Page 39 of Sinful Promise
“Nah, sis. It’s called sex, guns, or money,” he counters easily. “It’salwaysone of those.”
“Not when I’m involved,bro.”
Once she’s done inspecting Micah’s hand, she pushes his shirt up and reveals a stomach defined with muscle and scars.So many fucking scars.
“Why isn’t this covered?” She tugs my brother closer to pull him up to his good side, so she can reveal the other, adorned with stitches. “You cool with the thought of infection, Micah Malone?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but snaps it shut again when Minka growls.
“Where’s the trouble-stitch?” She tugs him again, rougher this time, to study the long line made by a blade no more than a week ago. The scar is jagged, like his tormentors were sawing, not just slicing. “Cato said it was causing a lump and pain. Where the hell is it?”
“He took it out,” Cato answers smugly.
Minka’s eyes narrow with rage as she brings them around.
“Last night,” he continues. “After I called you for help, and you refused to come.”
“I said to leave it alone!”
“And I said we needed help.” Plopping his ass on the arm of the chair, he sips his soda and smiles. “Pulled it out with nail clippers. In case you wanna know the bullshit I’ve been dealing with back home.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Bringing my hands up, I scrub them across my face and try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do with these idiots. I have work to do. I have two cases to solve, one of which, I’m working extra hardnotto close. “Nail clippers?” Dropping my hands, I look down at Micah and snarl. “Nail clippers!”
“Were they clean?” Minka yanks her medicine bag closer and takes out a bevy of supplies. But before opening any, she pushes up to stand and heads to the kitchen sink. Flipping the tap on and pumping soap into her hands, she glances back our way. “Micah? Were the clippers clean?”
“They weren’t oozing with germs,” he finally speaks. His voice is rough with exhaustion. Gruff with pain. “I sanitized them with a lighter first.”
“Mmhm.” She slaps the tap off and uses paper towels to dry her hands. “You’re just a regular ER doctor, huh?”
Heading back into the living room, and smacking a smug Cato on the back of the head with her elbow as she passes, she lowers to her knees, but keeps her hands away from anything. She doesn’t touch her face. Or her clothes. The couch. Not even Micah himself.
“I’m going to fix you up, because I have a responsibility to help people—even if I think certain people are fucking stupid.” Taking supplies from her bag, she opens the parcel carefully and sets it on Micah’s exposed stomach so the packaging touches his skin, but not the inside. “However, I’m going to use the thickest needle I have.”
Finally, he opens his eyes and searches hers. “What?”
“Because you’ve pissed me off.” Grabbing a small, clear vial from her bag, she carefully takes her needle and pops off the cap to reveal a giant length of steel, long enough to make my ass tense.
“It’s gonna hurt,” she continues. “And I might even dig it around in there, just to teach you thatanydoctor is better than traveling across the country and annoying me.”
Taking the cap from her vial of liquid, Minka stabs the needle through a stopper, then turns the bottle upside down and pulls enough into her syringe to make me feel my older brother’s pain by proxy. “After this, you’re going away. Somewhere else.” Satisfied, Minka sets the bottle down and holds her needle in one hand, while with the other, she searches in her bag and takes out a sanitary wipe.
Tearing the packet open the way she did a condom way back when we were new—and again last night with a candy bar she never got to finish—she spits the trash to the floor and takes out the wipe. Then she pulls him closer and shoves the back of his jeans down to reveal an inch of his ass.
Micah blushes, and Cato’s eyes widen.
My heart thuds heavier—that’s my wife, and my brother’s ass—then Minka stabs, and every man in the room inhales with a hiss.
I swear, she pushes so deep, the tip of the needle must surely touch his throat.
“This is to keep infection at bay,” she grits out. “You could do with it anyway, to help you heal. But just in case…” She pushes the liquid into his body, showing no remorse when he gnashes his teeth in pain. “Then you’re gonna go and sleep—somewhere else, where I don’t have to deal with you.”
“You’re not very nice.” Cato turns the basketball in his hand and watches it spin. “Like, for a chick… for Archer’s wife and all that…” He wrinkles his nose. “Not very nice at all.”
“Never said I was.”
She pulls the needle from Micah’s ass and recaps the end so no one else accidentally cops a stab. Finally, she peels her gloves off and bundles them into a ball before grabbing Micah’s belt and yanking his jeans up again to give the man a modicum of modesty.
“I’m done here. Nothing seems to be infected, despite your bullshit with nail clippers. You’re not dying today.” Standing, she grabs her bag and turns away, only to sneer when the front door handle jiggles again.
