by Zoey Parker
Leo appeared to give this some thought, then shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah, I guess you're right. That was a dumb idea on my part, and red roses are pretty hokey.” He took the bouquet back and casually dropped it into a nearby trash can. “When it's time to bring you back to your place, we can stop by a flower shop and find something that suits you better. That way, you can toss them in a vase as soon as you get home instead of lugging them around all evening like you're someone's prom date. Sound good?”
Stef raised her eyebrows. Who was this guy? He seemed completely unflappable.
“Sure, whatever,” Stef said. “Let's just go to dinner and get this over with.”
As they started to walk down the street, Max sidled up to Silvio. Their feet got tangled together, and before Stef knew what was happening, Silvio started to fall forward. Max moved in quickly, catching Silvio before he could hit the ground and lifting him back up again.
“Whoa! Are you guys okay?” Leo asked.
Max tried to brush off Silvio's lapels, but Silvio shoved him away, snarling. “You just tripped me. On purpose.”
“Hey, come on, I'm sure that's not true,” Leo assured him, turning to Max. “You didn't trip him, did you?”
Max shook his head.
“There, see? It was probably just a crack in the sidewalk or something,” said Leo.
Silvio's glassy black eyes were locked onto Max. “First you trip me, and then you call me a liar, you disgusting whale? What's the matter with you?”
Max bristled, his pudgy fingers curling into fists.
“There's no need for that kind of talk,” Leo said. “Let's just stay calm, all right? No one's calling anyone a liar. Max doesn't seem to think he tripped you, and if he did, it must have been an accident. Whichever it is, it's fine, there's no harm done, and it's no reason to ruin our night. People trip all the time. Let's just shake it off and head to the restaurant like adults.”
Silvio clenched his teeth, nodding slowly. “Fine. Just make sure it doesn't happen again.”
Leo laughed. “Sure, tough guy. I'll wave my magic wand and make sure you don't trip on any more loose bricks between here and dinner. You should loosen up, you know that?”
Stef tried to hide her surprise, but she was astonished. She had never seen anyone so openly unafraid of Silvio before.
Forty minutes later, Stef was sitting across a table from Leo at Laveau's Bistro on Ursulines Avenue. She morosely rearranged the salad on her plate, not bothering to eat any of it. Leo eagerly devoured a platter of crawfish etouffee over rice. Max and Silvio sat at a nearby table, surveying the room for potential threats.
“Aren't you going to eat anything?” asked Leo, looking at her plate. “This is a dinner date, after all.”
“No,” she replied woodenly. “I don't want you to think I'm a pig who's going to gain weight after we get married.”
Leo looked confused. “I'm not sure if you're trying to insult me or yourself or what, but seriously, you should eat whatever you want. You're already skinny. No one's going to judge you for having a decent meal.”
Stef stole a glance at Silvio, knowing he'd report back to her mother at the end of the night. “No, thanks. I'm fine.”
“Suit yourself. So, what do you like to do for fun?” The spicy, enticing aroma of Leo's meal made Stef's stomach grumble painfully. If he heard, he pretended not to notice.
“What difference does it make?” she sighed.
“Well, kind of a big difference, actually. See, I happen to think it's important to communicate and determine mutual areas of interest during a first date, just to figure out whether there should be a second one. If I wanted to sit across from someone who doesn't talk and doesn't eat, I'd go out with a mannequin.”
“So why don't you, then?” Stef snapped.
Leo looked genuinely puzzled and hurt. “I'm afraid I'm a little perplexed, here. Did I do something to piss you off? Because if I did, I apologize. I mean, this date wasn't even my idea. Your father thought we might hit it off, so—”
“He doesn't care if we hit it off or not,” she answered. “Let me venture a guess, Leo: You've got something my father wants, right? Some new way for him to make more money.”
“I, uh, guess I do, actually,” Leo said uncomfortably. “I'm not really supposed to talk about it...”
“That's fine, because I don't want to hear about it. Drugs, guns, political connections...I don't care about any of it, because it all amounts to the same thing. The bottom line is, this is a transaction for him, nothing more. He doesn't care if I like you or hate you. He'll still sell me to you.”
“Jeez, that's pretty rough,” Leo said gently. “I'm sorry. That's awful, truly. My father's in the family business too, but he never treated me like that.”
“Yeah, well, it must be nice to be born a boy instead of a girl.”
Leo thought for a moment, then put down his fork and reached into his pocket, flipping a couple of bills onto the table. He stood up. “Come on, let's go.”
“Where?”
“I'm going to take you home,” Leo said. “I had no idea you were doing this against your will. If you don't want to be on a date with me, you shouldn't have to be.” He gestured to Max, who stood up too. Silvio followed suit.
“But...what are you going to tell my father?” The idea of Benny blaming her for cutting their date short made her feel uneasy.
Leo shrugged. “I can tell him whatever you want. I'll blame myself, tell him I was too distracted about my dad to have fun with you tonight. I warned him that might happen anyway. Now I can see why he didn't listen, what with him trying to marry you off and everything. Christ, I feel terrible about this whole thing.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Why would you be distracted by your dad?”
Leo waved her off. “Doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. Let's just call it a night.”
Stef followed Leo outside, with Max and Silvio right behind them. She didn't know how to react to all of this. The other men Benny had set her up with seemed to know that she was being dangled in front of them as a prize, but they hadn't cared. By contrast, Leo seemed genuinely unnerved by it.
Could he be different from the others after all?
As they started down the street, they heard an engine roaring toward them. A large black van pulled up with “Voodoo Devils – War Chariot” painted on the side. The side door slid open and eight bikers got out. Stef had never seen any members of the Voodoo Devils MC before, but she'd heard her father mention them in passing when discussing business, and the patches on their leather vests identified them clearly. Their leader wore tags which said “Skull” and “President.”
And they were all carrying sawed-off shotguns.
“Get down, Stef!” Leo yelled, pushing her to the ground behind a parked car. He drew a handgun from his shoulder holster, and Max and Silvio did the same, leveling their weapons at the bikers. The other people on the street were already screaming and fleeing in terror. Inside the restaurant, the diners who were seated near the windows ducked under their tables or ran toward the kitchen in the back.
“This is for ripping us off, you goddamn dago cocksuckers!” Skull hollered. “We're taking the big man's daughter as payback!”
A moment later, both sides were blasting at each other. Their gunshots split the air like thunderclaps, and Stef pressed her palms against her ears, trying to catch a glimpse of the shootout through the car's windows.
She'd never seen anything like it before outside of a movie. The air was full of gun smoke, and muzzle flashes flickered like lightning. The Devils were firing wildly—it looked like they were trying to blanket the entire area with buckshot, but they didn't seem to be hitting much.
Max and Silvio fired from partial cover behind the parked car. Stef saw one of Max's shots hit a biker high in the shoulder, while one of Silvio's bullets connected with another biker's leg, sending him to the ground. Blood spattered and spurted on the pavement under the Devils.
&nbs
p; But Leo wasn't taking any cover. He stood his ground firmly as though he were invulnerable to gunfire, aiming carefully with each shot. He put two bullets squarely into a fat biker's chest, then two more in another biker's stomach. Both of them fell to the ground immediately—Stef wasn't sure, but they looked dead.
Skull looked at the fallen bikers, howling with rage. “You fucking bastard! You killed Bumper and Panda!”
“And now I'm going to kill you, meathead,” Leo responded calmly.
He squeezed the trigger, and a red hole appeared in the center of Skull's forehead. The biker dropped to the pavement.
“Fuck, they wasted Skull!” one of the other Devils yelled. “Let's get the hell out of here!”
The bikers who were still able to stand collected their fallen comrades, including the dead bodies, and dragged them back into the van. The side door slid shut behind them and the van drove away, its tires screeching loudly.
“Are you all right?” Leo asked, crouching down to examine Stef. “Did you get hit?”
“No, I'm fine,” Stef said. But her entire body was trembling, and her mind was clanging with incoherent terror. “Those men...they were going to...”
“It's okay, they won't be coming after you anymore,” Leo assured her. He turned to Silvio. “Max and I will get her out of here before the cops show up. You should report back to Benny and let him know she's safe.”
Silvio hesitated for a moment. “Shouldn't she come with me? Don Altamura will want to make sure she's protected.”
“She will be, I promise. But you were just seen inside the restaurant, and if the cops decide to round you up for questioning, she shouldn't be with you. No one in town knows me, so I can keep her off the grid for a few hours until the heat dies down. Now go! We don't have time to debate this.”
Silvio nodded and ran off.
“Come on, let's get you someplace safe so you can relax,” Leo said, offering her a hand. She took it and he lifted her to her feet. They hurried off down a side alley with Max loping along behind them.
“You saved my life,” said Stef, her voice quivering. “I can't believe it. You saved my life.”
“Aw, it's just what any guy would have done. No big deal. Are you sure you're okay? You must be real shaken up.”
“I'll be all right,” she breathed. “I just have a bad taste in my mouth, that's all.”
“Like copper, right?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“That's the adrenaline,” he replied, smiling. “It happens to everyone. Luckily, I know just the thing to help with that.”
Chapter 10
Stef
Thirty minutes later, Stef was sitting at a small table in Leo's hotel room, eagerly wolfing down a shrimp sandwich and french fries from Johnny's Po-Boys. Leo watched her, amused. Max stood in the corner with his hands folded in front of his belly.
“It looks like you haven't had any real food to eat in a year,” Leo commented wryly.
“Try fifteen years,” Stef replied, moaning with delight between huge bites. “My mother's been slapping my hand away from food since I was about six years old. She said I had to lose my baby fat. Wow, this stuff is so good.”
“Well, your mother ain't here, so go nuts. Don't forget your milkshake.”
Stef immediately snatched the milkshake and put her lips around the straw, drinking over half of it at once. Then she put it down, her hand going to her forehead as she frowned.
“Ow. Ow! Gosh, it feels like someone just shoved an ice pick into my head! What is that?”
“It's just a brain freeze,” Leo said. “It happens when you gulp down ice cream too quickly. It'll go away in a second or two. Jesus, you weren't kidding, were you? Your parents really never let you eat stuff like this? Ever?”
Stef shook her head, returning to her sandwich. “They want me skinny. Easier to marry me off that way.”
Leo's cell phone rang, and he answered it. “Yeah?”
Stef could hear her father's voice. She'd never heard him speak so loudly before, or sound so worried. “Leo! Silvio just told me what happened. Is Stef okay?”
“Stef is perfectly fine, Benny,” Leo replied smoothly. “I've got her, she's completely safe. I know how shaken up you must be.”
“Those biker animals! I can't believe they would attack my daughter. By God, I'll make them pay. I'll hunt down every last one of them, and—”
“I doubt you'll have to worry about them anymore, at least for a good long while,” Leo said. “We've butted heads with our share of these motorcycle types up in Toronto, so I know how they tend to operate. I took out their president, and a few of their other guys too. They'll need time to regroup, elect a new prez, and take on some new members before they'll be in any position to show their faces around here again. They're like wolves. When they're rolling with a pack, they're big and scary, but smack their leader in the nose hard enough and they'll run off with their tails between their legs.”
Stef realized that she'd stopped chewing—she was staring at Leo, taking in his every word. The more time she spent with him, the more fascinating he seemed. First he'd defended her against the bikers so fearlessly that they may as well have been lobbing tomatoes at him instead of shotgun blasts. Then he fed her and took care of her, so she wouldn't be so scared. And now he was talking to her father calmly and confidently, as though they were equals. She'd never heard anyone do that before. When it came to Benny, most men were frightened, or at least subservient.
Leo saw that she was looking at him and flashed her a reassuring smile as her father spoke again.
“My contacts in the police department went to investigate the scene. They didn't find any dead bikers. Are you positively certain that you killed them?”
“Oh, definitely,” Leo said. “Like I said, I've dealt with these types before. They're a lot more sentimental than you think. We saw them pick up the dead bodies and load them into their van before they ran off...probably so they could give them a proper burial, pour whiskey out over their graves, all that shit. But believe me, they're out of your hair for the foreseeable future.”
“Thank you, Leo. For what you've done for me and my family tonight, I promise that you will have my everlasting gratitude. Where are you now? I'll send my men to come and retrieve Stefania.”
“I'll tell you what,” Leo said, looking at his watch. “Have your guys meet us at the corner of Basin and Iberville in one hour.”
“I will. And again, thank you.”
“No need to thank me,” Leo said, ending the call.
“Why an hour?” Stef asked. “That corner is right outside.”
“Well, based on everything you've told me about your old man so far, I figured you could use a little break before having to deal with him again,” Leo explained with a grin.
In that moment, Stef felt her fascination with Leo give way to utter infatuation. She'd been prepared to write him off as no different from the other men her father had set her up with, but he'd surprised her at every turn. How did he understand her needs and emotions so well? How could someone in the same line of work as her father be so generous, thoughtful, and compassionate?
As Stef picked up her sandwich again, she realized that her hands were shaking. Leo saw them too.
“I must still be a little keyed-up,” she admitted.
“That's totally natural after what you've been through,” Leo said. He turned to Max. “Hey, there's a diner across the street. Sit outside, grab a cup of coffee, and shoot me a text when her people show up, okay?”
Max raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to one side, looking at Leo quizzically.
“Go on, it'll be fine,” Leo insisted.
Max sighed, shook his head, and lumbered out of the room, closing the door behind him. Stef heard his short, heavy steps going down the hall.
“I figure it'll be easier for you to relax without him standing in the corner,” Leo said. “Here, let me see if I can help you loosen up a bit.”
Leo stood behind her chair and put his hands on her shoulders, kneading them. A moan escaped her lips before she even realized it was coming. His hands were so soft, yet his touch was firm and sure. He seemed to know exactly where and how she wanted to be caressed and massaged. She wondered what his hands would feel like on the rest of her body.
“Golly, that feels amazing,” Stef said, closing her eyes and arching her neck.
“Yeah, I thought this might do the trick. Your shoulders are lovely. Very responsive.” His hand moved to the nape of her neck, squeezing it. Stef felt something quiver deep in her stomach in response to the sublime pressure of his fingers.
