Page 77 of Mob Star

Dillan leans away with his elbow on the arm of his chair as he looks over at me. “We still don’t know the answer to why Rowan got delusions of grandeur. Someone put Rowan up to it.”

“I figured as much, but there was no sign of who. I hacked his emails before I went to Boston and while I was there. I already dug around their finances. It makes sense why they’d want a high profit item like that tech shipment. But nothing makes sense about why they thought they could target us. Why not another Boston family? Why not a rival down here, rather than an ally? Rowan’s arrogant and stupid, but he has enough common sense not to target us unless he believes he has a sure-fire plan. He didn’t, but what made him think he did? Or better yet, who made him think he did?”

“Finn?” Thea calls out to me, but she must still be upstairs.

“Yeah.”

“Can I come down? I need to head back to work.”

I stand and walk to the family room’s open archway. “Yes. I’ll take you.”

She hurries down the stairs wearing a fresh pair of scrubs. Mint green. They make her eyes glow. God, she’s beautiful. All of her. Inside and out. Fuck. How’d I get so damn lucky?

She takes my offered hand and looks around me to the other guys. She shoots them a smile and gives a quick wave. I hold the door open for her, and before I step out, I look back at the others.

“I’ll be back after I drop Thea off.”

Chapter Eighteen

Thea

It’s been the strangest twelve hours I’ve possibly ever had. It doesn’t even have anything to do with patients. I’ve gotten three pages to units I have nothing to do with. When I get there, no one knows who sent the alerts. As though that wasn’t weird enough, the first was to the ER just as a gunshot wound was being transferred to surgery. The second was to intensive care as a patient crashed. And the third was to surgical recovery where a patient was hemorrhaging and eventually died. It’s no coincidence that death was the common denominator. I get that. The strange part is why me? Why today? And who?

“Ted, can you meet me on the first floor? I just got paged to the morgue. Something’s going on, and I’m not comfortable going down there alone.”

“Are you safe right now, Dr. Gallagher?”

I’m on the phone with my bodyguard for today. Joey and his brothers aren’t available, but I like Ted. I think Joey, Simon, and Fallon are doing something else rather than having the days off.

“I believe so. I’m about to get on the elevator. I’ll meet you downstairs near the gift shop.”

“Okay.”

I push the button and wait for it to arrive. I’m on the NICU floor and have five to go down before I can find Ted. A sudden wave of trepidation slams into me as I step onto the elevator. What if someone corners me in here? I can’t control who gets on. I keep my phone out and Ted’s contact on my screen. One press will call him. My toes are tapping inside my clogs.

Fuck.

“Morning.”

“Morning.” I don’t know who this person is.

Definitely a visitor since no hospital ID. He pushes the close door button, but nothing else. Lovely. He got on at the fourth floor and is riding down with me to the first. I make sure I’m in the corner. But the doors open on the third floor, and two more men get on. Don’t any women work here too?

Blessedly, we don’t stop on the second floor. I’m in the corner, so the other two people have to step off first. I reach for the door open button as an excuse to get the original man off the elevator before me. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up, and I don’t want him behind me. I’m being paranoid, but I’m a single woman living and working in New York. Situational paranoia is a survival instinct.

I spot Ted, but the first man is standing right outside the elevator, looking around as though he’s lost. This part of the first floor is pretty straightforward. Visitors desk, the gift shop, elevators, and snack cart. There’s one door outside. When Ted steps forward, the guy pretends not to watch where he’s going and shoulder checks Ted. I watch to see if they pass each other something.

I glance down at my phone as Ted steps on. I pull up Finn’s contact. I didn’t like how that man got physical with my guard. It makes me even more apprehensive. I’m certain that was no accident.

“Are you all right, Dr. Gallagher?” Ted’s checking his suit coat pocket, then his pants pocket. He pulls nothing out, but it reassures me he’s checking. He must have thought it was odd, too.

“Yeah. That man was weird. He didn’t have a hospital ID, and I didn’t see a visitor sticker either. He got on at the fourth floor. The other two men were doctors, but I don’t know them. They got on at the third floor.”

“Yeah. I saw the elevator numbers pause at each stop.”

I’ve already pressed the basement button. I rarely have to come down to the morgue. I can’t remember the last time I did. The only dead bodies I’ve spent much time with are the cadavers in med school. The babies we lose sometimes are still babies to me.

I scan my badge to open the massive security doors. Ted holds it open for me as I step forward. I know he has two guns holstered under his arms because I saw them this morning when he checked in with me. Finn explained on the way here from Dillan’s house that they have connections at the hospital that let them bypass regular security and bring their weapons inside.

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