REDEEMING THE ROSE: GILDED KNIGHTS SERIES BOOK 1 Page 7

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I went too far. I offered her bright flowers, when I should have given her something more subdued. I talked about my own dead aunt, when she didn’t even ask. I spoke of the child, like—”

  Abby crosses the shop and pushes herself into my space the way I did the grieving mother.

  “I told her to tell her dead kid to find my dead aunt!”

  “You offered her comfort.” Abby takes my hand and squeezes with surprising strength. “I’m not a mom, Nadia. And neither are you. But from what I gather, moms love other moms who take care of their kids.”

  “You… I…” I reach up and wipe away an errant tear. “What?”

  “You just gave that mom permission to seek out your aunt for help.”

  “My aunt is dead!”

  “And so is the child,” Abby croons. “In this world, or another, there is a child, alone and potentially scared. And there’s a mom willing and able to help. You’ve just connected them.”

  “Only if you believe in that sort of thing! In reality, all I did was talk shit and make the woman cry.”

  “You did a good thing,” Abby counters, despite my cussing. “You helped, so stop beating yourself up about this. Grab money out of the spite jar for that bunch and toss it into the drawer so everything balances when we close up tonight. Then maybe get us some coffee. Sheesh.” She releases my hand, and wipes hers over her brow. “What a way to start, huh? Happy Monday to us.”

  Abby turns away and makes her way toward the remaining flowers from where I took Cady’s, and while her back is to me, instead of taking cash from the spite jar, I ring the sale up on the till, command it to go to the card machine, then I tap my credit card and pack it all away before Abby notices.

  I said it was my treat. Which means it was my damned treat.

  6

  Mitchell

  No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

  Luc and I come to a stop in front of Harrison Best’s rich mahogany desk. Best sits in a suit too tight for his overhanging stomach, too ugly to help his pockmarked face. His hair is slicked back with grease and smarmy attitude, his lips curl up in what I’m certain he wants to call a friendly smile, but is in fact a fucking sneer that promises me and my career sit low on his list of things he gives a shit about.

  In front of him, Luc and I stand in lace-up work boots, navy pants, button-up shirts with our names sewn onto the breast pocket, and beside those, our work radios, turned off right now so the chatter doesn’t send us all insane.

  I’m here because of my work on the night that little girl died.

  Luc’s here because he’s my friend and partner, willing to take shit for something he never did.

  “James Evans is making a lot of noise,” Best grumbles. “He’s on the news, screeching about improper treatment, rough work, and your inability to save a girl who should have been saved.”

  “She couldn’t be saved.”

  It burns me that I must defend myself when it comes to this case. It doesn’t please me to dismiss her life so easily. It doesn’t feel nice to admit that little girl never had a chance. In my dreams, every single fucking night since she died, I’ve worked on her tiny body. In my dreams she’s dead too, broken and bloodied, but in the moments before I wake, her eyes open and my heart stops.

  “She was dead before she was handed to me,” I speak around the pain in my heart, my throat. “I wasn’t ready to say so, so I worked on her. But she was already gone.”

  “Father says she was coming to when you pulled him away and left her there to die.”

  “That’s a fucking lie—”

  “If he didn’t pull back,” Luc inserts before I lose my temper, “all three would be dead. She was gone, and the air conditioning unit was coming down. There were a hundred men on that scene, and we all watched Rosa work on that little girl until he couldn’t anymore.”

  “I had to choose between the little girl and her father,” I add, only to finish with a deep inhale until my lungs expand. “She was gone, but her father was not. I had to choose.”

  “And because you chose, Evans is now squawking on the national news about how you’re a baby killer.”

  “A baby killer?” I surge forward and grip the edge of the desk. “I was trying to save her! She was unsavable, and still, I fucking tried!”

  Best only settles back in his chair, steeples his fingers, and smirks. “The board is considering an enquiry into the matter.”

  “An enquiry?” Luc demands. “He was doing his fucking job!”

  “And he did it in such a way that there are grounds for an enquiry.” Best, in his smarmiest fucking way, taps his chin with the tips of his fingers. “It wouldn’t be unheard of to take you off rotation until this is done. Without pay,” he tacks on, like he thinks I give a damn. “That’s what the father wants. He’s calling you a danger to society.”

  “He’s blowing smoke,” Luc insists on a growl. “He’s grieving, he’s mad, and he’s taking it out on the only person he can think of. Mitch did right on that job. If he didn’t do what he did, that complaining father would be dead too.”

  “Yes, well… Dead folks can’t complain on national television.” Best lifts a single brow. “Can they?”

  Silenced, Luc and I watch our bureaucratic boss with disbelieving eyes. We look to each other, then back to our ‘superior’—in title only.

  “You’re not on-shift for tonight.” He slashes me down, word after word. “We have enough staff to send someone else out with Luc. I’ll label it a disciplinary action, and you’ll accept it without a damn word of complaint. That oughta appease the whiners for now. But I can’t afford to take you off the job permanently.”

  Sitting forward, he taps his computer keyboard and hums while he reads… something. His calendar, perhaps. “We don’t have enough staff to permanently reassign you, so you come back on tomorrow. But you have a target on your back now, Rosa. Everyone is watching you, so every decision you make, you best make sure it stands up under scrutiny.”

  “Every decision I’ve ever made,” I snarl, “has been the best one. I save lives, I do everything I can, even for pricks I don’t like.”

  “Good. Because you just might find yourself in a situation someday where you’ll have to help one of the people calling for your head right now, and you’ll have a decision to make. Better make sure that decision looks good on the news.”

  He pushes away from his computer to sit tall, then waves us off with a flick of his wrist. “You’re dismissed.”

  Minutes later, I shove my way into the men’s changing rooms on the opposite side of the hospital from where Best sits his fat ass. I slam a random open locker door closed so the clang reverberates through the empty room, then I move to my locker with the intention to grab my shit and walk off the job.

  Fuck this, my bitch side seethes. I don’t need this job! I don’t need this stress.

  “Mitch.” Luc follows me in, but stops with both hands raised when I spin on him with a feral glare. His sky-blue eyes follow me the way they might follow a predator in the woods. “He was wrong.”

  “I saved that motherfucker’s life! I’m good at my fucking job.”

  “Best is playing the political game.” Luc slowly comes closer. Wary, and ready to bounce if I charge at him. “We’re on the front lines every single time we come on-shift. Near the accidents, near the fires, near the homicidal fucking assholes. It’s what we do, it’s what we love. Best is at the parties, schmoozing and searching for funding. He has no clue what our job really is, so you need to accept that he’s wrong right now, and move on and continue to do what you do.”

  “They have me under a microscope!” I shout so loud that the steel lockers vibrate. “Every single thing I do now will be scrutinized.”

  “Yeah,” he shoots back. “It will be. And that shit isn’t fair. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, because you’re still the fucking best at what you do. Microscope or not, I trust no one the way I trust you, whic
h means you’ll come through this, and they’ll all tell you they’re sorry.”

  “I’m off tonight.” And that, I acknowledge, hurts almost as much as if I’d been fired on the spot. “That’s Best saying he doesn’t have my back. Taking me off the job even for one day is admission of that.”

  “Best has never had our back! Never. He’s a desk bitch whose dick is so small, he can’t find it under the rolls of fat dropping from his gut. He will never defend you, Mitch. Not if it goes against the folks with money.”

  “So I’m on my ass?”

  “Yes. But I’m there with you. Forever. And I’ve got your back. Now you get a night off to chill the fuck out, regroup, then come back tomorrow with your head held high. That asshole complainer will be happy he made trouble for you, because you know Best will make sure it’s publicized that you were smacked down. Evans will fuck off and grieve the way he’s supposed to, and our world will go back to normal. Tomorrow, you’re back on, and it’s your fucking job, your mission, to walk in here like tonight was a vacation for you. Shoulders back, can’t-hurt-me attitude.”

  He takes a step forward and points a finger in my direction. “You know you were right. You know you did the job. So who gives a fuck what a small dick desk jockey thinks of you?”

  Ten minutes after walking in here, Luc walks out again, on his way to do the job I came here to do. He’ll be paired up with another medic, he’ll spend the night laughing to combat the chaos, smiling to keep everyone else’s grief away.

  This job is filled with stress, and plagued by people who are scared, hurt, and confused. Our job is to treat people, move them along to the hospital, and then, in the minutes between hand-off and the next job, shake off the dregs of fear and anxiety.

  That’s where the laughter comes in. The smiles. The lighthearted teasing. And hell, if this is the career I’ve chosen, even knowing the pain I walk toward on a daily basis, then I got lucky when Luc and I were shoved together.

  But now I stand all alone in an empty locker room, with my gut in knots, and my partner walking toward someone else’s rig, someone else’s partner.

  “Fuck!” I spin back to my locker and slam the door again, a self-indulgence so that I get to hear the clang and help relieve the ache that Best’s words put in my heart. “Fuck it all!”

  * * *

  Club 188 is a locally owned and run boozefest near the center of town. It was once part of a network of clubs owned by drug movers and shakers, but when the owner met his match and was subsequently made to step down from his position as kingpin gangster, ownership of the club and all of the dude’s subsidiaries were passed down to his only child.

  At least, those are the rumors that quietly slide along the town’s grapevines.

  There are several off-shoots to that vine, as is typical in these types of situations, one being the fact that lone child wasn’t actually, well, lone. Hello illegitimate children of a gangster. And then there’s the bit about how that first child was merely a toddler when her daddy was taken down and everything went to shit.

  Shit for the dude. Not the kid.

  Sean Frankston’s downfall was a boon for the child and her mother, considering dear old daddy wanted them all for himself, or he wanted them dead. There would be no in-between.

  That toddler is now a teen, and from the moment ownership was passed over, her mother and the rest of the family have kept the club going—though, thankfully, the stench of cocaine and sex was long ago hosed away. Now it’s a dance club, with live music, table service, and hot meals if you arrive early enough in the evening.

  Instead of staying home like I should on my unforeseen night off, I leave the hospital and change into jeans and a black shirt, then I head to 188 with plans to avoid my family like the plague.

  It’s doubtful any of them will be here, seeing as it’s a Monday night, and only alcoholics and those having a shitty day would seek out the companionship of a bartender on such a night. Thankfully, that also means it’ll be reasonably quiet, and because my truck won’t be in my driveway at home, I won’t have to answer the million questions my sister and brothers will have when they realize I’m not at work.

  What happened?

  Who do I need to hurt?

  Should we call Mom and Dad?

  Troy, get here and fix this shit!

  Saving myself the trouble, I stay away, walk through the club doors at a little past dark, and head straight up the metal staircase in search of career drinkers and a hot meal. They have booths up here, making 188 our town’s date-night staple. This is where most folks will bring a girl, since the food is passable and the club’s staff is extra-friendly. The drinks aren’t exorbitantly priced, and not once have I seen them water them down.

  Winner-winner.

  Cresting the top stair with a sigh, I glance toward the bar and head in that direction when I see a familiar face.

  Casey ‘Tink’ Hart is a town original. Born and raised here, she just so happens to be honorary aunt to that aforementioned child who owns the club. Tink runs the place with the girl’s mother, but where the mother works a lot of the administration side, Tink happily slings drinks and insults with equal fervor.

  Catching my eye now, she studies me as though to gauge why I’m here on a Monday night, but then her smile creeps up and her hand shoots out to grab a glass to pour me a drink.

  There are only about thirty bodies inside this whole club. A place that holds several hundred at any given moment on a Friday or Saturday night now wears a bare-bones look that is both welcoming and annoying. Welcoming, because I don’t want the noise of a packed place, but annoying, because being one of few people here means there’s more chance I’ll be questioned about why I’m not at work.

  And I can’t find it in my cold and aching fucking heart to explain it all over and over again.

  Just leave me alone to wallow in my own shit.

  I want to drink in peace and eat something greasy before sneaking home to sleep this bullshit off. Then tomorrow, I can try that thing Luc suggested about walking back into work with my shoulders held high and my pride intact.

  What he doesn’t know is my pride is fine; I never much cared for it anyway. What suffers is my confidence.

  What if I really did make the wrong call? What if the smoke and noise of that night meant I wasn’t seeing Cady properly? Maybe what I thought was death, was merely her sleeping. What if her father is right, and she really was savable? I’ll never know the truth. And though my instincts say that what I thought to be true is fact, my confidence has taken a hit and left the door slightly ajar for the what-ifs to sneak in.

  Fuck them all for doing that to me.

  “Mitchell Rosa.” As soon as I reach the bar and drop down onto a stool, Tink stops in front of me and places a fruity concoction by my hand. Fruity liquor is not really my thing, but Tink wouldn’t be Tink if she actually cared about our opinions. “You look like someone ran over your dog. What the hell happened?”

  “Don’t own a dog.” I pick up the glass and take a whiff. “What’s this?”

  “Delicious. Drink it all and don’t bitch at me that it’s too sweet.”

  Scowling, I bring the glass to my lips and take the smallest sip, only for my eyes to slam shut and my nose to screw up. “Jesus.” I set it back down again and choke past the taste lingering in my throat. “Is that sour worms and sugar?”

  “No.” Her eyes light up as she spins and grabs a pencil and cardboard coaster. “But that’s a great idea. Sour worms and sugar would be awesome. People would get a sugar rush and an alcohol rush. Bang for their buck.”

  “And free dental?” I prod. “You kinda owe that to your patrons who willingly drink this shit.”

  “It’s not shit,” she counters on a sneer. “It’s my new mix, and every single person here tonight has said nice things about it. You’re the only grump. Which brings me back to what the hell happened?” Setting her pencil and cardboard down, Tink places her elbows on the bar and leans a little clo
ser. “You have no dog, which means something else horrible happened. Wanna talk about it?”

  “Nope. Can I get a beer?”

  “Not until you finish this one.” She pushes her mix closer to my hand. “We don’t waste here, so you get nothing else until you finish.”

  “I didn’t order this,” I grumble. “And if I’m paying, I’ll waste whatever the hell I wanna waste.”

  Tink only laughs, stares directly into my eyes, and laughs again.

  And so, I’m stuck with the shot of sugar.

  “Shit day at work,” I mumble. “Super shit.”

  “I got a couple of those drinking here tonight,” she nods. “Mondays always suck, but it would seem today’s Monday was worse than usual.”

  “Might be a full moon,” I ponder. “The universe ain’t aligned, and now we’re all paying for it.”

  “Profound of you.” She waves when a customer calls her from the booths to my left. “Want something to eat?” Her eyes come back to mine. “Fryers are going, and if you’re gonna spend your night drinking sugar, then you’ll probably need something to soak it all up.”

  “Burger?”

  Nodding again, she grabs another glass and mindlessly pours. “Burger and fries coming up. It’ll be quick, since there isn’t much happening here tonight.”

  Finishing with the beer, she winks for me in farewell, spins away, and traipses off to torment someone else.

  Suits me. I’d rather drink my chick drink in silence, perhaps tip a little out when she’s not watching, then finally get to the beer I want.

  “Don’t tip that out.” A female voice makes me jolt with my hand halfway across the bar.

  Caught, I set the glass down and turn only my head until I catch sight of the beautiful Nadia Reynolds sliding onto the stool beside mine. The chairs are so close that her shoulder brushes mine, and her long, blonde hair tickles the bare skin of my arm.

  She sets her very own half-drank sugar mix in front of her, and smiles when our gazes meet. “She’s got eyes everywhere. And if you just so happen to take your drink to the bathroom and tip it out in hopes to not hurt feelings, you somehow end up with another glass, and a warning not to piss the small chick off again.” Pausing, Nadia shivers and sips her drink. “The brunette with short hair is kinda terrifying.”