Page 36 of Bad Medicine

Right?

Chapter fifteen

Mia

WhatthehellwasI doing?

I mean, seriously. What the bloodyhellwas I doing?

This was exactly the last place I should be, at midnight, when my son was at home with Linny. That was where I should have been heading, ready to kiss my kid, have a shower, and sleep for a week after the day I’d just had.

Instead, here I was, in what might still be a stolen car, headed to a nightclub, to meet with some mafia members.

Again.

How the hell had I allowed my life to spiral so far out of control?

But I knew how.

Money. Or at least, my lack of it.

I sounded so arrogant, accusing Rocco of being a criminal, when all it took for me to cross that invisible line between good and bad was a few measly dollars.

I could have said no. I could have continued to work and struggle, and eventually, Jasper and I would have made it out of the hole I had dug for myself after I had gotten pregnant. I know I could have done it.

But when push came to shove, I was tired.

So goddamn tired, I couldn’t seem to think straight.

It had been years—literal years—since I had had a chance to relax, to stop pushing and driving and climbing and just...be.

Every day seemed like it brought a new set of challenges, and so, when Francesca had sat me down in that cafe and offered me one tiny glimmer of hope, I had leapt at it, and that was all there was to it.

No matter how much I wanted to hold myself above, maybe Rocco was more right than I wanted to give him credit for.

Just because I had done a bad thing by society’s standards didn’t make me a bad person. So why did I automatically assume that it did for Rocco?

And if my morals were so steadfast, why had I spent the rest of my shift thinking about the way he had held me in that closet? How his hands had worked me over with such precision, I might have mistaken him for a surgeon.

I may have been less sexually active than a whole convent full of nuns these last few years, but even I knew that the skills Rocco had displayed were more than a cut above.

And good gracious, his dirty talk game?

The man could probably get me off with his words alone.

Realizing that train of thought only led to one destination, I wracked my brain for another topic to latch on to.

“What’s so urgent that we have to rush over there in the middle of the night?” I asked, feigning indifference. In reality, I was actually pretty worried. I knew that Francesca and Enzo led dangerous lives, and by extension, so did their entire circle. I had only been contracted to Frankie a short time, but already I felt responsible for her. For all of them, really. “It’s not Vinnie, is it?” The poor kid; head injuries were tricky.

But Rock only snorted. “That kid’s probably balls deep in Francesca’s cousin right now.”

“Wait. Who?”

“I don’t remember her name. I just know she’s Francesca’s cousin. From New York. She arrived last night, and Vinnie’s been following her around like a lovesick puppy since the minute she stepped inside the house.”

Well, then. Good for him.

“Of course,” Rocco went on thoughtfully. “That may have changed after she shot at Francesca this morning.”