Page 56 of The Boss

What?

I reach my left hand up and run it down my face, squeezing my eyes as I go.

Because I must be in shock. Seeing things.

There’s no way in hell Luna Mancini is…scrubbing the floors?

“Luna?”

Her head snaps up, surprised to see me.

“Is he okay?”

“He will be. What are you doing?”

She looks down at the mess. Her arms are red up to the elbow. The rag she’s using is drenched. Her floppy sweats are stained at the knees too. There’s a mop and bucket next to her and the white marble floors are pink now instead of red like earlier.

“I…I needed to do something. I couldn’t just sit around. Sheila had dropped this stuff here so I grabbed a rag and just started cleaning.”

“Someone else will get it,” I lift my chin toward the staircase. “Go back to bed.”

“I’m almost done, might as well finish,” she shrugs casually. I narrow my eyes at her so she adds, “I’m not trying to fuck with you.” At that, I glare. She huffs a small laugh. “Right now. I’m not trying to fuck with youright now.It’s just, that…that’s your cousin in there. If I saw Zeno come in, unconscious, bleeding out, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You’d handle it,” I say without thinking. Her mouth parts in surprise. “Things go wrong. Men get shot. It happens. You call the doc and you handle it.”

“Right,” she says. She looks away with a strange expression. I can’t tell if she likes what I said or not. Either way, I believe it. She’s very capable and calm under pressure.

“Up, now. Finish with the mop at least,” I order, not liking the sight of her on her hands and knees. Finn can come do this fucking job. But I also know she’s not going to just quit this close to the finish line.

“Okay,” she says.

I take a clean rag from the pile dumped nearby and use it to pick up the soiled ones and throw them in the trash can that Sheila wheeled in here.

“You’re…helping me?”

“Aye.”

She swipes with the mop and I go behind her, drying the shiny surface with a new rag under my boot. After a few minutes she speaks up, “So, if it wasn’t a street gang then who—”

“Don’t push your luck, Mancini,” I say.

She doesn’t look at me but she fights a smile, “Worth a shot.” She gasps and looks up, “Shit, I’m sorry. Too soon.”

I can’t help it, maybe it’s the stress or the sleep deprivation. I throw back my head and laugh.

“You are a fucking menace,Lasa,”I say, shortening her nickname. She frowns so I add, “Lasairéanmeans flamingo.”

She rolls her eyes and mutters, “You were right. I don’t like it.”

“I figured.Búralóis better.” I say, meaning it. The word not only means wolf, just like the rest of us, but it can be translated as an explosion too.

She asks, “Going to tell me what that one means?”

“No,” I say, then turn and stalk to the door. I shift with my hand on the doorknob, stealing one last glance at her.

Her dark hair is up in a messy clump on her head. She’s in a thin tank and I think what she wears as pajama pants, stains of pink and red everywhere, sweaty, and only wearing one rubber glove, I just noticed. Her eyes are trained down onto the floor as she works. She’s really scrubbing too, some muscle behind each push of the mop.

But she’s got a playful smirk on her face. A real one. That I put there.