Page 5 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby

Rizzo presses meds into my palm that will help with the pain if his pride lets him accept them.

He swallows them without argument, which is how I know he is not an idiot.

We keep working.

The ultrasound says no fluid where fluid should not be.

The labs say his blood still likes being inside his body.

The dressing is clean by the second round.

I tape it down and step back to let Kwan check my work.

He glances, nods, and signs off with a neat scrawl.

The cops try another approach.

“Sir,” the tall one says, aiming his politeness like a weapon at the patient’s ear. “If we could just confirm your name for the record. Might help us find whoever did this to you.”

The patient does not look at him.

He keeps his gaze on me, a choice that is either calculated or instinctive.

His voice stays low. “No police.”

“He is allowed to say that,” I say, because someone needs to voice the rules before pride becomes paperwork. “You can take it up with the attending. He will tell you the same thing and use smaller words.”

Kwan does not smile, but his eyes do a thing that makes my night better.

He escorts the officers to the hall to discuss policy in a tone that registers as courteous to human ears and asleave nowto anyone with sense.

When the door swings shut, the room opens like a held breath released.

“You grew up here,” the man says to me. It's not a question.

“You say that like my accent gave me away.”

“Your hands did.”

I pause with the chart. “How do my hands give away my zip code?”

“You know how to cut a shirt without cutting the chain beneath it,” he says, and there is humor in his voice now, the kind that rolls in under something heavier. “Only two neighborhoods left in this city where women learn that first.”

“Maybe I'm just talented,” I say. “Don't ruin my brand.”

He watches me sign the paperwork. “You are very talented.”

If I were the kind of woman who blushed at compliments from injured men, this would be the moment where my cheeks go pink.

Luckily, I'm the kind of woman who has been told by old ladies in church that my hair looks better when I brush it, so my ego is vaccinated.

“You can thank my mother,” I say. “She trained me with a wooden spoon and a jar of Vicks Vapor Rub. I learned everything else in nursing school.”

“Your mother is a good woman,” he says, and my chest does something I don't give it permission to do.

My mother has been gone four years, and I have not yet gotten used to the idea that strangers can still know her.

“She was,” I say, and I don't look up for a second because I need to see straight when I do.