Page 24 of Mob Star

“The steak au poivre with a glass of Malbec, please.”

He doesn’t even look at her as he orders his steak with cognac cream sauce. I almost ordered that instead of the chicken. But I had the steak and kidney pie last night, so I wanted something a little different.

We hand her the menus, and she turns away. I force myself not to watch her. It hurts when he pulls his hand away, but then he’s moving his chair to be next to mine instead of across. He laces his fingers with mine.

“How many hours are your shifts? Are they usually twenty-hours or longer?”

I almost answer “huh.” I wasn’t ready for that. It’s not that he’s trying to avoid me thinking about the waitress. I think he truly didn’t care enough about her for him to give her a second thought. I wish I could be that blasé.

“It was a short shift because I filled in for someone. Mine are usually at least thirty-six hours.”

“Do you have any mandatory breaks? I mean, I assume it’s not a fifteen-minute break for every four hours you work. But do they have to let you rest or sleep or anything?”

“Haha. No. Definitely no mandatory breaks of any kind. I eat and sleep when I can. I usually start the morning with rounds. I’ll check in with the nurses who were there overnight and the doctors coming off rotations. I’ll examine some babies and observe the others for a bit. I’ll make any medication or treatment changes needed. I try to spend a couple minutes talking to all the parents there. They watch their babies like hawks, so they see things we might miss because their care teams can’t be beside the babies all the time like their parents are. I can be called away for a delivery at any time, but usually we manage our duties, so those on rounds can finish them before being on call for high-risk deliveries or newborns in distress.”

“That must be exhausting physically and emotionally, but it must be amazing to save a baby and know they’re going home with their family.”

“It truly is. Sometimes it’s weeks or months before they go home, but that feeling makes up for the days that don’t go so well.”

“Like yesterday?”

He keeps his voice soft when he says it. It’s like he doesn’t want to reopen a wound, yet he wants to acknowledge that he remembers what I told him.

“Yes.” I actually feel like sharing with him. I rarely want to talk about work outside of work if something went wrong. “I had to tell a couple their baby won’t be coming home with them. It’s a matter of when, not if, she’ll pass away. They need to decide whether they wish to cease care now or prolong life. Either way…”

That’s as much as I can say, so I shrug. I was at that delivery. Mom and Baby nearly died. The mom will never have more children, and it was their first one. The baby was only three weeks early, so considered full-term. But there were a lot of issues that were undetectable through the regular ultrasounds that aren’t even done that often unless there’s a reason to. Everything seemed so normal until it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry you went through that. It never gets easier to let someone know their child isn’t coming home. I can’t imagine having to tell a baby’s parents that.”

I meet his gaze, and he’s giving me a strong fucking hint without saying what he means. Men— his men —die around him. Because of him? Directly or indirectly, and he has to be the bearer of the bad news.

“So, you catch naps and meals when you can? Do they have break rooms like they show on TV?”

“Sort of. Hospitals vary, but there’s usually an on-call room. Some places call it a doctors’ mess, like the navy type of term. There’s at least one couch or a set of bunk beds. The one I use has a locker room attached with showers.”

“Are they at least comfortable?”

“Maybe. I’m usually not awake long enough to think about it. My head hits the pillow, and I’m out until I get paged, or someone wakes me.”

“Can you sleep anywhere?”

“Once I got to med school, I learned to.”

“That sounds like Cormac. The man could sleep standing up and wake up fresh as a daisy. Is the cafeteria any good?”

“It’s okay. Better than it was when I started there as a resident. I pack food most of the time because the cafeteria is often closed when I have time to eat. You said you’re an accountant and day trader. What made you get into that?”

“I have a thing for numbers. I can look at them and arrange them however I need them to calculate or find patterns with little effort. Things just stand out, and I can do mental math without giving it much thought. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I’m also the most budget oriented of all of us. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessive about making accounts balance, but I don’t like it when I can’t account for more than five cents.”

He makes it sound like he’s the family accountant. I guess— I suppose the mob is a family business.

“Thea, we all own multiple businesses. I’m the accountant for everything. My cousins also trust me to invest their money because I’m good with patterns. I can project how stocks are going to behave because I remember past performance and that helps me predict what’s going to happen. It’s a good thing we own the casinos I have to go to. Otherwise, I’d get banned for counting cards and picking slots with the highest payouts. Since I don’t gamble often, and I wouldn’t gamble at a place we own, everyone is better off.”

“Don’t do it often?” That makes me wonder if he means there are other types of gambling. Like gambling with his life.

“I can hear your thoughts from here. I told you about the other families. All four families own casinos in Atlantic City, Vegas, and Reno. Sometimes I’ve gone to ones that belong to another family and won a shite ton of money to piss them off. But it’s tit-for-tat. Each one of them has a savvy accountant who can practically do what I can. No one else has the numbers thing I do. But each accountant comes close. And yes, there are other things I have to take a gamble with. I’m not impulsive, cailín. There’s a lot of risk, but they’re measured.”

I don’t have a chance to say anything because the waitress arrives with our food. I don’t know that there is anything to say.

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