“You stubborn, stubborn boy.” I kissed him hard. “You were amazing tonight. Thank you. You saved my life, you know.”
After a knock on the door, a rotund man wearing thick-rimmed glasses walked into the room with a black medical bag in hand. He stopped short when he saw Kit in bed.
“Well, what do we have here?” He turned toward Liam, who’d entered behind him. “This is new.”
“This is Sullivan’s boyfriend.” Liam crossed his arms.
“Interesting.” He placed the bag on the bed. “I remember when there was one of you. Now there are three. What seems to be the problem?”
I stepped back to give him space to tend to Kit. “I think he dislocated his shoulder, and I want you to look him over in case I missed something else.”
“It’s just my shoulder,” Kit said.
“Let me be the judge of that.” Doc put a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. Kit clamped his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. Cinnamon purred loudly and dug her nails in Kit’s thighs.
“I’m Michael Stewart,” he said to Kit. “Feel free to call me Mike. What’s your name?”
“Kitson, but everybody calls me Kit.”
“All right, then, Kit. I’m going to help you take off this shirt so I can see the extent of your injuries.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Can you two give us some privacy?”
I scowled at Doc. “We sleep together. What kind of privacy do you need from me? Tell him, Kit.”
“Actually, he’s probably right that you should go.”
“I’m not—”
“Sully.” Liam clamped a hand over my arm. “We’ll just be outside.”
“I’ll let you know when we’re done in here.”
I swore under my breath and stalked out of the bedroom. Liam closed the door behind us. I paced in the hallway.
“This is stupid. Why wouldn’t he want me inside?”
Liam shrugged. “Does it matter? He asked for privacy, and you should give it to him.”
I slid down and sat on the floor, my back against the wall, my legs drawn up.
“This is why I didn’t want him working with us. I hate that he got injured because of me.”
“If there’s anyone to blame, it’s me.” He sat across from me with his back against the railing. “I should’ve been the one to have your back, but he made a damn good point that he couldn’t be the one behind the steering wheel. What happened anyway?”
“I was talking to Grimaldo. He thought Pinelli had put me up to killing him, and for a second there, I started to believe him, but he was just distracting me while getting his gun ready. Kit was coming on the other side, saw him reach for the gun, and shot him.”
“How did Kit end up getting hurt?”
I closed my eyes and slammed the back of my head into the wall over and over. “It was my fault. Grimaldo looked dead. I should’ve checked, but I didn’t. He raised his gun, and I pushed Kit out of the way.”
“You can’t blame yourself, Sullivan. If Kit hadn’t refused to leave you, Grimaldo would’ve shot you.”
I shook my head and opened my eyes. “Maybe now he’ll see how dangerous this can be and change his mind about working for us.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. The boy likes the excitement. I don’t see him giving up on this anytime soon.”
“Yeah, well, regardless, he’ll have to. I’m not doing this a day longer than I have to. We’re getting too old for this shit, Liam.”
“And what are we supposed to do? You’re thirty-eight, and you’ve killed people for money for the last ten years. Can you honestly say you can see yourself doing a mediocre desk job?”