“Dino,” Agostini said brightly, “how you doing?”
Dino’s heavy eyelids lowered and rose. “I’m glad to see you, sport.”
Yvgeny said, “Does it appear that I have something that you want, Mr. Agostini?”
Outside, across the street, Princess heard the doors of the Hummer open and shut and a number of heavy boots hit the macadam. She lifted her eyes quickly from Yvgeny up to the mirror. Four men in black leather jackets crossed the street. They all carried guns, two-handed.
Nobody moved as the men reached the door. Princess shivered as the four men stepped in, her heart slamming a frantic tattoo high in her chest. She heard another vehicle pull up outside and saw the reflection of a big man getting quickly out of a cab.
Callaghan grabbed the last of the Russians by the hair, yanked his head downward, and pressed a gun into his temple. “You all stay nice and calm now.” His Irish brogue was strong as he addressed Yvgeny’s henchmen. “If I shoot him from this range, I’ll catch at least one more of you with the same shot.”
In the mirror, she saw Calhoun out on the sidewalk, feet wide apart, holding a gun with both hands, pointed through the window and right at Yvgeny. Her breath snatched.
Agostini lifted his left hand a little, palm down and flat, “Not,” he said evenly, “that any of us will need to do any shooting.”
He said to the goons, “One of you goes for a weapon, I can get a knee or an ankle knee off each of you pretty fast,” as he reached back and pulled the heavy automatic pistol from out of his waistband. “Meantime, your buddy’s head’s going to be meatballs in tomato sauce.”
He smiled at the seated Russian. “Or, we can just leave. Roll the dice another day. What do you say, Yvgeny?”
“All right.” Yvgeny smiled as he lifted his empty hands from under the table, palms up. He told his goons, “Let them go.” And said to Pierce, “Really, it was only a chat.”
Princess clung to Pierce’s back. She felt his muscles tighten as Dino rose and his chair scraped on the tiles. Agostini, Calhoun, and Callaghan stayed still.
Dino said to Yvgeny, “It was nice. We must do this more often.”
When Yvgeny turned back to Dino and said, “We’ll meet again soon enough,” she couldn’t see his expression.
As Dino walked to the door, he ruffled the hair of the goon that Callaghan held the gun on. Princess felt the air in the room snap and all the Russians’ guns twitched. Dino walked out.
Agostini started to back toward the door. Princess moved behind him in step. They passed near enough to two of the Russians for her to smell the oil on their guns. When they reached the door, Princess opened it.
Callaghan followed them out, walking backwards with his gun on the four Russian gunmen. As he reached to push the door, one of the goons made a move to lift his gun. Callaghan yanked the neck of the Russian he held until he made a gurgling, choking sound.
“Up to you, me old matey, but at least two of yous will get it.” He angled his head at Calhoun. “And your boss, so the ones that don’t die won’t get paid, either.”
Calhoun kept his position with his gun aimed at Yvgeny.
Agostini opened the car door and Princess climbed into the middle of the back seat. As he climbed in and shut his door, Dino said, “Russian fucking hoodlums. It’s always a game of chess. They’re always thinking of something three or four moves down the line.”
Agostini slid in beside her. Between him and Dino, she felt safe. Still, she trembled all over. Slipping into the front seat, Calhoun turned his head. “You think he was aiming just to try us out?”
“That’s it exactly,” Agostini said. “He didn’t do anything, and there was nothing at all in what he said. Did he even ask you any questions, Dino?”
“No, nothing that mattered. Like you said, he wanted to see how fast we’d react, how you’d approach him. How you were going to deal with him.” Callaghan shut his door and started the car up.
Calhoun said, “You think he’ll come at us again?”
Agostini said, “I know he will. I’m sure he has a move ready.”
Dino asked, “Calhoun, did you think the glass in that diner window might be bulletproof?”
“I wondered about it. He could probably have got a shot off at me otherwise, and it could all have gone a little differently. He’ll have had a weapon near to hand for sure, and I’m thinking that’s why he didn’t use it.”
Princess frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. If the glass were bulletproof, why would he have been worried? You wouldn’t have been able to shoot him.”
“I’d have shot twice in the same spot real fast. Three times, if I had to. At close range, there’s not much glass will withstand that.”
He looked around to Princess. Her heart was almost in her mouth. He said, “Yvgeny wouldn’t have been accurate enough to do that from where he was. You can’t do from more than a few inches away.”
She looked up at Agostini and her voice was breathy. “Three of you took five of them.”
His voice was firm, solid. She held on to the top of his arm, like she had in the diner. “First move was ours,” he said. “I was thinking that Yvgeny made it too easy, but…” He looked in her eyes. “I don’t feel too much like playing myself down as the hero. Not while your face is shining up at me.” Her stomach flipped.
He said, “I think Yvgeny may have just wanted to see us all together in a bright light.”
She was roused by the glow that his voice lit inside her. That kind of feeling, emotion that ran so deep, was unfamiliar to her, and she wondered where it would take her if she didn’t keep it under control.
With a start, she took her hand off his thigh.
When they got back to the penthouse, Agostini wanted to talk to her, but before he could say a word, she took herself straight to the window in the loggia and stood in the dark far corner with her arms across her chest.
He saw that she wanted to be alone. Still, she shot glances back at him from the darkness. He left the light around that part of the penthouse low to give her refuge.
Calhoun fixed drinks and Callaghan huddled with Dino. They were calling “the girls.” Dino said into his phone, “Hurry on over, darling, before the champagne gets warm.”
Pierce fixed himself a shot of tequila. Took one out to Princess with a slice of lemon and a small pile of salt on a saucer. She stayed in the far corner. He approached only as near as the coffee table and put the drink down for her there.
Her eyes flickered and smoldered at him, but she didn’t move any closer, so he let her be. Still, he put himself at the entrance to the loggia, between her and the room, to discourage others from entering.
From the kitchen, Dino raised a glass to her. She reached across for the shot and looked at him as she lifted it, but she didn’t move any nearer. Her expression stayed neutral, too.
Standing there like a guard, Agostini felt protective. It seemed like every day she made him feel something new, something that brought him up short by how it was alien and familiar at the same time. And however much it threw him off balance, it seemed like he liked it more and more.
He’d thought earlier about handing the club back to her. The idea appealed to him. He could make it like a gift to her. Except then she’d go back, and he was realizing that he didn’t want that.
Anyway, what was all that about, wanting to do things for her, trying to make her happy? Maybe Dino had been right and he had some kind of a backwards Stockholm thing going on.
It didn’t matter, anyway—at least, not for the moment. Her father had run up debts that were almost as big as the ones Agostini had already dug him out of. If he gave the club back to her now, he’d just be handing her over to Fat Tony’s enforcers.
It was as if the old man, her father, was doing everything he could to poison the well.
Princess was still shaking. She had never seen as many guns before as there were in that diner. Certainly she had never faced a situation before where she felt that a
t any moment it could turn into a shoot-out.
Absently, almost automatically, she picked up the tequila shot and slung it straight back. Agostini brought her another, and again, he left it on the corner of the table, like he understood that she needed real, physical space right now. She saw that he checked her with his eyes, but he didn’t intrude.
A passable impression of a normal human being, she thought. Almost an acceptably good human, even.
Up in the loggia, Toni and Mona danced. They swayed sinuously around each other and had the attention of the men. Shawna, Kat and the other girls moved over to Callaghan, Calhoun, and Dino. Stood next to them. Got them to crane their necks, bend over while they whispered in their ears. Then giggled.
They all left Agostini alone, though, and he didn’t seem to pay much attention to them either.
Princess remembered how in the diner he had kept her shielded behind his body. Even in the moments when his muscles tensed, she was sure it was no more than the physical signs of intense concentration and hair-trigger readiness.
It was hard to believe that the same man gave an effortless and urbane presentation to a room full of financiers. And they all applauded him. She thought of them surging forward to clasp his shoulder and shake his hand, like the titans of Wall Street could get the magic touch from him.
The same man who negotiated easily over rotgut whiskey in that filthy Pennsylvania diner. Then, when snarling, slavering Marley pulled a gun, Agostini had calmly drilled a single shot through his forehead.
And there again, he had held her behind him. Put himself in front of her as a human shield.
He was a man who could take what he wanted, and yet, when there was danger, he put himself in front of her.
Roxy, Mona, and Alicia wove and stepped in an intricate dance that involved a lot of twerking and many of their clothes coming off. Agostini didn’t seem any more interested than Princess was.
Still, he seemed to be guarding her. Caring for her. No, that wasn’t right, surely. But taking care of her. She couldn’t deny that.
There had not been one moment when she felt that he wasn’t in absolute control of the situation. Not once did she sense him having the slightest fear or doubt.
Facing four hostile machine guns, he had seemed and acted exactly the way that she remembered him from the auction when he was bidding. Attentive, alert and focused, but quiet and calm. Supremely assured of his own power.
It made her wonder if she would ever find herself a man like him. A man who she could trust and depend on so completely. A man who would face any situation, sure that he could come out winning.
Again, doubt flooded into her mind about that night in the hotel. About his coat left casually on the back of the chair. Surely if she had already tasted his skin, if he had filled her, stretched her apart and melted her, surely she would know.
A hollow, regretful pang sounded deep inside her. For a bitter moment, she couldn’t tell whether it was regret for having taken him into her soft bed, or for having forgotten the experience.
Just as well if I forgot, though, she thought. He would have ruined any other man for me. The shot glass fell out of her hand as the thought completed. Nobody else would ever compare.
The glass hit the table and bounced. Agostini was there in time to snatch it from the air. He put his arm across her shoulders, leaned close, and said, “Why don’t we take you upstairs?”
“Are you afraid I’ll break your precious stuff?”
“You can break all you like, Princess.” He touched her cheek. “I think you may be a little jumpy, and the music and the noise down here could be winding you up some.”
“I’m just as tough as your buddies out there.”
“The ones who were there tonight, at the diner, they’ve been in plenty of situations like that. That’s why they’ll relax and shake it out by making some noise. Kicking it out.”
He looked in her eyes. “You know, you may even be as tough as them. You handled that situation like a walk in the park. They’ve been there any number of times. You haven’t.”
He brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. She was shaking, dammit. And she wanted something to hold onto. Him. She wanted to hold onto him.
It was just a stupid reflex, a delayed effect of the shock.
She allowed him to guide her through the lounge and up the stairs. Her wary eyes flicked up to check that he wasn’t looking round to Dino or to the Irishmen. She did want to be somewhere quiet. To at least be able to forget about who was watching her and what they might be thinking.
The stress of maintaining a front was what she wanted to drop. To not have to hide her feelings from her father or from Yvgeny or from Calhoun and Callaghan, and Dino. Or from Agostini.
What would happen if she didn’t hide her feelings from him? Then, she supposed, then she’d give him a real laugh. Then he really would have something to share with the guys.
She imagined his voice. “The hostage, right? The hostage. She got sweet on me.” And his pretend-coy little look. Cocking his eyebrow like he was saying, “What can I do?”
By the time they reached the top of the stairs, she was fighting back tears. If she had to show vulnerability to him, this was absolutely not how she wanted to do it. Pushing the feelings down, she told herself, This gangster—this hoodlum—if it weren’t for him, you wouldn’t have had to go through any of that torture. What does it matter what he thinks of you?
Upstairs was like a completely different apartment. Partitioned off from the stairway, she saw it was only visible when she was up there.
The space was big and dark, but like more like a study or a library. The massive window continued from the floor below, but there wasn’t the showy glass floor, only the magnificent view. It wrapped over the top and formed a pyramid as a skylight.
The chesterfield and chairs, the table and the desk on the side, were all much more like a man’s apartment. Not a bachelor’s playroom, but a real, adult refuge. Downstairs, Pierce Agostini had the trappings and trimmings of wealth, the boastful swagger of the glass-bottomed loggia. For public display, for show, she guessed.
Up here, in his private domain, another side of him showed. A man who read, who studied, and who thought. Here was a man who put a value on his solitude.
Princess hadn’t realized that she was nodding. “You approve?” His voice was playful now.
She turned. He was closer than she expected. The urge to lay her head on his chest almost overcame her. She said, “Do you bring all of your women up here?”
“I told you, I keep them in the dungeon downstairs.”
Her lips tightened and twisted and she narrowed her eyes.
“It’s true,” he said, coming closer. “I don’t bring women up here. Nor anyone else.” His shirt smelled good. “You’re the first.”
She wanted to believe him. At the same time, she was furious with herself for even caring. What he did and didn’t do up here or anywhere else should make no difference whatsoever to her.
“You want something to drink? I’ve got tequila up here, too.”
“I’m good,” she said.
“You are, for sure.” He looked intently at her.
“Look,” she said, winding her fingers together, “about that night in the hotel…”
“You keep on coming back to that. What’s eating at you?”
“Okay, a joke’s a joke, but this has gone on long enough.”
Perfectly Bad: a bad boy romance Page 15
