Page 14 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby

Her hands go straight to my coat, not tentative.

She slides it off carefully to keep the shoulder holster from catching the wound.

The moment her fingers touch the leather, she does a quick check without pretending it's accidental.

Her gaze dips, measuring the caliber by weight and shape, noting the adjustment on the strap.

She is not afraid.

She is assessing.

That is rarer than beauty.

It's rarer than loyalty.

“You can put that on the hook,” she says, chin tipping toward a nail jutting from the wall.

Her mouth curves like she knows I will not and like she does not care enough to argue.

“I will keep it close,” I tell her.

I lay the holster on the counter within arm’s reach, butt toward my right hand, habit never sleeping.

She notices again, that quick, practical sweep, and then she is unbuttoning my shirt to get at the dressing she did herself an hour ago.

Her work is clean.

The edges are neat.

Whoever tried it first should never be allowed near a needle.

She peels back the tape with precision that speaks of a childhood spent rescuing dolls and cousins with equal focus.

“Sit back,” she says, voice softer now that the two of us are alone with nothing but the tick of old metal cooling. “I need to flush it again. You moved.”

“Only enough to get here,” I say.

“That qualifies,” she answers, and she dampens gauze with saline. “This might sting.”

I don't tell her that stinging is a gentle word for what men have done to me and what I have done to others.

I watch her instead.

Her hands are small and steady, knuckles nicked from a life that does not care if you are delicate.

She is dressed for a shift that started before midnight and will end after the sun remembers us.

Her hair has escaped the band and makes a loose halo that would make a priest rewrite a sermon.

She is not beautiful the way models are when they panic in front of a camera.

She is beautiful the way a street is when you know it corner to corner and it still surprises you with a view.

“You know this place,” I say, eyes on the bannetons, on the old dough trough like a wooden canoe. “The bakery.”

“I grew up upstairs,” she says, and the words drop like flour into water. “My uncle baked. I learned to sleep through delivery trucks and men arguing about soccer at six in the morning.”

“Sal,” I say, tasting the name to be sure it's still on my tongue where it belongs.