Page 124 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
“My job?”
“Yours,” I say. “Not mine in place of yours. Not mine over yours. Yours with mine. That means you don’t give the enemy a door. You don’t sleep in a room with a fire escape that a boy like that can learn in an afternoon. You don’t walk to the subway in the dark and tell me it’s fine because it has been fine so far. We can argue about ten thousand other things. Not this.”
She looks past me to the monitor, where a ghost of a heart still flickers on freeze-frame.
Then back to me.
“Say it without the job,” she says. “Say it like you mean it for me, not just for statistics.”
I breathe once so I don’t say it wrong.
“I want you under my roof because I don’t know how to sleep otherwise,” I say. “I want to know which stair you’re on by the sound. I want to be the first door somebody hits if they think they can try again. That’s selfish, and it’s also what will keep you safe.”
Her mouth softens. “You could have led with that.”
“I’m new at this,” I say. “Say yes.”
She holds me a second longer than is fair.
Then she nods. “On conditions.”
“Name them.”
“I keep my job,” she says. “You don't talk to my supervisor. You don't move my charts. If an agent ever shows up at work, I call the hospital lawyer and I call your lawyer. On the record.”
“Done.”
“I don’t become a ghost,” she says. “I see my mother. We tell her when I’m ready. We use a code when she calls so she knows if I’m alone.”
“Done,” I say again.
“And you stop calling my apartment ‘your place’ as if it never was mine.”
“That one will take practice,” I say.
It gets me a small, tired smile.
We leave the hospital through the service corridor.
Rafe’s got the car at the dock door with a courier box in the back like this is just a run.
Tino takes the high spot at the ramp and watches the street through a mirror he palms like a magician.
We load in and pull into traffic without trying to beat the light.
Patience is our best weapon.
On the way, Elisa texts Rizzo from my phone so it reads like an update anyone can own.
Held late, covering a patient. Next shift change, I’ll bring muffins.
Rizzo replies with a thumbs-up and a string of coffee cups.
I like Rizzo more every day.
My brownstone on Henry isn’t fancy.
It’s clean.
