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“Tank—that’s one of my men—is holding him hostage back at your shop.”
“How’d you—”
“Breaking and entering doesn’t require a fucking master’s degree, Bou.” He chuckled and cocked a regretful half smile at me. “Anyway, if anything’s messed up, I’ll fix it. Angel will run the clean up here, then they’ll beat it back to LA to take care of that piece of shit.”
When he leaned closer and dropped his head, I noticed a gash above his eye. I reached up and ran the tips of my fingers over the scabbed line. Wilde took my hand and kissed my fingertips one-by-one. Then my palm. His eyes pinned mine and gazed deep into my soul.
“That shit with him is over,” he said. “I wanna fucking kill the man, but at the same time, I want his ass to rot in prison. Maybe the Mexican Mafia will do the job for me, but I doubt it. Perhaps the Aryans will though. Come on, let’s go.” He opened the Bronco door and helped me inside.
I didn’t need the help, but I wasn’t about to turn it away from Wilde.
We held hands as we sped down the residential side road, hung a left at the corner where a gas station that doubled as a grocery store faced off with the café. The old Bronco engine whined, and the wheels squealed on the blacktop as Wilde pushed the old thing to its limits. I rested my head against the headrest as we drove north toward my shop.
44
Wilde
Hospitals had to be the most un-fucking-comfortable place in the world. Too bright. Too white and blue and some color that looked like it should only be used on a grandmother’s dress. Too wanna-be clean, the smell was like sickness covered up with rubbing alcohol. I couldn’t make myself sit, so I wore a path in the floor with my boots. Around the waiting room, up the hall to the vending machine, back to the waiting room, to the front door, back, and then I’d repeat the whole circuit again.
Bou was almost as bad, splitting her time between watching Celt sleep in the ICU and sleeping herself in my arms in the waiting room. The times she laid her head on me were the only times either of us could settle. She’d had some stitches and strict instructions to rest two days ago when we first came in but had been treated as an outpatient. Bou woke up from a nap as the doctor—some kid that couldn’t be more than just out of college, came in.
“He’s awake and asking for you.”
Bou bolted up from the chair.
The kid held up a hand in warning. “He’s out of the coma, but he has a long road ahead.”
I came up behind Bou and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Celt was in bad shape, but he’s a fucking fighter. He’s going to make it.”
Bou nodded at me and thanked the doctor as her phone buzzed. She peered down at the screen and handed it to me. Angel flashed across the screen. I’d added his number to Bou’s contacts until I sorted myself out with a new one.
“I’m going to see him,” Bou mouthed and left me to the phone call.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“So,” Angel began, “looks like your dad—”
“Don’t!” I barked and pressed my thumb and forefinger on the bridge of my nose as I took a deep breath. “Don’t call him that. Cyd, The Greek, El Griego, or just the fucker. I’m not claiming relationship to that motherfucker.”
“Cyd, then. Apparently, he’s been fucking Paola. We’ve confirmed that they set the whole thing up through some unknown plant in the LAPD.”
I raised my chin and closed my eyes against the florescent rectangle above my head. A mix of pissed-the-hell-off and relief at starting to see the pieces fall into place flooded through my mind. “He’s in lock-up, true?”
“Yeah. Seems that the DA is on a warpath too.”
“Good,” was all I could think to say. The man had been using and abusing people probably since before he’d knocked up my ma. It was about time he had a date with the ultimate bitch—Karma.
Given Celt’s condition and the fact that I wasn’t leaving Bou anytime soon, I asked, “You need me for anything?”
“Nah, man. Got shit under control here.”
In the way those words crept through the phone, there was something else on my second’s mind. “What else, Angel?”
“The DA wants to talk to you.”
“Shit,” I hissed as a nurse on the verge of retirement walked by and glared at me sideways. “Sorry,” I mumbled to her, then lowered my voice and said back to Angel, “I thought handing him over would get me out of the hot seat with the law.”
“You’ve got nothing to hide. Just do what she asks, and this will be the fucking end of it.”
