So, I may be able to bandage a wound, but I can’t fix what’s wrong with his head. And that’s okay. I don’t expect him to fix me, either. I smile at that thought. There’s way too fucking much wrong with me to fix.
“What are you smiling at?” he asks after a second.
I dart a quick glance at him. I didn’t know he was looking.
“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head as I reach for the bandages to cover the gnarly stitching. “I was just thinking I could fix you, but I don’t think anyone could do that.”
“You’re probably right about that,” he says after a pause.
“And that’s okay,” I say. “I won’t try to fix you if you don’t try to fix me. Deal?”
He hesitates again, grinding his teeth back and forth. Finally he nods. “Deal,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very happy about it.
“This one’s going to hurt more for a minute, but it won’t last as long,” I say, reaching for the needle-nosed plyers. “Lie down.”
He swings his legs up onto the bed and crosses his arms over his chest. I straddle his shins and lean down over the bullet that’s still lodged in his quad.
“We don’t need to love each other,” I say as I work. “We have to make this marriage work, though. There’s no out for either of us. This is how it works. There’s no divorce. We have to coexist in the same house. We don’t have to be enemies, though.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I just think maybe we’ve been selfish,” I say. “We’re both miserable and we both hate each other. But I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t really considered how much it sucks for you to be stuck with me when you could have gotten someone like Bianca or Lizzie.”
“And what would you rather have gotten?” he asks. “Someone who lets you walk all over him?”
“Well, yeah,” I say with a little laugh.
He sucks in a breath when I hit the end of the bullet. We share a minute of silence as I carefully dig to get a grip on it. “I remember the first time I did this,” I say with a little laugh. “I must have been, like, eight. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I heard all this screaming and yelling, so I went to see what it was all about. Daddy was hauling my uncle in, and he was cussing like… Like no eight-year-old should hear.” I break off, shaking my head.
King doesn’t speak, so I go on.
“He was shot in the back of his leg, below the knee. A few other guys were there, too, but they couldn’t get the bullet out because Uncle Bert kept kicking every time they started digging for it. But then Daddy saw I was up, and that I’d seen all the blood already, and heard all the cussing, and I hadn’t run screaming. And I had tiny fingers that could get in the bullet hole and get the bullet when no one else could.” I laugh softly and deposit the bullet onto my tray. “My mom was so pissed when she found out.”
It’s been so long since I thought about that night. Sewing up injuries just became part of my life at some point soon after Mom split.
King doesn’t say anything, but I know he’s listening. He’s watching me with… Something new in his eyes. Respect, maybe. I realize that’s the longest conversation I’ve had with my husband about the way I was raised. I don’t really know anything about his life, either. Suddenly, I feel weird about having shared that memory, as impersonal as it is.
I get the needle ready to sew up the tiny opening from the bullet. “Just a few more stitches,” I say. “You can keep that bullet as a souvenir. I hear it’s memorable—the first time being shot.”
I glance up at him, and see his eyes are glassy with pain. He’s been amazingly still considering the pain he’s in. The injuries are pretty minor, but they’ve gotta hurt like hell itself. I respect him for his stoic response. Once, I told him that he had to earn my respect, but I didn’t think much about him respecting me. I assumed no mafia man really respects his wife, but King’s not like most of the men I know. I’m proud to be able to help him, to maybe earn his respect the way he’s earning mine. It’s hard not to respect a guy who barely winces after being shot.
He jerks when I poke the needle into him, but he doesn’t say anything. When I dart a glance at him, he’s laid his head back on the pillow, eyes closed, nostrils flared.
“Want me to shut up?” I ask, putting in another stitch.
“No,” he grits out. “Keep talking.”
I want to ask him about his life, but he probably doesn’t want to talk right now, so I try to think of something else to say. “My friend Bianca thinks you’re hot,” I say, remembering her teasing at the salon.
That thought brings me to the conversation I had with Dad on the phone while I was there, which leads me back to King’s accusation.
“I know you think this was a setup, but that’s because someone wanted you to think that,” I say. “Someone who wants us to stay at war. If it was my dad, he would have gotten me out before anything went down. Trust me, King. He would think of me.”
I have no doubt about that. He’s always thinking of me, even in this marriage that seemed like a curse. I may not have seen it at first, but now I do. Now I know he gave me what I needed, that he was thinking of not just an alliance with the Valentis, but of my happiness. He didn’t want me to be left a widow at twenty-five, so he gave me someone young. He didn’t want me to be in the heart of danger at all times, didn’t want my husband to be in the most dangerous positions, so he gave me a soldier. He didn’t want me to marry someone callous and unfeeling, so he gave me someone new to the Life.
So, who would want to take out the Valentis besides my father?
Well, that answer is too easy. Everyone.