“Has Big Bitch bothered you?”
“Dex.” She turned her head to give me a glare.
“What?” I asked incredulously. “He’s not a client anymore, so who cares?”
“It’s still rude.”
“Oh, you want to talk about rude?” I asked. “He screamed at Sicily when he knew she was brand-new. And then he went up against you… Idiot.”
“I still don’t like calling people names. It’s not nice.”
“If he doesn’t want to be called a bitch, he shouldn’t act like one.”
She looked at me in the same way as she did when I was little, like she thought my behavior was funny, but she had to make the right parenting move by scolding me. “No more, alright?”
“Alright, Boss.”
“Thank you.” She turned back to her computer.
“Heard from him?”
She shook her head. “I hope that means he’s working on selling the place because his ass is gone in thirty days per his contract.”
“I’ll throw him out for you.”
“No,” she said with a slight smile. “I’m not letting that man go anywhere near my baby.”
I was closing in on thirty, but she still called me that sometimes. It didn’t bother me because I knew what it was like to almost lose her, and I’d never taken her for granted again after that. My job wasn’t as respectable as my old profession, but it was nice to spend time with Mom. We got along pretty well and remained professional at work, so we didn’t butt heads.
The phone rang on her desk, and she answered it. “Cleo.” She kept scrolling through her computer.
I turned back to my device.
But when Mom didn’t say anything, my eyes flicked back to her.
She was rigid in the chair, listening intently to whatever the other person said. I could tell it was serious based on her expression, based on the way she pressed her lips tightly together and her eyes shifted back and forth quickly, like she was thinking as fast as possible. “We’ll be right there.” She slammed the phone down and jumped out of her seat.
“Another flood?”
“Get up, Dex.”
I dropped my device and got to my feet, ready for whatever catastrophe had just happened.
She opened the cabinet and reached for the first aid kit, and not the generic one with bandages and other stuff, but the serious one.
Shit.
She tossed it to me, and I caught it before she grabbed another one. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“There’s been an accident in Carlton’s unit. The ambulance is on the way, but we have to go now.” She moved past the desks and to the lobby.
I just stood there, understanding exactly what was happening and what she expected from me.
She turned back to me, like she knew I’d failed to follow her. “Dex.”
I gripped the pack between my hands. “Mom—”
She stared me down. “You can do this.”
“I’m not—”
“You will do this. I know you can do this.”
We ran to the unit and moved through the open door.
Sicily was already there, covered in blood, pushing her hands against his chest where he’d been shot.
Mrs. Carlton sobbed in the background, looking at her bleeding husband on the ground, in complete shock and panic. There was a pistol on the ground beside him.
What the fuck had happened?
I sprang into action without thinking. “Move.” I got to my knees beside him, noticing him already turning pale from the loss of blood. He turned his head and looked at me, his eyes glossing over, so weak he couldn’t speak.
Sicily pulled her hands away and looked at me, the terror on her face.
“He was cleaning his gun,” Mrs. Carlton said through her tears. “I came in and startled him, and it just went off. I didn’t shoot my husband!”
“Take her in the other room.” I opened the pack and immediately got to work. “Now.”
Cleo grabbed Mrs. Carlton and took her into the other room.
Sicily just sat there, breathing hard as she looked at me.
I cut open his shirt and felt with my fingertips, finding the bullet lodged under the skin. It didn’t hit an artery, so if I could stop the bleeding, he had a chance. “Put pressure on this.”
With bloody hands, she did as I instructed.
I grabbed the suture kit and got to work, closing up the wound as tightly as I could to stop the bleeding before the paramedics could get there. My medical training kicked in, and I sutured him at lightning speed, getting that wound closed and decreasing the blood loss so the paramedics could give him blood when they arrived and he could make it to the hospital in time. “You can move your hands. Stay with him, alright?”
He moaned.
I didn’t look at Sicily. “Talk to him. Keep him awake—”
He stopped breathing just when I got the wound closed.
“Oh my god…” Sicily leaned back. “He’s not breathing.”
“Motherfucker.” I turned to grab the paddles, which were charged. I hit the paddles to his chest, shocked him, and then did CPR. “Come on, Mr. Carlton. Don’t you fucking die on me.” I kept the compressions going, doing my best to get his heart to start beating again.