Page 32 of The Woman at the Funeral (Costa Family #11)

Nico

“Where’s Salvatore?” I asked when it was Venezio who answered the door at the Family’s clinic. An actual clinic. Exam rooms, included. And I’d heard that he’d somehow managed to get his hands on some sort of imaging machine as well.

“Called ‘em as soon as I saw you,” Venezio said, moving out of the way. “But I can get started.”

“You?” I asked, dubious.

“Don’t got his years in, but I can clean her up and check her for concussion and shit.”

Blair had woken up sometime on the ride over to the clinic, but she wasn’t quite herself. She was slow and oddly distant.

Venezio was one of the youngest members of the family. He’d been a scrappy street kid who mostly worked for Cosimo but was steadily making a name for himself with all the capos.

He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but he was smart and had good instincts. And he was always up to get his hands dirty.

He didn’t dress like the rest of us. He was always in jeans, a tee, Timbs, and sometimes a leather jacket—weather permitting.

He was tall and a scrappy kind of fit with dark hair, a deep-ass voice, and one fully brown eye and one half-brown, half-green one.

“Okay,” I agreed, following him in through the waiting room—complete with couches, a TV, a coffee and snack station—everything the Family might need while waiting for a loved one to get patched up.

“Is this a hospital?” Blair slurred. She seemed worse since she’d fallen out.

“She drugged?” Venezio asked, glancing back.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He led us through to an exam room where I set the dazed Blair on the table, staying close in case she blacked out again.

Venezio slipped on gloves then grabbed a flashlight before moving in front of Blair, flashing it in her eyes.

“How long has she been like this?”

“I don’t know. Hours.”

“Oh, this shit don’t work then,” he said, flicking off the flashlight. “Pupils only dilate for maybe an hour. But you definitely seem like you’re on something, huh, babe?” he asked, tilting her chin up.

“They stabbed me,” she said, her eyes welling up.

“Yeah? Where?” Venezio asked.

“Arm.”

Venezio pulled down my shirt that she was wearing—now covered in dirt and blood—to inspect the injection site.

“How you been feeling? Double vision? Queasy? Dizzy?”

“Yes. All.”

“Anything else?” Venezio asked, slipping a pulse oximeter on her finger.

“Um. Everything felt weird. Space. Time felt wrong. My heart was pounding. And I had a cold sweat. And… I was crying. A lot.”

That explained how swollen her lids were and how red her cheeks appeared.

Venezio just nodded along like all that was normal as he dug for a blood pressure machine and slid the cuff up her arm.

“Anything else?”

“Maybe some… like… visual disturbances?”

“Disturbances or full hallucinations?”

“I don’t know. It’s becoming blurry.”

“What do you think?” I asked him after he asked her to sit still and not talk for a minute so he could take her blood pressure.

“Could be a few things,” he said, shrugging. “But judging by the injection, symptoms, and the ease of supply, I’m leaning toward ketamine. Salvatore’s got an in at a blood testing place. He can get the results sometime tomorrow.”

“Will there be lasting issues?”

“Nah. Not from just the one dose. I mean, she might be off for a few days. Dizzy, emotional, headaches, fatigue, that kind of thing. But it will wear off. Nothing long-term to worry about.”

“That’s a relief,” Blair said, words still thick and slow.

“Sounds like I get to play nursemaid for a few days,” I said, rubbing her arm.

“Alright. Walk me through,” Venezio said, pulling off the cuff and marking down notes for, I assumed, Salvatore.

“The door hit me first,” Blair said, touching her face. “And then I fell. Hit my head. Ronny climbed on me and slammed my head into the floor. Danny stabbed me. Then I was out. I don’t know how long. It had to be a while. The sun was starting to go down. When I woke up, my head was screaming.”

“Could be the drugs or the blow,” Venezio said when she paused. “Anything else?”

“Danny… he did this,” she said, lifting a hand toward her face. “With a flashlight. One of those big ones for camping.”

I didn’t realize the growl I felt building inside had burst out until Venezio shot a bemused look in my direction.

“You’re sittin’ funny. Ribs?” he asked.

“Yeah. With the flashlight too.”

Then, without another word, Venezio yanked up the shirt, exposing her lower half, panties and all, but being careful to pin the material under her breasts to preserve some modesty.

“Any shortness of breath?” he asked, checking out the bruises that were already forming. They’d grow darker over the next few hours.

“No.”

Venezio probed with his fingers.

“Eh, don’t think they’re broken. It woulda taken a big fuckin’ blow to break ‘em. Probably just bruised. But bruised and broke mostly feel the same. Go easy on ‘em. Don’t reach up over your head if you don’t gotta. Don’t twist, that kinda thing.”

“What about her head? Did Sal really get a scanner?”

“Yeah, we got a CT a couple months back after we got the lead walls and doors done and shit. He considered an MRI, but the CT is smaller. And you can go in it with bullet shards in you. The MRI will pull those fucks violently out.”

“Where the hell did you get a CT machine?”

“Russians,” Salvatore said, appearing in the doorway. “Crazy the kinda shit they can get. Hey, sweetheart,” he greeted Blair. “Had a rough night, huh?”

“We’ve been over this!” Blair yelled, cradling her head as Venezio relayed everything Blair had told him.

There was a second of tense silence before Venezio shrugged it off. “It’s the drugs,” he said.

“Did you take blood yet?”

“What? I gotta do everything?” Venezio asked, lips twitching, making me realize I’d never seen the man smile.

He made his way out, leaving Salvatore to take the blood, then lower the lights and give Blair some ice packs before going to set up the scan on her head and ribs.

“I didn’t mean to yell at your family,” Blair said, sniffling as she leaned against me.

“I know you didn’t. They know too. It’s just the way the drugs can fuck with your head and emotions. No one’s gonna take it personally.”

“Okay.”

Her head leaned into me, her eyes drifting closed.

The next few hours seemed to sap what was left of her energy, leaving her nodding in and out while Salvatore told me the results of the scan (no signs of broken ribs or concussion), cleaned up her face, then gave me instructions for care.

“Get her home and cleaned up so she can sleep,” he said, giving Blair a sad smile. “Text me if you have any questions. And I’ll let you know what the tox screen comes back.”

“Thanks, Sal,” I said, taking the little goodie bag of supplies Venezio had supplied and helping Blair back to the car.

Once inside, Blair turned her head and slipped back to sleep almost immediately, giving me a minute to call Leo without freaking her out.

“How is she?” he answered.

“She’s alright. Nothing serious. Just needs to rest and let the drugs fully leave her system.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.”

“What’s going on there?”

“Brio took Danny for questioning. We swept the place three times. There’s no sign of Ronny, Tom, or even the aunts.”

“Damnit.”

“The whole Family is out looking. Someone will find something.”

“I want to take her home.”

“Take her home,” Leo said immediately. “I will tell Lorenzo and Cos to send some men over to your building.”

“What about—”

“After I check in, I will grab Goya from Zeno’s and bring him over. She’s gonna want to see him. And him, her.”

“Thanks, Leo.”

“I got this,” he said. And while I was generally the one taking charge, I knew that Leo was capable of handling things without me. “You take care of your girl.”

With that, we hung up and I drove back toward our apartment building. Emilio met me out front, nodding me over toward the side fire door, where one of his men was holding it open.

I went around to get Blair, lifting her, and carrying her into the building.

“I can walk,” Blair offered.

“You have no shoes. And your feet are chewed up,” I reminded her. “I’ve got you.”

“Should we be back here?” she asked as I took her to my apartment, since her keys were back at the safe house.

“Got a small army of men protecting us now,” I assured her, carrying her past the threshold of my apartment. “Do you want to take a bath, or just have me clean you up before bed?”

“I’m filthy.”

“Quick bath.”

“Will you stay with me?” she asked.

“I’ll do you one better,” I said, placing her down on the toilet lid, so I could run the bath. “I’ll come in with you.”

With that, I stripped down as she wiped at the worst of the grime on her legs with a wet washcloth.

Then I helped her in and slid in behind her, pulling her against my chest.

“I know you have a million questions.”

“There’s time for that later,” I assured her as my hand drifted up and down her side.

“I’m worried I’ll forget. Things are already getting fuzzy.”

“Okay. Tell me what is the most important.”

“Matthew changed his mind.”

“What?”

“Ronny had come up with the plan. And Matthew had gone along with it. They even had a buyer. But something… I don’t know changed. Matthew didn’t want to go through with it. So he stashed the files and hid his electronics.”

That was somewhat comforting, at least.

He wasn’t a good man.

But maybe he wasn’t so evil, either.

“I think she was implying that the guy who was going to buy the information was who killed him.”

Which meant that Ronny and her family still had an enemy out there if they didn’t get the information to them.

I wasn’t sure which part would be more motivating to her: the money or their lives.

But that was shit to deal with later.

Right now, my focus was on Blair.

“It felt good,” she said, sounding sleepy.

“What did?”

“Talking back to Ronny. I’ve bitten my tongue for so many years, hearing her tear down my character when she was no saint herself. I probably shouldn’t have goaded her.”

“Hey, I bet that was healing.”

“It was.” She was quiet for a minute, letting me run a washcloth over her body, washing away any lingering traces of dirt or dried blood. “Am I allowed to ask?”

“You can ask. But I honestly don’t have anything to tell you. Yet. The Family is working on it.”

“Don’t you need to be out—”

“I’m right where I need to be.”

She turned her head in toward my neck.

“My head hurts.”

With the unknown drugs still in her system, Salvatore decided not to give her prescription painkillers. And, clearly, the over-the-counter ones weren’t quite doing their job.

“Maybe we should get you to bed. See if you can sleep it off.”

“I don’t think I could fall asleep,” she said, sounding close to crying again.

“I can think of one other kind of pain relief,” I offered, letting my hand drift low down her belly.

Her body reacted before she could even answer, her legs falling open for me.

I let my hand slide between, teasing up and down her center until her breath was coming in shorter, faster gasps. Only then did my finger drift up, teasing around her clit. Slow, almost lazy, not wanting her to jostle her body too much.

It was a gentle climb.

Then she came with a sweet little moan that made me have to focus to keep my own desire from building.

“How’s your head?” I asked afterward.

“Huh?” she asked, sleepy.

There was a smile on my lips as I climbed out, quickly dried off, then pulled her out and dried her off as well. I helped her into one of my tees, then took her to the bed.

I’d just managed to get myself dressed when Leo came into the apartment, a confused Goya looking around. He bounded to me when he caught sight of me. I unclipped his leash after a quick pet. Then he followed his nose down the hallway toward Claire.

“Hi, baby,” she cooed, still sleepy, as—I imagined—the dog leapt up on the bed.

“How is she?”

“Exhausted. Hoping she’ll knock out, so the headache has a chance to go away.”

Leo nodded, following me over to the coffee pot.

“Zeno’s fingers are gonna catch fire with how fast he is typing and scrolling,” Leo told me.

“And everyone else is getting in touch with their crews, so we can increase the eyes on the street. They’re gonna surface eventually.

Meantime, Lorenzo and Emilio have burned the documents now that they’ve read through it all to see if there was anything in it that the Family needed to know about. ”

That checked out.

The documents had been ridiculously thorough. If anyone had been caught talking to the wrong crews or, God forbid, the cops, it would have been in those files.

“So that means the only copy we are aware of is on the laptop in Zeno’s apartment,” I said.

“Don’t worry. Cosimo and his crew are going to be protecting him until we can get everything we need off that thing before destroying it.”

Good.

One less thing to worry about.

“What a clusterfuck,” I said, passing him a cup of coffee. It was going to be a long night for all of us.

“The bright side is, we all can see how we need to improve now. I gotta stop going to the gym at the exact same fucking time every day,” he said.

That was true.

It was a horrible situation, all around, but it did show us the weak spots in our organization that others could use against us.

“Brio’s probably loving this.”

“What? Torturing Danny?”

“Well, we know he always loves that,” Leo said. “But no. I meant that with this, everyone who doesn’t already have one has been asking him about getting them a dog for home protection. And for things like going to the parks with the kids.”

I wondered if things would have been different if Blair had Goya with her. He’d been a good watchdog. But even the best watchdogs didn’t always engage in an attack when someone broke in.

“Blair said Matt was having second thoughts at the end. That’s why the files and laptop were so stashed. He was going back on a deal.”

“From a personal standpoint, that’s good, I guess. From a professional one, though, it just means—”

“That there is a crew in the city and hell-bent on taking us down. And they’ve got a lot of money.”

“Yep,” Leo agreed. “Well, it wouldn’t be organized crime if there wasn’t someone gunning for us. We’ll figure this out like we always have in the past.”

Yeah, we would.

I had a lot more riding on it than ever before.