Sins of the Flesh (26 page)

“Never sounded that good when Tony played,” Mick joked.

Caterina stopped mid-stroke, opened her eyes, and shot him a puzzled look.

“Tony?”

“My younger brother, Antonio. He stopped playing when he got to high school. Didn’t think the girls would find it sexy that he was in the orchestra.”

That comment dragged a fleeting smile to her lips. “I suppose he became a jock instead.”

Mick chuckled and shook his head. “Lettered in lacrosse and was All-State in football, but he had a geek’s heart. He’s working and going to school part-time to get a bioengineering degree.”

Caterina nodded and set aside the cello, carefully leaning it on the chair as she rose and slipped into bed.

She didn’t look at him again as he stood at the foot of the bed. She couldn’t without revealing the turmoil she was experiencing about her emotions toward him. Emotions she had poured into her music as she played, releasing them into the music until balance had returned.

Of course Mick’s entry had dashed her equilibrium once again. As she sat there, distressed about him and the threat to his family, she sensed the change coming over her and watched as the hand lying on the sheet before her assumed the pale blue color of the linens.

No way, she thought, focusing on that transformation and forcing it away by the demand of her will.

“Cat,” he said, the tones of his voice uncertain and apologetic as he walked to the side of the bed.

“It’s okay, Mick. I totally understand.” Not that she did. But it wasn’t his fault that she was confused.

He said nothing else. She sensed his continued presence by her side; heard the slight groan of the wood frame on the chair by the bed as he sat down, and the swoosh of fabric sliding against fabric, maybe when he covered himself.

Covered all that wonderful muscle.

She forced that thought from her mind, bringing other images instead of the assorted small scars on his body, the shocking white of the tape on his stitched-up forearm, and the bruises he had earned on this latest assignment. An assignment intended to deal with her existence.

One hundred million dollars on her head.

Quite a bounty.

A difficult temptation to ignore and yet she had no hesitation about Mick’s earlier promise.

After resting her head silently on the pillow, she said his name, not sure if he had already fallen asleep.

“Hmm?” he answered sleepily, although she knew just how quickly he became alert.

“You’re not the hard-ass you try to be. There’s a big soft spot inside that you hide.”

No response followed. Before she could question if he had heard her, the rustle of fabric came again. The bed dipped her toward the center and over the corner of her shoulder she caught a glimpse of him as he eased himself next to her. Too quickly for her to protest, his front was pressed to her back and he had thrown his arm across her waist.

“Go to sleep, Cat.”

Easier said than done
, she thought, but closed her eyes anyway.

Mick lay awake long after the cadence of her breathing announced that she had finally fallen asleep.

He couldn’t rest. His mind was too busy working out all the possible permutations of what might happen once Mad Dog figured out where they were.

He had already set some of the gears into motion. Franklin. His cousin Ramon and his police force. Hospital security.

When he thought about the way Mad Dog had tossed his place in Philly, it tore at his gut that he might do the same here.

This was his safe house in more ways than one.

No matter what mission he had been on, from his time in the Army to his life as a hired gun, this place had always been his escape from it all. This home had always been where he could go for comfort and peace.

This mission had threatened that.

He could take Caterina and run. Find a different place to hide.

Or he could take a stand.

Force Mad Dog to bring the fight to him, because the only way Mick would allow his old nemesis to trash this home and hurt his family was if he was dead.

“Mick?” Caterina asked and turned to face him.

He caressed the satiny skin of her cheek. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You haven’t slept yet, have you?”

He shook his head, rubbed his thumb along the elegant ridge of her cheekbone. “Too much to think about.”

“This Mad Dog guy has you really worried? It’s about more than this assignment, though, isn’t it?” Caterina covered his hand with hers, stroking it tenderly. The pressure of her hand light, but disturbing nevertheless.

He met her gaze in the dark of the night. The deep blue of hers interrupted here and there by bits of blue-green glow. A testament to how little time he had to set things right. Something he hadn’t been able to do the last time Mad Dog had been involved in his life.

“Three years ago, Franklin, Mad Dog, and I were on a private security detail down in Miami. Should have been an easy gig. Keep an eye on the wife and nine-year-old son of some bigwig politico who had been receiving death threats.” He sighed deeply and looked away as he recalled that day, but Caterina would not allow his avoidance.

She cradled his jaw and urged him to face her. “What happened?”

“We had a protocol if we were threatened. Call the police and head to the nearest secure location. Easy enough to do.”

Tension radiated from Mick’s body. It was what had awakened Caterina from a sound sleep. Beneath her thumb, the vibrating anger in his body communicated his anger. She ran her thumb across the hard line of his lips and urged him to continue with a soft, “It should have been easy, but Mad Dog wasn’t on board with that, was he?”

Mick shook his head. Against her face, his hand trembled. “We picked up a tail going over the McArthur Causeway on the way to the politico’s home on Star Island. Mad Dog was driving and he could have kept on going to the police station on Washington Avenue in Miami Beach. Instead he pulled into the entrance for Star Island.”

A shudder snaked across Mick’s body and he closed his eyes as he continued the story. “A guard came out to see what was up. The car behind us opened fire, killing him. Our car was armored, so we were safe for the moment.”

Another more violent tremor traveled through his body.

“It got worse,” Caterina whispered, and gently stroked his face again, trying to soothe him.

Mick’s eyes snapped open, pupils contracted from his distress. “Franklin tried to grab the wheel to get Mad Dog to move forward past the gate, but Mad Dog threw open his door, got out, and returned fire.”

Mick sucked in a breath, and then expelled it roughly. “We had no choice but to defend ourselves. In the firestorm that followed, one of the bullets ricocheted off the door, killing the nine-year-old.”

“I’m sorry,” she said and embraced him.

Mick was stiff in her arms at first, but gradually he relaxed against her. He slipped his arms around her
and brought her close, until every inch of their bodies touched.

She was soft. Warm. Too warm.

“You’ve got a fever again,” he whispered by the shell of her ear.

“It comes and goes,” she replied with a nonchalant shrug.

She was trying to be strong.

No, correct that. She
was
strong and Mick admired that strength. She was more woman than he had ever encountered.

Rubbing his face against the curls of her hair roused the smells of summer—hints of pine from the woods they had traipsed through earlier, chlorine from the pool.

“We’ll make you better, Cat. Trust me.”

She laid her hand flat against his chest. “I do trust you, Mick. Like I said, you’ve got a soft spot.”

He had a soft spot all right—a soft spot in his head to maybe think that somehow this would all turn out right. He couldn’t afford such softness because it might lead to a misstep, but he also couldn’t harden his heart against her. Against the concern she was showing for him and his family. A concern he had never experienced with any of the other women who had spent a minute or two in his life.

Despite that, he forced some command in his voice in an effort to create distance between them. “Go to sleep, Cat. There’s a lot to be done tomorrow.”

“Good night, Mick,” she said, but remained close. Her body pressed to his, the beat of her heart strong beside his, the out-of-sync cadence merging with his until the beats became one.

A dangerous one
, he thought for the barest of seconds before he allowed sleep to claim him.

F
orewarned was forearmed, Liliana thought, cautious as she exited her car in the hospital parking lot the next morning. She was early for rounds much as she had been on several other occasions, needing to see Carmen Rojas and have her friend take another look at Caterina’s blood.

She was walking toward the entrance to the hospital when Harrison exited the building. He sported a white bandage across his nose and two black eyes.

She had done this to him. Despite the many times he had hurt her, Liliana took no joy in seeing his injuries. If anything, she feared such a visible testament to his failure would only create more problems for her.

He hadn’t seen her and for a moment she considered going back to her car to wait until he had left, but then decided she’d had enough of being afraid of him.

Picking up her head and straightening her spine, she walked toward the hospital entrance and Harrison.

He noticed her then and came straight toward her.

“What do you want?” she asked as she stopped a good distance away from him, wanting to be beyond his arms’ reach.

He looked around, clearly wanting to make sure that
no one would witness their exchange. Then he took a step toward her and whispered, “You got away the other night, but don’t think it’ll be so easy the next time.”

She thought about the bullies in the world and the one thing they all had in common. They were inherently cowards when someone stood up to them.

“There isn’t going to be a next time, because if you even come within one foot of me again, I’m going to take the tape of what happened the other night to the police and then the hospital board. Understood?”

His face paled, making the dark bruising beneath his eyes even more stark.

“You wouldn’t do that. What would people think about you?”

A month ago or even a week ago, the shame associated with people discovering how he had hurt her might have actually made her reconsider her threat. Even the fear of how it might hurt her career at the hospital no longer held sway with her.

With a harsh laugh, she said, “They would think that I was smart enough to get away from you.”

She shoved past him, intent on starting her rounds. Hopeful that Harrison finally got the message that she would no longer serve as his punching bag.

Once she was within the hospital, Liliana headed straight toward the lower levels that housed the labs and other non-patient areas.

Like always, Carmen was at her station in the pathology lab, making Liliana wonder if her friend ever left her spot. As she entered, Carmen shot her a bright smile.

“
Hola, amiga
. What interesting thing do you have for me today?” Carmen said.

“Are you always so cheery about a blood sample?” Liliana chided as she pulled the tube out of her pocket and handed it over.

“Only when it’s packed with GFPs and all other kinds of interesting anomalies.”

Liliana shook her head and chastised her friend. “
Sabes
that there’s a person behind that sample. Someone who’s not well.”

Carmen remained unremorseful. “It’s why I’m down here. No people skills.”

“You’re underestimating yourself,” she said, but Carmen ignored her, removing a drop of blood from the vacutainer and putting it on a slide. She slid a slip glass over the specimen and placed it beneath the microscope.

“Whoa,” she replied and immediately looked up at Liliana. “We’ve got an excessive number of white blood cells present as well as lysis of an assortment of other cells.”

Liliana thought about the inhibitor drug and what it might do. Was it the aftereffects that were creating the fever and the need for plasmapheresis after multiple treatments? she wondered.

“Do you think the lysis is a result of the white blood cells or something else?”

“A chemically induced lysis?” Carmen posited out loud and returned to examine the sample under the microscope once again.

After long moments spent staring at the specimen, Carmen backed up and said, “There’s a lot of cell damage, plus the leukocytes contain a large percentage of macrophages and basophils.”

“As if her body had an allergic reaction and is trying to mop up all the destruction afterward,” Liliana noted.

“There may be too much lysis for her body to handle.”

Liliana nodded, understanding now the need for the plasmapheresis. Aware that they didn’t have much time to undertake the therapy in order to help Caterina. She motioned to the microscope.

“With that sample, could you prepare the cell separator with what was needed to cleanse the patient’s blood using plasmapheresis?”

“I could. I will. Just let me know when you need it done,” Carmen confirmed, understanding the urgency of the matter.