Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Dav

I was just climbing out of the shower, woefully alone for once, when I heard the intercom buzz in the living room.

Reaching out toward the vanity, I flipped my phone over, noting the time.

Two in the morning.

Prime time for an old hookup to decide to drop over and take another tour of my sheets.

Maybe this night wasn’t so depressing after all.

I made quick work of toweling off, then grabbed the pair of black sleep pants, yanking them up my legs where they sat suggestively low on my hips.

I didn’t plan on having them on long anyway.

I was expecting another buzz as I walked out into the common area of the apartment.

Instead, I got a long chime of my own doorbell.

Someone was anxious to see me .

My lips curved up into a playful smile at the idea of someone being that desperate to take me for a ride that they’d sneaked their way into the building.

“Keep your panties on,” I called as I reached for the locks. “Unless you’re a gorgeous woman. In which case, feel free to slip right out of th—“ I trailed off as I pulled open the door.

To a woman, yes.

But not one who wanted my dick.

And, fuck, that wasn’t for lack of trying on my part.

Not that my mind was on sex as I looked at the woman standing there in the doorway.

No.

Not even standing .

She was wavering, barely able to stand on her own feet.

And it was no wonder.

I’d been on countless jobs with Cinna.

I’d seen her get into more fights than I cared to admit, saw her take a punch, get a split lip, get kicked or hit.

But nothing, fucking nothing , came anywhere near what she’d been through tonight.

Hell, if it weren’t for her trademark black leather bomber jacket, I wasn’t even sure I would know it was her.

Her face was bloodied, bruised, and swollen beyond recognition. One eye was closed shut. The other was halfway there and full of blood.

God, the blood.

It was all over her too.

In the bruises and the scratches on her face.

Dripping steadily from her nose and lip.

Trailing from cuts all over her hands.

I stood there in shock for a moment, not sure I was actually seeing things clearly.

Because she looked like she’d been jumped.

Like she’d gotten a beat-down from an entire fucking gang.

But she was a fucking mafia capo .

That wasn’t… possible.

It wasn’t until I saw her sway, pitching forward on her own feet, that I snapped out of my disbelief, reaching out to grab her before she hit the floor, pulling her against me as something even more impossible happened.

A sob escaped her.

Cinna.

A woman I’d seen take a bullet with barely a curse and a flinch.

Someone who stood steely-eyed at her own brother’s funeral.

She didn’t cry.

But as my arms went around her, pulling her into my apartment and kicking the door closed, that was exactly what she did as her legs gave out, taking us both down onto our knees just inside the entryway.

Sobbed.

She fucking sobbed into my chest.

The sound came from some deep well, an almost animalistic sound, and it cracked something open in my chest as I listened to it, unable to do anything but kneel there and try to hold her together as she shattered apart.

I wanted to wrap her up tight, to squeeze her pieces back together, because the Cinna I knew would be mortified to be in pieces, but I was too afraid of actually breaking something with the shape she was in.

By the time the sobs subsided and she pulled against my hold, my chest was wet with tears and blood, mingling together into a pink color as it trailed down my stomach to catch on the waistband of my pants.

“I need to get you to the hospital,” I said.

And those eight words seemed to break through the emotional and physical misery she was in.

Her head whipped up, and I saw her eye unfocus as her head likely spun, then clear as she stared right through me, that cutting glance so familiar and somehow more welcome than the tortured one that had been there a moment before.

“No hospitals.”

“Cinna, baby, you’re… you’re not looking great,” I said, having to swallow back the sick feeling in my throat as I looked at her again, taking in more of the damage than I had a few moments before.

“No,” she said, voice fierce but fucking exhausted. Like she was barely keeping herself conscious.

I could grab her, lift her into my arms, carry her downstairs, and force her.

She was weak enough that I could get away with something that, on a better day for her, would have ended up with me sporting a couple busted ribs, a crooked nose, or a broken dick.

But something held me back.

Maybe it was as simple as knowing it would be a betrayal of the trust she was showing me by showing up at my door in this shape.

She could have gone to Renzo’s, the boss’s, house. Rico. Elian.

But she was there.

At my door.

Sobbing into my chest.

And, somehow, I knew that she wouldn’t have done that with anyone else. Not Renzo, the man who took an angry teenage girl and turned her into the first female mafia capo. Not Rico, who she’d fought side-by-side with. Or even Elian, who had a soft spot for women.

She came to me.

She trusted me with the soft side of her she never showed anyone else.

I couldn’t betray her by forcing her into something she didn’t want.

“I need to clean you up then,” I said, gut twisting at the idea of what that might entail. The kind of pain I’d have to inflict on her in an attempt to heal her.

I was nobody’s nursemaid, but when you worked in a dangerous field where people often got hurt and couldn’t go to the hospital and risk being reported to the cops, you learned a thing or two about battlefield medicine.

Christ, it was insane how many bullets I’d plucked out of people. Myself included.

“Okay,” she said, lower lip quivering.

“Okay,” I agreed, moving to stand.

As she tried to do the same, though, she fell back down with a ragged cry that had that cracking sensation moving through my chest again.

“It’s okay,” I said, voice soft as I bent down. “I’ve got you,” I told her, lifting her as carefully as possible into my arms. “I’ve got you,” I said again as she turned her head into my neck, taking slow, deliberate breaths to try to fight back the pain.

I walked us right back into the bathroom I’d just come out of, the air still a little thick and humid from my shower, despite the fan going.

Walking over, I set her on the closed lid of the toilet as carefully as I could before turning away to go into the linen closet, bringing out my medical kit, and starting to line up things I was going to need.

“Here,” I said after slamming an instant ice pack onto the counter to activate it, holding it out to the most swollen part of her face.

Her hand automatically lifted, but only just enough to hold it in place.

Which told me one thing.

Her ribs were fucked up.

“Are you having any trouble breathing?” I asked, watching her chest for an entirely different reason than I would have just an hour ago.

Wasn’t proud of that, but, fuck, the woman had some great tits.

“It hurts to breathe,” she admitted, voice smaller than I’d ever heard it.

Cinna never sounded small or soft, the things that made women seem more, I dunno, feminine. She was always strong and sure and fierce.

“Does your chest hurt?” I asked, soaking a sterile gauze in saline solution, intent on cleaning some of the blood off of her face, so I could assess the damage better.

“No. My ribs fucking hurt,” she said, and it was so Cinna , that I felt a small bit of anxiety fall away.

“Are you short of breath?” I pressed, moving over toward her and pressing two fingers into her pulse point in her neck, wanting to make sure her heart wasn’t racing.

Chest pain, shortness of breath, racing heart, abnormal breathing, all signs that you punctured a lung with your broken rib.

“No,” she said, but her gaze was down, so it was hard to tell if she was lying.

All the guys claimed that Cinna had the best poker face in our entire organization. They literally wouldn’t play cards with her because of it.

I dunno.

I always found it easy to tell when she was lying, though. But she had to be looking at me with those ridiculously appealing dark eyes.

“Say that again,” I demanded, gently snagging her chin and forcing her face up under the guise of wiping the split in her lip, but my gaze was on hers.

“No,” she said, this time with a little nod, like she knew I was struggling to read her, what with her eyes so fucked up.

“You have to tell me if that changes,” I demanded.

Getting your ass kicked could often look and feel worse than it was.

But it was bleeding in the head and a nicked lung you really had to worry about.

“Did your head get slammed into a wall? The floor?” I asked, swiping as lightly as I could at the filthy scratches across her puffy cheek.

Like she’d fallen on her face on a dirty floor.

“Not bad enough for a concussion, I don’t think,” she said, voice still so much smaller than normal.

“Okay,” I said, though my concern about that wasn’t abated in the least. “What’s going on with your wrist?” I asked, noting the way she was cradling the left one to her chest with her other hand.

“I don’t know. It hurt like a motherfucker,” she admitted. “But now… now it’s kind of numb.”

Numb? Or was she a bit in shock?

This amount of damage, she should be in fucking agony. Every damn inch of her.

I tossed one gauze, then soaked another, wiping the blood from her nose.

“Sorry,” I said as she winced and flinched.

Her face mostly clean, I reached for her forearm, drawing her hand over toward me, noting how swollen it already was.

It had to be broken.

And not getting it set was going to make her a fuckuva lot weaker.

“I’m not going,” she insisted, reading my mind.

“Then I’ll wrap it,” I said, going back to the kit to grab an elastic bandage and quickly wrapping it up. “I need to check your ribs,” I reminded her, reaching down to grab her elbows when she tried to stand by herself and failed.

It was a slow process to get her upright, and even so, she hissed and whimpered her way through it.

I reached to slide her jacket off of her shoulders but paused when I saw the tight shirt beneath.

“Love, I think I’m gonna have to cut this off of you.”

“Fine,” she said, gaze down.

And it was then that I noticed how the waistband of her pants was rolled oddly.

Like maybe they’d been… yanked down.

Then hastily pulled back up.

If someone…

“You’re growling,” Cinna said making my gaze shoot up.

“Just getting all worked up at finally getting to see you without your shirt, is all,” I said, both of us knowing I was lying, but neither saying anything about it.

I turned, grabbing the scissors and cutting up her stomach and down her sleeves. The material fell with no assistance by the time I was done. Leaving her in her rolled-waisted leather pants and a simple black bra.

“Oh, fuck,” I said, gaze moving over her midsection. Where bruises—violent, violet purple and blue—were spreading across her ribs.

On both fucking sides.

Like someone had, quite fucking literally, kicked her when she was down.

“Who?”

I wasn’t even aware I’d growled that out loud until she answered me.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It fucking matters ,” I said, my gaze sliding to hers as a familiar cold sensation worked its way up my spine, then started to wrap itself around my throat.

“To me, not to you.”

“You’re a capo in the Lombardi crime family,” I reminded her. “It matters to all of us.”

“You can’t tell them,” she said, her voice a high, desperate sound.

“What?” I asked, sure I misunderstood her.

“You can’t tell them.”

“Tell who?”

“Anyone,” she said. And, again, her lower lip was quivering.

“Cinna, they have to kn—“

“No,” she cut me off. “No,” she repeated more firmly.

“Cinna…”

“You can’t, ” she said, voice cracking. “Promise me.”

I’d known Cinna for years. Nearing a decade. And she’d never asked me for, well, any fucking thing. She damn sure never asked me to promise her anything. Especially something as serious as lying to our boss.

“We’ll talk about it later,” I said, not wanting to argue about it when she was barely able to stand on her own two feet. “This is gonna suck,” I said, then started to press around her ribs. “How many times were you kicked?” I asked, my spit tasting like battery acid as the question conjured up images of that happening to her.

“Five? Six? I don’t know.”

Motherfuckers.

“Okay,” I said, voice calmer than I felt as I went for more ice packs and elastic bandages. “Just get your arms as out of the way as possible without passing out,” I said, wrapping around her until I ran out of bandage, then slipping an ice pack into each side before adding another layer of bandages.

They helped you not feel like you were going to black out if you turned a little too far or fast, but there was really not a fucking thing to do about bruised or busted ribs that could make them any less horrific.

I had to place an order for several reusable ice packs, so I could cool some while she wore others.

“Is this making it worse?” I asked, fingertip tapping the underwire of her bra. She damn near came out of her fucking skin. “Whoa, okay. Sorry. I… I shouldn’t have touched you without asking,” I said, wincing at her reaction.

The jumping at what was a chaste touch.

The rolled waistband…

“It’s okay,” she said, gaze lowered, embarrassed by her own reaction.

“I’ll ask from now on,” I assured her.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. Nothing about this is… fine,” I said, my jaw aching from the tension growing along it.

She ignored that.

“It is making it worse,” she admitted.

“What?”

“The wire. It’s… pressing.”

“This is where I would normally make a comment about how unnecessary it is to put these particular kids in carseats,” I said, watching as her lips twitched ever so slightly.

“I’ll take it off of you,” I offered.

I’d fantasized about removing Cinna’s bra more times than I felt comfortable admitting.

Somehow, though, as she turned her back to me, and my hands went to her clasps, there was nothing hot about it at all.

I unfastened the band, then slid the straps off her shoulders. She handled it from there, and I reached for her shoulders, turning her gently as I moved past her, letting her keep her modesty.

“I’ll grab you a top that zippers,” I told her, moving out of the bathroom, closing the door behind me, and taking a slow, deep breath.

Was I really doing this?

Agreeing to keep a pretty big fucking secret from our boss?

The thing was, I knew the answer even before I made it to my closet, grabbing a zip-up hoodie, and making my way back to the bathroom.

Yes.

For Cinna?

Yes, I would do this.