Page 35 of Sinful Promise
So I hit dial and make sure the call is on speaker.
“Minka?” Cato’s just seventeen, the baby of the Malone crew. He’s still a freakin’ child. But it wasn’t long ago that he walked into a gangster’s home with a gun clutched in his hand, and stood up with his older brothers for the safety of his family. “Um…” Somewhat shy, he stammers, “D-Doctor?”
“Hey. I’m here.” I soften my tone. Not at all the same one I use when I speak to Felix Malone.The asshole.“You’re on speaker, and Archer’s here too.”
“Oh…” His voice trails off for a beat.Disappointment? “Okay, that’s cool. I guess.”
“You guess?” Chuckling, Archer keeps his thumb on the plunger of my syringe. Constant. Careful. “Asshole, you better not be calling to speak tomy wife. I know you somehow lost my number and were calling to contactme.”
“No.” More confident now, Cato deadpans, “I was calling to talk to her.”
My lips curl up. “What’s up? Can I help you with anything?”
“Yeah, uh…” He hesitates. “It’s the stitches on Micah’s ribs. I don’t know what I’m—”
“Are they infected?” With a patient to see to, I forget everything else around us. The vigilante. Laramie Fentone. Factor VIII. Archer’s nerves. “Are they red, or warm to the touch?”
“No. Well… one of them,” he changes his answer. “The rest are pretty good. But one has, like… disappeared inside his skin. So now there’s a lump there on the end.”
“Infected?” I ask again. “Is it warm? Ishewarm?”
“No. He’s still healing all over, so he’s just sleeping a lot and hobbling around the house like he’s eighty years old. But he’s not sick or anything.”
“And his hand?”
We’re not on a video call, so I can’t see Cato’s shrug. But in my mind, I see exactly the way the gangly teen lifts his shoulders, then lets them drop until he slumps. “He keeps it wrapped, like how you said. He says it hurts most at nighttime. But it’s not, like… it’s not infected or anything.”
“Great.”
As Archer finishes my infusion, then looks at me with no clue what to do next, I set the phone on the couch cushions and help him undo me. I peel the tape from my arm, then pull the butterfly needle from my vein. I grit my teeth when the wound bleeds more than most others, but Archer is quick to clean away the mess, then slap a band-aid over top to stop it from getting worse.
“Are you checking his temperature daily, Cato?”
“Yeah. Every morning and every night, like you said. He’s doing pretty good. But I was getting worried about that lump on his side.”
“If you’re sure there’s no infection, I suggest you leave it alone. Use warm compresses if the area hurts him, keep up the meds, and check his temperature often. The second he develops a fever, you need to bring a doctor in to take care of him.”
“Could you…” He hesitates for a beat. “Could you come instead?”
Stunned, my eyes widen and shoot to Archer’s.Go to New York… again?“What?”
“We don’t want a different doctor, Minka. We don’t like strange around here. And you’re the one who treated him first, so—”
“I’m a medical examiner, Cato.” I set all my things on the coffee table, then picking up the phone and leaning back against the cushions as Archer sits back beside me, I snuggle in and work hard to stifle the yawn rolling along my chest. “I’m a doctor for the dead. If you’re having a genuine medical emergency, I suggest you find someone who works with the living.”
“But I don’t want a different doctor,” he repeats, firmer this time. “I want the one we know already. Fuck, I want the one I’m related to. Less risk of squealing then.”
“Yeah, thanks, Al Capone.” I roll my eyes. “Wouldn’t want outsiders to squeal, huh?”
“Arch—”
“I can’t come to New York and be Micah’s personal nurse, Cato. I can hardly catch up with my own work as it is.”
“But they’re dead,” he drawls. “They’re not in any rush.”
Beside me, Archer’s lips curl into a goofy grin that only grows more pronounced when I glance his way.
“Most often, I work homicide cases alongside Archer, Cato. The victim may be dead, but the evidence needs to be collected quickly so we can solve a murder. I already took off to New York once, and I did it without giving my team any notice. I can’t do it a second time.”
