Chapter 11
Lucas
I kept my eye on Leda for the rest of the day, worried that she was becoming ill or something. Luckily, she didn’t vomit again, and we both helped out in the restaurant for the rest of the afternoon, careful not to be seen by the diners and sticking to the kitchen as much as possible.
Since it was Sunday, they closed the restaurant after four, and once the dishes were done, Ruhua clapped her hands. “Time to go.”
“Go? Where?” Leda asked, arching a brow at me, not knowing what the woman was talking about. But it was clear that her husband did, because he groaned.
“Baoshan!” she laughed as she reached for the canvas bags hanging in the kitchen and yelled in Cantonese. “Time to go.”
“You spend too much money there,” he grumbled back in Cantonese, removing his apron. “The truck will be here in the morning. Just wait until then.”
“Ai-ya, you know they don’t have everything,” Ruhua stated firmly, the gleam in her eye telling me that they were going, whether Baoshan cared or not.
“I can go,” I offered. “Just give me the list.”
With a ball cap and the ratty clothes I was wearing, no one was going to peg me for the missing defunct Don, especially not in a Chinese supermarket. Besides, it would be nice to get out for a while and take a breather.
“You?” Ruhua demanded, shaking her head. “Have you forgotten that you can’t read? Besides, I have the list in my head. We’ll be back in time for supper. Stay here with Leda. She needs you more than me.”
Well now, she fucking knew how to knock me down a peg or two. I thought my Chinese was pretty fucking good. Even if I couldn’t read, I could ask. But I wasn’t about to ask.
Leda groaned, rubbing her stomach. “Supper? Really? I’m going to gain twenty pounds with the way you are feeding us.”
No disagreements there.
“Food good for soul,” Ruhua replied to Leda in English as she pushed her husband out of the kitchen. “Back later!”
“I don’t think he wanted to go,” Leda mused as we heard the front door open and shut, the tiny bells tinkling in the distance.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” I grinned, stripping off my own apron. “The sheer terror in his eyes?”
She laughed, and it was the best fucking sound in the world. “Come on,” I told her, grabbing her hand. “I’m beat.”
Leda allowed me to lead her up the stairs and over to the couch, where I flipped on the TV to some nonsense baseball game without fans due to the pandemic. She fell onto the cushions next to me and for a few moments, I fiddled with her hand in mine.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a few minutes.
“About what?”
“About earlier,” Leda sighed. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper at you. I just worry far too much about you. I don’t want to be left out if I can help.”
I brought her hand up to my lips, brushing them to the back of it. “I can understand.”
Her eyes widened. “Can you?”
Yeah, it had taken me a few hours to cool off, more worried about what might have made her sick like that than to be pissed at her.
In her position, I would have reacted the same way. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was going to do now, but some of what she had said made far too much sense. If I turned her over to her brother, was I sending her to her death? He had the cops’ protection right now, but for how long? If Carmine was able to raise his forces, then no amount of protection from the NYPD or the Feds was going to help Nico.
I clearly couldn’t help, no matter how much I wanted to.
“Yeah, I can,” I finally decided, clenching her hand tightly. “You’re right. I’m trying to react before thinking it through, and it’s not working.”
Leda’s eyes widened more. “I can’t believe you just told me that I’m right and you are wrong about something.”
I let out a choked laugh. “Is that all you got out of that admission?”