Page 55 of Savage Grace

“Not a lot,” he tried to sound casual, waving me off with one hand. “You?”

“Move. Move!” I heard Rome’s voice bark from behind us. Her eyebrows were pinched with worry, but faded once she noticed me. “Oh, thank god,” she sighed and slung her armful of rags and various medical appliances across the table with a clatter. “You’re better at this. Fix him.”

I looked back towards my brother.

“What’s wrong with him?” I frowned.

This time, Antoni shot me an apologetic smile before lifting his hand off his thigh. As soon as he did, the blood began to pour.

“Shit. Toni.” I shook my head, slapping his hand away and replacing it with a bundle of rags so he would stop ejecting blood like a fucking water fountain. “Get me a belt or something, and somebody ring Valerie. Like, now.”

“Mother’s orders! Pip pip!” Antoni clapped twice, and then chuckled silently to himself while his merry men shuffled out of the room.

“I see you’ve drugged him already,” I said over my shoulder to Rome as she slipped her belt from her jeans and handed it to me.

“I had to do something to shut him up,” Rome shrugged with her hands up.

I chuckled, wrapping the belt around Toni’s thigh, above what looked to be a gunshot wound.

It wasn’t the first bullet wound I’d treated, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. I had a strong stomach, and decent knowledge about patching up this type of injury.

But this one was different.

The large gaping mess in Toni’s thigh was hard to look at, and I understood immediately why Rome would have had to drug him so thoroughly.

“Is Val on her way?” I asked as Sammy entered the room, hanging up his phone.

He nodded once.

“Did you tell her it was a medical thing? Like, to bring her kit?”

Sammy opened his mouth and then closed it a moment later, holding up one finger and backing out of the room while he put his phone to his ear again.

I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

AndIwas supposedly the one with no common sense?

Sammy returned a few moments later and sank into the seat next to Toni, scrolling on his phone and leaning back a little, as if nothing in the world mattered.

Antoni’s head rolled from side to side as he hummed a little tune to himself, thoroughly enjoying being high as a kite. Rome had disappeared again, and I could hear her barking orders to people in the other room.

“Sammy,” Toni whispered, slapping at Sam’s knee and trying to get his attention.

“Mmm?” Sam grunted, but didn’t look away from the video he was watching.

When did everyone become so desensitised to this stuff? When did our brother getting shot become such a common event that it barely garnered the worry or attention that it would have taken to look up from a phone screen?

“Sa-Aaamm,” Toni slurred.

“What?” he finally groaned.

Toni narrowed his eyes at Sammy, glaring as he slowly raised his middle finger and waved it around in front of his face.

“Cut it out,” I snapped as Sammy launched forward to swat at Antoni’s hand.

Toni pressed his lips together, trying to contain his laughter, but it came out as a strangled sound through his nose instead.

He kept his eyes on Sam as he slowly brought his finger up again, this time pressing it to his lips in a silent order to stay quiet.

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