by Ava Bloom
Brazen - Preview
Lindsay
* * *
Red dripped down my fingers and wrists in thick rivers, falling to the tarp beneath my feet in persistent drops like a leaky faucet. Splatters I could never fully clean up covered the wall in front of me. My artist friends gave me a lot of flak for being such a messy painter, but I had to feel the paint. Brushes could get you only so far before you needed the precision of a pinky nail to cut a line between the edge of the water and the grassy bank, and nothing worked better for blending the vibrant rays of a sunset than my fist. It helped me feel the work in a way I couldn’t with a brush. By the end of a painting session, I was usually covered in as much paint as my canvas, but I liked it that way.
I was ninety-nine percent convinced that the mess I made when I really got into a painting was the reason my mom never supported the hobby. She and my dad were aggressively practical. He worked at a bank, she was a nurse. They were a stereotypical American family with two children, a sensible Sudan and an SUV that they never ever drove off of a paved road, and a dog who I believe was born potty-trained and didn’t even bark at the mailman. They were the picture of normalcy. And then there was me.
My brother wore the pastel sweaters and khakis my mom laid out for him, but I refused to be seen outside of my paint-stained overalls and high-top sneakers. I overheard my parents saying that it was only a phase, that when the time came I would choose a good school and a degree that would lead to a well-paying job. And then I announced that I wanted to go to art school. It was as if I told my family I wanted to murder kittens for a living. My mom cried, my dad shook his head, and immediately after high school graduation, I moved out. I had enough saved from my waitressing job for first and last month rent on an apartment in Chicago, and I took a job at Sabella Security Solutions.
Five years later I was still only painting on evenings and weekends, while my days were spent as Richard Sabella’s assistant and receptionist, organizing his calendar and cold-calling potential clients, but it could have been worse. I could have gone to a four-year university and received a business degree like my brother. I could have moved in three blocks away from my childhood home and taken a job working for my dad. I could be going to bi-weekly family dinners with my perfectly coiffed girlfriend who wore pearls and matching pant suits even though she wasn’t even twenty-five yet.
The paintbrush in my hand creaked from the force with which I was clutching it and I loosened my grip and took a deep breath. My life was good. It was my own, even if it hadn’t turned out exactly like I expected. Even if my parents didn’t approve of it the way they did my brother’s. I dropped the brush into the cup of water next to me and pressed my forefinger to the canvas, carrying the Blood Red—a violent name for a violent splash of color—into the Sea Blue.
Then, the building collapsed.
Or, at least, that’s what it sounded like. I jumped, making a nasty smear through what would have been a beautiful blending job, and ran to the hallway. I left a smudge of paint on my front door as I threw it open.
The hallway was littered with pieces of shattered dishware and shiny flecks of cutlery. It looked like a mosaic without the mortar. Then, I noticed the long shadow of a man scooping everything into a cardboard box, his mouth moving with words I couldn’t hear, but were no doubt curses of the most violent kind.
“Moving in or moving out?” I asked, wiping my paint-covered hands across my overalls to clean them. After years of doing that same thing when I finished painting for the day, the overalls were more paint than denim.
“In,” the man barked back. Then, he looked up at me, and my fingers itched to paint him. I had always been more interested in landscapes, but this man made me want to be a portrait artist. Tattoos twisted down his arms in a collage of color and artistry. I wanted to run my fingers along his skin and study each illustration. His face was sharp edges and angles, but he had a rugged sturdiness to him that I would portray in earthy browns with green-flecked shadows along his cheekbones and under his eyes, which were the soft blue of the sky meeting the ocean. Almost white, but not quite. His shoulders were broad, and even hunched down on the floor, I could see how tall he was. Like a piece of clay stretched long.
His head tilted to the side, and I realized how long I’d been staring. I tore my eyes away, but his face was burned into my vision every time I blinked, like after you stare at the sun too long. I bent down to help clean up the mess.
“You don’t have to help,” he said, waving me away. “I can get it.”
I ignored him and threw a plastic protein shaker bottle into the box in his arms. “It wouldn’t be very neighborly of me to leave you to clean this mess all alone.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye but said nothing.
“Are you going to use these broken dishes for anything?” I asked, inspecting a few of the ceramic shards.
“Is that a joke?” he asked. When I met his question with a confused stare, he realized I was serious. “No, I’m going to throw them away.”
“I’ll take them,” I said, already shoving some of the bigger shards into the pocket on the front of my overalls. “I can use them for a mosaic.”
“Are you an artist or something?” he asked, a thick finger swirling through the air to include everything from my paint-smeared sneakers to the splatters of paint on my collarbone.
“I suppose that depends on your definition of art, but I like to think so,” I said. “Are you new to just this building or the city?”
“Both.” He grabbed the last of the silverware from the floor and dropped it into his box with a loud clatter.
“Well, welcome to Chi town!” I said, throwing my arms into the air. “What brings you to the city?”
“Work,” he said. His words came out like punches, fast and hard. There was no softness to his voice. No roundness or friendliness. Yet, somehow, it only made me want to try harder.
“You’ll love the city,” I said, wrapping some of the bowls that survived the crash in newspaper and stacking them in a corner of the box. “I’ve lived here my whole life, so I know it like the back of my hand. If you ever want anyone to show you around, I’d be happy to.”
“I’m from New York. I think I can find my way around Chicago.” He waved me off when I started to wrap up a bowl with a small crack in the lip. “Keep that one. For your art.”
When he stood up, the box held against his chest, I could finally appreciate the full measure of him. He stood several inches taller than me, which made him at least six-two. In fifth grade, I was the same height as my mom, and then I shot up another six inches until I stood as tall as my dad. I towered over other girls and looked eye-to-eye with most men, but my new neighbor had to duck as he walked through his front door, which was directly across the hall from mine.
“I’m Lindsay,” I said, leaning forward on one foot to shout through his open door.
He reappeared without the box and crossed his long arms over his chest. “Gabriel.”
“Lovely to meet you, Gabriel.” I gave him a dazzling smile, which he returned with a head nod. “I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”
“I’m sure,” he said with noticeably less enthusiasm than I had as his door slammed closed.
When I got back to my canvas, the feeling was gone. I’d been working on a waterscape. A river weaving through trees, midnight blue shadows creeping up the mossy banks, the silver trunks of birch trees stretching vertically across the canvas. But now it all felt wrong. I replaced the canvas with a new one I’d just stretched that morning and squirted a smear of yellow paint into the center. Foregoing a brush, I swirled my fingers through the paint, adding in red and brown and forest green in sharp strokes until I realized a jawline was taking shape.
* * *
Gabriel
* * *
I closed the door between me and my new neighbor and stood there as the sound of it echoed off the walls of my empty condo. I’d been meaner than I needed to, but it
had been a long day of moving and I’d lost most of my dishes when I dropped the box in the hallway. I’d be eating cereal out of a cup in the morning. Except, I then realized I didn’t have cereal or milk or anything else required for even the most basic breakfasts.
The woman had been pretty. Beautiful, in fact. Even covered from head to toe in paint with her hair pulled into a lopsided bun on top of her head, she looked like a runway model. Her heart-shaped face was thin, her arms long and willowy, and her legs went on for miles. But a beautiful woman was the last thing I needed in my life. I needed to focus on work, and I couldn’t afford to be distracted
The sooner I finished my job in Chicago, the sooner I could get home to New York. Several other guys had been up for the Chicago job, but I’d volunteered because the only thing keeping me in New York was my preference for the city. I didn’t have a family or a girlfriend. No one to tie me down. I could travel freely and stay in Chicago as long as I needed to without raising any red flags. And in the mafia, not raising red flags was priority number one.
Except, Richard Sabella seemed to have not received that memo. He had a good racket going in Chicago. It was well-known in the mafia world that his security business was a cover for his gambling rings and he made extra money by blackmailing local businesses into paying him for protection from him. He had the city of Chicago by the balls, and that should have been enough for anyone. But not for Richard, apparently. He had started moving his operations into New York the year before. It started small with a few rings popping up here and there, but then he’d started encroaching on Bianchi family territory, and it was time to cut him off at the knees. Which is why I was sent to Chicago to gather intel.
My boss somehow found me a job working in the mail room and as a part-time maintenance man in the same building Sabella’s business operated from. I was supposed to find as much information about Sabella’s criminal operations in Chicago and New York as possible, and then deliver it to my boss. It wasn’t an incredibly dangerous job, but it would be best to fly under the radar. To avoid making any friends or drawing any attention to myself.
But still, I found myself returning to Lindsay’s delicious curves as I unpacked. I didn’t plan to be in the city longer than a few weeks, but that was enough time for a quick fling. It would be a surface level relationship, at most. Plus, by some miracle, she lived directly across the hall from me. Talk about convenient.
* * *
I heard Lindsay leave for work early the next morning, and I looked through the peephole as she locked up. I saw she had on a tight red dress that made her ass look tight enough to bounce a quarter off of, but she disappeared down the hall before I could appreciate much else.
I’d received an email the week before about my start date and benefits at the company, but no one had mentioned anything about a dress code. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to wear a jumpsuit because I’d be working maintenance or business clothes because I’d be delivering mail to the offices. Or, maybe a uniform would be provided. To ere on the side of caution, I wore a pair of gray slacks and a plain white button-down sans tie. It looked good for office attire, especially because it covered the tattoos that made most normal people uncomfortable, but I could also roll up the sleeves and transition it easily into a more casual look.
The office was only eight blocks away, so I could walk to work. On my way, I picked up a black coffee and a croissant from a tiny coffee shop full of man buns and cut off shorts. One man bun behind the counter tried to sell me a vegan muffin and the glare I fixed on him sent him scurrying to the back room. The morning breeze felt cool, but not crisp the way it surely did in New York City, fall beginning to make itself known. Autumn in the city was my favorite time of year, but I didn’t know what to expect from Chicago. I’d never lived in the Midwest. I’d bounced around from foster home to foster home all over New York, but I’d rarely travelled out of the state.
The building Sabella ran his security business out of was one of many identical glass skyscrapers in the business distract. The revolving doors in the lobby never seemed to stop spinning with people flowing in and out of the building constantly. The email I’d been sent said the mail room was in the basement, so I walked through the black and white lobby, past silver chandeliers and a glass reception desk, and rode the elevator down to the cement dungeon that was the basement. The elevator doors opened, and directly across the narrow hallway, beneath a flickering fluorescent, was a wooden door with a black sign nailed to the middle that read “Mail Room.” I knocked.
“Come in.”
I pushed open the door and an elderly black man with vibrant white hair and stooped shoulders looked up at me. His mouth was pulled down at the edges, but his eyes were wide and curious.
“Gabriel,” I said, pointing to myself. “I work here. First day.”
He nodded. “I’m Mr. Yancey. Welcome to the mail room.”
Mr. Yancey wore a pair of loose wool pants with clear pleats running down the front, scuffed brown penny loafers, and a short-sleeved white shirt untucked. Immediately, I felt like I’d made the right fashion choice for the day.
“There really isn’t much to the job. The mail is left on metal carts next to the door to the alley, we wheel it in to this room and sort through it according to floor then office space then last names, and then we wheel it out. In the afternoon, we package outgoing mail, slap a shipping label on it, and leave it on the same metal carts next to the door to the alley. Got it?”
Although, I had no idea where the door to the alley was, which office spaces were on which floors, or how to print out a shipping label, I nodded.
“Good. The morning mail will be here any minute. You can go get it.”
I had barely even stepped in the door, and Mr. Yancey was sending me away.
“The job posting didn’t mention anything about me answering to anyone,” I said. “Are you a supervisor?”
He looked up at me, his milky eyes narrowed. “We operate on seniority down here. Now, I didn’t come out of retirement to hold anybody’s hand. Can you figure out how to roll a cart or not?”
I wanted to tell the old man to drop dead but based on the unnatural curve of his fingers and the milky color of his eyes, I was worried the insult would hit a little too close to home.
The door slammed behind me as I left, saying what I wanted to say more clearly than I could have. I had a few weeks to gather the info on Richard Sabella’s operations, so really, it wasn’t so bad to have a reason to wander around the building.
I got back into the elevator I’d just exited and rode it up to the lobby. I’d seen a large directory of every office in the building on the wall next to the reception desk and I wanted to take a picture of it for reference.
The woman sitting behind the reception desk had a sleek black ponytail and bright red lips. She smiled as I approached, her teeth a violent shade of white.
