, the one that he could not tell her, just in case she decided to split. He wanted her to offer him something far more satisfying than tepid water and warm broth. He could only imagine what it would feel like to possess her, to drive his cock inside her until she shattered in his arms.
Maybe before this was all over…
He was dreaming, of course. This could only end one way for her. Beth Shelton would eventually have to be dealt with, which was too bad, really.
He needed her to survive, but he couldn’t afford to let her live.
3
“Al” kept down the broth. He kept down the crackers. When she started giving him analgesics at regular intervals, he managed to keep those down, too. But despite her precautions, despite her efforts, during the night, he started running a fever.
At the rate it was rising, chances were, it was only going to get worse unless he got some antibiotics in him and fast. She hoped to God that it wasn’t too late, that sepsis hadn’t set in. She’d have a dead man on her hands and explaining to do.
They’d want to know why she hadn’t contacted the police and called for an ambulance. At the very least, she would lose her license and her livelihood. She’d have to go begging to her nurse practitioner sister for an office job, and their clinic was well-staffed already.
At the worst, she would end up wearing orange and marking the days until her release. How many years did they hand out for manslaughter?
He cracked open his eyes. They were bright with fever.
Shit.
She put the back of her hand on his cheek. “Al, do you feel how cool my hand is? If you want to live to see another day, we’re going to have to call someone. If I do it, it will be to 911 and you’re going to have the authorities involved.”
“Get my phone,” he ground out between his teeth. “If I can’t get a signal in here, you’ll need to redial the last number called. Ask for Dom Visconti. Tell him Matteo needs a medic. He’ll know where to send him.”
Dom Visconti.
Holy hell. Al’s name was Matteo, and he worked for a mob boss.
She’d been worried about losing her livelihood. Now she was worried for her life.
She’d found his cell phone with everything else when she laundered his pants. She ran to fetch it from the dryer and brought it to him. Matteo turned it on, unlocked his screen, and frowned.
“One bar,” he said. “I’ll try, but you might have to take it and talk to him.”
He punched in numbers, hit the button to call, and put the phone to his ear. “Pop?” he rasped. “Pop? Can you hear me?” There was a long moment of silence. “Fuck. You need to do it. Find a good signal and call him back. Tell him to send a medic. Remember.”
Beth took the phone from his fingers. Heading out the door, she hurried down the hall to the living room, constantly checking how many bars were lit up.
She got three in the kitchen near the range hood and redialed the number.
“Matteo? What the hell is going on?”
“I’m Beth. Bethany Shelton,” she said. “Please, I need to speak to Dom Visconti.”
“You’re speaking to him,” the authoritarian voice said. “Where’s Matteo?”
Matteo’s father Pop was Dom Visconti. A Dom—and not in the BDSM sense of things.
Her nightmare just turned ten times worse.
“In bed with a post-op fever. He needs a medic and antibiotics and probably a transfusion, as much blood as he lost. How soon can you get someone here?”
He was already barking orders. “Sixty minutes,” he said. “He’ll be there as soon as he can. Stay with him. Oh, and Miss Shelton? You do not have to worry about bloodborne pathogens with my son. I’ll have the doctor bring a written report if you’d like to see it.”
Dear lord. What kind of father made sure that his son stayed clean? Oh, right. Mob boss. He’d have to be prepared for bullets and gunplay and God knew what else happened in a crime family.
“Thank you.” She was sincere in that, at least. Working in a hospital, you worried about things that the general public only paid attention to when they made the evening news.
“Call me if his situation worsens.”
“I will,” she promised.
Sixty minutes.
She prayed that she could keep him alive that long.
Beth took the phone back to Ma
tteo’s bedroom and set it on the nightstand. He cracked open his heavy-lidded eyes. They were glazed, glassy with fever. She needed to get him in a tub of cold water and slow the climb, but she didn’t know if he was strong enough to get that far on foot.
“Matteo,” she said firmly, making certain that she had his attention. “I talked to your father. The medic’s on his way, but he won’t be here for an hour. We need to get your fever down. Do you think that you can walk? I want you in the bathtub.”
Quicker than a home shopping show could part people from their money, he caught her hand and pulled it to his groin. Pressing her palm against his erection, he curled her fingers around his girth and thrust his cock into her hand.
Flaccid, he was impressive. Erect, he was magnificent.
“No tub,” he rasped. “A bed is better.”
“But—”
He abandoned her hand and reached for her braid, pulling her until their noses were nearly touching. “I shouldn’t want you,” he grated, his breath still minty from when she’d helped him brush his teeth after supper. “But I can’t stop thinking about you. With the cashier. With that mother at the checkout. You, without a stitch, lying on the seat of my SUV, looking so peaceful. So pure of heart. I promised myself that I wasn’t going to touch you again. You don’t know who I am. What I’ve done. What I’ll have to do as soon as I can go again. There’s a monster out there who needs put down. He takes women, shares them with his club, and kills them. He raped my cousin. I promised to avenge my family’s honor. I failed once. I won’t rest until he’s stopped.”
Stopped…as in dead.
Matteo was not the kind of man that most parents envision for their daughter. He had no qualms about killing someone who deserved it. He was willing to be judge, jury, and executioner if it meant that justice would be served when the legal system failed.
The intensity in his eyes was mesmerizing. She wet her lips and swallowed hard.
