Page 75 of Unforgivable Ties

“Maybe you could ask them for some pointers,” I said, picking up the suitcase by the handle and walking towards the door.

I paused at the entrance, my gaze sweeping over the empty warehouse. The lingering scent of antiseptic and a faint metallic tang of blood served as a stark reminder of our ghoulish business.

As I walked through the hallway, the smell began to slowly dissipate. The whole place had a haunting air of resignation and hopelessness, an echo of lives snuffed out untimely and solitude.

I abruptly stopped in front of the medical bay. Maybe I would just stop in and see how she was doing before dropping off the cash.

I opened the door to find Stephanie busy tending to a patient. It was some grunt that had gotten shot in the back, in the fleshy part near his shoulder. He was grimacing as Stephanie stitched his flesh, and I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes. That was hardly a painful place to take a bullet.

“Vincenzo?” she asked, looking up from her work.

Suddenly, I became very aware that the man was shirtless, and a wave of jealousy rolled through me. I didn’t want Stephanie touching any other shirtless men except for me. The rational part of me knew this was different, but the primal, possessive part of me growled in dissent.

My grip on the case tightened, my knuckles turning white. I wanted to rip the man out from under her hands, shove him aside, and replace him with my own body. This was irrational, I knew that, but when it came to Stephanie, rationality had long flown out the window.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “I’ll just wait until you’re done.”

I sat in the corner of the room, sitting the briefcase on the floor. Putting away the money could wait. Right now, I needed to monitor the half naked man around Stephanie.

“O-K,” she said, enunciating each syllable, before looking back down at her work.

I studied her as she worked, mesmerized by her dedication and precision. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail, a few loose strands framing her face. Her blue scrubs were stained with blood, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was in her element here, a queen in her court, a true professional.

Yet within me brewed a storm of jealousy and paranoia. My fingers curled and uncurled, yearning to brush those loose strands from her forehead, to touch her like no one else could. I drowned in my thoughts, in the fertile ground of doubt and possessiveness that threatened to consume me.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finished her work. Stephanie gave the man care instructions, and he nodded, his body shifted away from her. I could tell my presence had him uncomfortable. Good; it was meant to.

He mumbled a quiet thank you to Stephanie before making a beeline toward the door. The man was too afraid to look me in the eye as he passed by, his steps rushed and uneven in fear. I watched him go, my glare fixed upon the back of his retreating form until it disappeared behind the door.

“What was that?” Stephanie’s voice broke through the heavy tension in the room, and I turned my gaze back to her. She had discarded her gloves and was glaring at me with a look I hadn’t seen since we met.

“What do you mean?” I asked, walking over to her.

“You know what I mean. You just burst in here and then terrified my patient,” she snapped, not looking at me as she furiously washed her hands.

“I may have been jealous that your had you hands on a shirtless man.”

“Yeah, I got that.” She turned to face me, her normally warm brown eyes turned dark. “But you better get used to it. All I do here is help men, and a lot of them are half naked.”

“I know,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. I watched the way her eyes softened just a fraction before hardening again. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry was not a phrase I used often, and when I did, I normally had to grit it out from between my teeth. But, for Stephanie, it slipped out like a prayer. A plea for understanding, a bid for forgiveness.

“You can be an idiot, you know that?” she said softly, giving me a small smile.

I came up to wrap my arms around her, but she wriggled away from me. “Don’t! I have blood on me.”

“That’s hardly anything,” I said, catching her waist and pulling her into me.

She started lecturing me on the hazards of bloodborne pathogens, but I silenced her with a gentle kiss to her lips. Her lecture trailed off as she melted into my arms, and for a moment we just stood there in the silence of the now deserted clinic.

At that moment, I wished we could stay like that forever.

Stephanie

It was lecture day in my general surgery class. I much preferred field days, days when we could watch actual doctors perform surgery through the window or help them sanitize their tools during the process. Ever since working with Cesare, all the technical jargon had started to bore me.

I still worked hard and absorbed it, of course. But I felt like I used to care more about learning it before I became entangled with the mafia.

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