To add to that, she felt a strange queasiness in her stomach made her alarmed. When she caught Mal emerging from the women’s, looking drained, she knew that they ahd collectively caught a stomach bug.
“Probably from the food truck,” sighed Mal, dragging her bulky figure and ambling back into the women’s.
By the time she was leaving in the evening, it had worsened and she had to stop on the way to fetch some pills from the chemist’s.
Back home, with Barry on guard, she had a light soup from a Chinese take away which Barry recommended. The mildly flavoured chicken soup made her feel better and she sank into bed soon enough, turning off her phone. She did not want to call in the troops, in this case, her Masters.
Sometime in the night, she sat up, feeling cold. Bianca groaned. She now had a fever!
Unwilling to cause a fuss, she asked Barry to get her the medicines she would need. The big man took one look at her wan face and said,
“I’ll get my old lady over.”
Bianca frowned as he took off after informing her that a mate of his was on duty, watching her.
“Old lady?’ she puzzled as she lounged about droopily on the couch, in a large shirt and yoga pants. Why would he bring his mom?
*
She saw what he meant when he rang the bell with a scantily clad woman, around his age, with peroxide-blonde hair and wide, scarlet lips that clashed wildly with her dark skin and black eyes.
Bianca stepped back but the woman immediately enfolded her in a big hug.
“Ah, honey, you look like death warmed over, don’t she, baby?”
And she flicked the big man’s arm, making him give her a mushy look.
It was so cute, thought Bianca, watching them.
*
Barry left his ‘old lady’ Sylvie, at the house and to her astonishment, the woman , who was forty if she was a day, soon had Barry get her the things needed to prepare some hot food.
Bianca was packed off to bed with a hot lemon drink and she dozed, coming awake in between, to see that Sylvie had come to feed her something else. Groggy and weak with the raging temperature, Bianca was barely aware of what was going on around her.
Dimly, she was aware of a doctor examining her but she was groggy with the medicines and yet, the raging fever had made her somewhat disoriented.
At some point in time, she thought she heard O’Grady, loud and bellowing at someone, later, she sensed the presence of St Just, cool and collected, as he placed his hand on her forehead.
She smiled and slept on.
She was safe; her Masters were here with her.
*
St Just faced his brother in the office.
“She’ll be fine, bro, it’s just a stomach bug,” he said in his customary drawl, as his eyes fixed on this brother’s face. O’Grady had been yelling at Barry, demanding to know why he had not informed the Irish mob boss when Bianca fell ill.
He had only got to know when Simmons had mentioned during their daily call, that Bianca had called in sick.
O’Grady had nearly blown a fuse. Secretly, he had been fearful, wondering if she had been attacked.
But Barry had assured him, in that calm, emotionless way he had, that he had brought his old lady, meaning his partner, to take care of Bianca.
Luckily, St Just had also flown back a the same time, his work completed.
*
A doctor they had summoned had checked the delirious young woman and had assured them that it was a mild bug that was going around the city.
“Nothing to be worried about, ” said Dr. Curtis amiably before sauntering off.
*
But the reason why O’Grady felt uneasy was that Dean Nelson’s bullet-riddled body had been discovered in an alley.
It had been found in the early hours of the morning, a little away from one of the clubs owned by O’Grady. He had had to deal with the police, who were highly suspicious regarding the unearthing of the body of a man who had been a sworn enemy of the Mafia lord.
But what niggled O’Grady was the fact that the person who had killed Nelson, had been trying to hide something.
They had gotten rid of Nelson to prevent him from revealing something, because O’Grady had been aggressively combing all the hideouts to find out where Nelson could have been hiding…
It was not difficult to put two and two together and surmise; that the murder of Dean Nelson was an act by the same persons who were behind the attack on Bianca’s house.
Which meant that Nelson had been murdered to avoid O’Grady from finding out who was behind the break in.
Or something even more sinister?
The thought plagued him and he shared his concern with his brother.
What was worse, the relationship between the two Mafia Dons and Bianca, was crystal clear to the persons behind the attack.
Someone was gunning for him and St Finn; they were targeting the Pet to get at him and his brother.
Not a nice thought.
*
“She’s sharp, Boss, the one who St Just brought on to help with the accounts,” said Simmons in a low voice and he went on, surreptitiously looking around himself,
“She found out that the funds were being…uh…diverted …the older ones.”
There was a long silence and then the voice of the man he feared, came over the line, gravelly, a smoker’s voice,
“Take her out, Simmons.”