After Hours Service

The fluorescent lights in the lobby buzzed at a frequency designed by someone who hated comfort. I'd replaced three bulbs last month, and the new ones had already settled into that same tired hum, casting everything in a shade of pale that made healthy skin look cadaverous. Pickles was draped across the office chair like a furry comma, his orange tail flicking in whatever dream-cycle he'd entered around midnight. My coffee had gone cold two hours ago, and I'd been using the mug as a paperweight for the inventory spreadsheet I'd been ignoring since eleven.

Then the door slammed open, and five men walked in carrying a sixth.

The first thing I registered was the blood. Not the dramatic arterial spray they show in films—more of a steady, dark saturation through what had been a white dress shirt, now pressed against a shoulder wound by hands that were themselves covered in it. The man being carried was conscious, which told me either he had a remarkable tolerance for pain or the wound wasn't immediately life-threatening. Both possibilities were equally annoying at three in the morning.

The second thing I registered was that every single one of them looked like they'd been carved out of concrete and decorated by someone with a tattoo gun and too much free time.

“Ten grand to get the bullet out, stitch the wound closed, and keep your mouth shut," said the dark-haired man closest to me.

I let out a bitter laugh. "Well, I'm not going to let him die in my lobby. Bad for business."

I sighed. Not one of them cracked a smile.

"Back room," I said, already moving. Not a question. Not an invitation. A statement of fact, because I'd learned long ago that showing hesitation in front of large, blood-soaked men was a poor survival strategy. "Table's through there. Don't touch anything on the counters."

The one who seemed to be in charge—the conscious one being half-carried, half-dragged—had amber eyes that cut toward me with an intensity that felt almost physical. His skin had gone the color of old paper, and the tattoos crawling up his neck stood out like ink on parchment. Handsome, but with an undeniable predatory energy. The kind of face that made you understand why certain women throughout history had made catastrophically bad decisions.

"Thank you," he said, and his voice carried that particular gravel that came from either pain or a lifetime of giving orders. Probably both.

I pushed through the swinging door and hit the lights for the back room. The examination table was clean—not operating-room sterile, but I'd wiped it down with chlorhexidine after the last patient, a Labrador with an ear infection who'd tried to bite me twice. Good enough for government work, as my mother used to say, though she'd been referring to something considerably less bloody.

"Set him down here. Carefully. That means without dropping him, which I shouldn't have to specify, but experience has taught me otherwise."

The dark-haired guy who'd made the offer I couldn't refuse had a build that suggested he lifted cars for his Tuesday workout, and I idly wondered how many cows had perished to make the leather jacket he wore. He helped ease the wounded man onto the table with surprising gentleness, hands that could probably crush a skull handling their boss like he was made of wet tissue paper.

"Name?" I pulled on surgical gloves. The latex snapped against my wrists with a sound that had become as familiar as my own heartbeat.

"Cagliari. Antonio Cagliari." This was from the amber-eyed one on the table.

Wonderful. Just what I needed. I'd known he was trouble the moment I saw him. I did not expect my newest patient to be one of the most notorious mafia dons on the East Coast. Fuck my life.

He settled back against the stainless steel with a controlled exhale, and I noticed he didn't grimace. Interesting. Most people with that much blood loss and a fresh gunshot wound couldn't stop their faces from doing involuntary things. His expression remained fixed in that particular mask of masculine composure that I'd seen in men who'd rather die than admit discomfort.

"Cute. I meant his name." I pointed at the guy who seemed to be second-in-command without looking at him, already reaching for scissors to cut away the ruined shirt. "And yours." I pointed at the one with muttonchop sideburns that had been fashionable approximately never. " Otherwise, I'm going to call you Fonzi and Muttonchops. Everyone else can wait in the lobby. This room isn't built for a committee."

Muttonchops looked at his boss. Cagliari gave a slight nod. Three of them filed out, and the door swung shut behind them with a pneumatic hiss.

"Gino," the dark-haired one said, with a smile that belonged on a recruitment poster for trouble. "And this is—"

"I can introduce myself," Cagliari cut in. His amber eyes tracked my hands as I peeled the shirt away from the wound. The fabric had started to adhere to the congealed blood, and removing it required a patience that most people didn't associate with veterinarians. They should. We spent half our careers coaxing reluctant materials off sensitive tissues.

"Well, Antonio," I said, examining the wound now that I could see it properly. Entrance wound, left shoulder, no exit wound visible. The bullet was still in there. "You're going to want to tell me what happened, because 'gunshot wound' covers a lot of territory and some of those territories require me to call people you probably don't want me to call."

"Hunting accident," he said.

I looked up at him. He looked back at me with those amber eyes, and his expression was so perfectly, confidently blank that I almost admired the commitment.

"Hunting accident," I repeated. "At three in the morning. In the city."

"I'm very dedicated."

Gino made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh. I filed that away. The one with a sense of humor was always the one you could work with.