by S. Massery
I shudder.
The fourth morning, I find a notepad and pen and sit on the floor of Aiden’s bedroom. I sketch the skyline, frowning at the view. It’s nice enough, if you like skyscrapers. Or heights. Or a lack of fresh air.
I tilt my head when I realize a banging noise is drifting toward me. It takes another few moments to put together that someone’s at the door.
“Oh, shit,” I murmur, scrambling to my feet.
I hurry downstairs and look through the peephole. A woman raps her knuckles against Aiden’s door without pause.
I take a quick step back. My hair is wet—thank you, shower number fifty-seven—and I had pulled on a pair of Aiden’s sweatpants and t-shirt. The shirt smells like him, but more like the laundry detergent. It made me a little less apprehensive about wearing his stuff.
The sweatpants are giant on me, so I’ve rolled the waistband and the cuffs at least three times.
One might say I look like a homeless person squatting in Aiden’s apartment.
“I know you’re in there,” the woman calls. “Did he tell you not to open the door?”
I hesitate, then say, “Yes.”
She scoffs. “He’s an ass. I’m Cat, one of his cousins. And you’re Gemma?”
I unlock the door and crack it open, keeping my foot against it in case she tries to force her way in. She’s pretty, with long dark-brown hair and tanned skin. She’s taller than me by a few inches.
She frowns. “What on earth…?”
I stay silent. Frankly, I’m not sure what the proper etiquette is here, anyway. Smile and pretend like our families don’t hate each other? I’m all too aware of Aiden’s threat—that if I leave this apartment, I’m vulnerable.
“Cat,” she repeats, like I forgot. “Why did Aiden take in a West?”
Her tone doesn’t seem aggressive. Not even upset. Just openly curious.
And it would be nice to talk to someone other than Aiden.
I pull the door open farther, stepping back to allow her inside. “Why does Aiden do anything?” I reply.
She snickers. “That’s true.”
“How did you find out I was here?”
Cat goes to the center of the room, dropping her purse on the kitchen counter. “Sam is my brother,” she says. “He mentioned Aiden had lost his mind over a pretty enemy.”
I narrow my eyes.
“Then again,” she continues, sitting on the edge of an armchair, “it took him a few days to mention that you were here, stuck in Aiden’s apartment. Did you bewitch him?”
“No.” I cross my arms. “Did you come just to question me?”
She lifts one shoulder. “Maybe. So, Gemma West, tell me about you.”
I shake my head and pour myself a cup of coffee. “I don’t think so.” Some details should be private, and I’m still trying to figure out her motive. I’m not some spectacle to be stared at. I return to the couch and smile as sweetly as I can. “Why don’t you tell me your life story?”
She pauses a beat, then raises her hands. “Okay, I see your point.”
“Thank you.”
“So you and Aiden met and just… hit it off?”
“He says we’re getting married,” I inform her. I’ve always been a fan of the shock factor—it tends to get genuine reactions out of people. Well, the only people I’ve tested that theory on was family… Still. “It was very sudden.”
I suppose if I tell people, he can’t decide to kill me before the ceremony. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s used to dealing with the scourge of the city. I’m nothing compared to those people. Maybe even too easy in contrast.
It takes me a moment to realize Cat is silently choking on her laughter.
“Let me in on the joke,” I say drily.
“Sorry,” she gasps, wiping under her eyes. “God. I’ve known Aiden since I was a baby. He’s always sort of terrified me. The idea of him settling down with… well, with you? You look sweet and innocent, and he’s anything but that.”
“Yeah, well.” I glance away. “I’m not.”
I totally am.
She sighs. “And he left you up here because he was worried how our family would react, I’d bet. He’s breaking practically all the rules. Did you meet his father?”
I settle back and push away the one time I met Jameson. It was one time too many, if you ask me. “Unfortunately, yes.”
She shudders. “Sam and I are lucky. Our mom is Jameson’s youngest sister, and she managed to stay mostly out of the life. She moved back to Italy when we were six, left us with our dad. Dad… well, he’s a diehard DeSantis fan, if you know what I mean. She just couldn’t deal with the fact that he’d pick the family over her, and he wouldn’t let her take us to Italy. So she left us with him.”
“Does he help Jameson?”
Her gaze flickers away, then back. “Well, he’s one of the captains. Leads a crew when stuff gets brutal, enforces policies, et cetera. We’d been in peaceful times up until Wilder was killed. He was happy just collecting debt on the street and earning his pension.”
I grunt.
“Who was it?” she asks suddenly. “A cousin looking to prove himself? Some overeager hotshot? Or maybe your brother?”
I tense, and a slimy feeling crawls up my throat.
I wish I knew. Except, I really don’t. Sometimes being left in the dark is safer than harboring the truth.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” I say. I’m done with this pseudo-interrogation.
Her eyes widen.
“Now.” I stand and point to the door.
She leaves without saying anything, and I exhale in the sudden silence. My mother, rest her soul, would berate me for treating a guest like that.
She wasn’t a guest—she’s just another snake.
I just need more reminders that I’m far from home. Kicking Cat out is not how I’m going to make friends—or survive. I can’t just slam the door shut when someone asks me about my family. Deep down, I know they’re going to ask. They have to. It’s their duty just as figuring them out is turning into mine. Some sort of sick curiosity and fascination… and maybe a bit of revulsion.
Everyone talks about peace, but there’s still been bloodshed.
Dad kept me ignorant of the business. He wanted me to be a carefree child, to live happily. And I was happy… until Mom died eighteen months ago.
Thinking of her hurts. Old wounds rip open. She was the best person I knew. She was dangerously smart, but with good intentions. Dad relied on her input, cherished her. He loved her.
We all did.
I lock the door and press my back to it, sliding down. I bring my knees in and hug my legs. Mom would know what to do, or how to get out of this. She’d probably tell me to look at this as a good thing. To learn something new, to expand my world view.
No thanks.
I long for our Brooklyn house, for the coziness our home managed to provide. It was old. It creaked whenever anyone went up or down the stairs, and the attic had one of those pull-down ladders. It was impossibly drafty in the winter. But I had seventeen years of holidays and birthdays with both parents, parties in our backyard.
And after I turned sixteen, I didn’t spend much time there, anyway. I was tucked away in Manhattan, where Dad believed I was safer.
Too many houses, and none of them fit me anymore.
Still, I didn’t think leaving would be this difficult.
“This was your choice,” I remind myself, if only to break the silence.
Sometimes it cloys on my tongue until my stomach spins, and a scream builds up behind my teeth. No one would care if I screamed here. They wouldn’t come running.
I open and close my mouth, and ultimately decide against it.
To scream would be to give in, and I am stronger than that.
Resolve fills me. I’ll figure out Aiden DeSantis’s game—maybe I’ll even sabotage it. But what I won’t do is surrender. He can marry me. He can try to control me. And I’ll just wait for t
he perfect moment to take everything I know back to my father.
6
Aiden
Sam appears beside me. He’s a quiet fucker when he wants to be, and right now is all about silence. He’s joined me in the control room of the shipping yard, but he isn’t looking at the monitors like I am. His gaze bores into my back.
“What?” I snap.
I’m in a foul mood. Our container was empty—left untouched once discovered, per my instructions—but no evidence of a break-in. The two padlocks were intact, with no signs of scraping that picks usually leave behind.
It’s supposed to be inspected upon arrival, go through customs, and collect paperwork for it to enter the United States, then be cleared for pick-up. The harbormaster has been in our debt for years. Father allowed him to live, even when he owed us nearly five hundred thousand dollars. Any other man, in any other position, would’ve had their hand cut off. A broken kneecap, maybe. Or death—strung up in his shipyard, left for dead on the streets for the crows… The possibilities were endless.
Instead, he received a warning.
We’ve been collecting what’s due to our family slowly, funneling our legal and less-than-legal shipments through this port. Our harbormaster has always greased the wheels and cut through the red tape for us.
It never failed before, and I’m not certain it failed now.
“What are you going to do with him?” Sam finally asks.
I glance at the harbormaster. Even if he’s not guilty, he deserves a little terror in his life. He’s hogtied and gagged, face down on the ground. Not injured, but I think he pissed himself when I shoved him to his belly and placed my knee on his back. Other than the quiet trembling, he hasn’t tried to plead for his life. Nothing.
Whether that means he knows he’s a dead man or just knows how we operate is what I’m currently speculating.
“I haven’t decided.”
The harbormaster groans, trying to inch away from us.
I crouch next to him and pull my blade from its sheath. I drag the point down his temple, and he stills. The whites of his eyes are bloodshot, lips pale. His skin is a sickly shade of green, and he can’t decide whether he wants to watch it or me.
I press the knife into his cheek and rip the gag down. “Tell me again, Martin.”
He heaves. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
The knife cuts into his skin, and a trickle of blood runs down his face. It gives the appearance of red tears, but I shove that weird thought away.
“Who could get into our container?” Same question, new hour. “Who had a key besides you?”
“Just Jimmy, our customs officer, but he knows not to touch yours. He’s good people. I swear. Worked here for years and years. We went to school together.” He rolls onto his side, trying to get away from me. His back hits the wall. “I don’t know more than that, man. My wife—”
Everyone plays the wife card. The family card.
I have a wife, kids, please don’t hurt me.
I don’t give a shit. If their husband or dad has gone so far off the path of good and ordinary to be dealing with me, then chances are strong that they don’t deserve the wife or kids. What kind of man goes half a mil into debt with the Mafia and lives to tell about it?
What kind of man puts his family through that?
“Jimmy and you,” I repeat. “That’s it? Think.”
“I swear to God, Aiden—”
I stuff the rag roped around his head back into his mouth.
“Maybe an eye would be decent payment, since you should’ve been watching.” I pause.
He lets out a muffled wail, his feet smacking the floor.
“Do you think he takes me seriously, Sam?” I’ve about lost my patience with this whole mission. And them. This shitstorm could’ve been avoided if people did their goddamn jobs, and if Luca was around to help me enforce it.
The harbormaster had the audacity to ask me what we were bringing in the other week.
Well, it wasn’t drugs like he suspected. He stepped right over the line and accused us of it, actually.
Not drugs, but there were enough firearms hidden in the container to bring down Brooklyn. And we’re taking a hit on this either way.
Our buyers won’t give us the money back. Whoever stole them might be selling at cost when we don’t come through.
Fucking Wests.
This has their name written all over it.
A vile smell fills the small room, and I grimace. His piss is worse the second time around.
“I think he takes you seriously, boss,” Sam replies.
I shove at Martin and rise. “Get him the fuck away from me.”
I’ll deal with him later.
Sam cuts the harbormaster’s feet free and hauls him up. The man can barely stand, but my friend isn’t known for being gentle. He guides him down the steep stairs and away.
Finally, silence.
I take shallow breaths and rewind the tapes farther. I’ve gone back in increments from Sam cracking open the shipping container at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, two days ago. There was a buzz of people around, ready to unload. When cargo ships arrive, the whole yard seems to come alive. A giant crane unloads them, sometimes in stacks, other times directly onto the backs of waiting trucks.
That sort of energy is good. Productive.
This, however, is a whole bunch of stale air.
My phone rings, and I don’t speak after I hit the green accept button.
“Report,” my father commands.
I glare at the ceiling. “I have jack shit. The harbormaster swears he didn’t see anything. Surveillance is flimsy at best. My leads are dwindling.” It’s been three days of trying to figure this out.
“Failure is unacceptable.”
“Right. I haven’t—”
“And your glowing bride-to-be?” His voice is insufferable. “Where did you leave her?”
“She’s out of the way.” I rub my eyes. The smell of piss is overwhelming in here.
I move to go outside, but something on the screen catches my attention.
Nothing more than a silhouette of a person slipping down the aisle between containers in the middle of the night—but it’s something. More than I had before. They’re headed for the DeSantis container.
“I’ve got to go.” I hang up before he can respond. I’ll catch flak for it later. He’ll probably come up with some inane punishment for disobedience, but that will stall when I show him something. Proof, if I can obtain it.
Well, I just won’t return until I have evidence.
I click around, bringing up the other camera views. The person remains a shadow, vanishing around a corner. And I lose them.
“Fuck,” I mutter. I take a quick picture of the time stamp, then shut down the screens and step outside.
I have a harbormaster who was supposed to be under our thumb asking too many questions, a missing shipment of expensive marble, handcrafted tiles, and the firearms that would’ve greased our bank accounts for months. And now a mysterious person on one camera of dozens.
Ridiculous.
“You okay?” Dr. Matthews asks from below me.
I squint. “Why are you here?”
“I came to talk to you about Gemma.”
I trot down the steps and blow past the doctor. “No offense, Doc, but I don’t have time for this.”
“Your brother kept a girl hostage, don’t you recall?”
My rage has been stewing for days, and I don’t want it to boil over in front of the doctor. He’d probably just bring it back around to my father. So I ball my fists and pivot slowly. He must see what I’m trying to hold back, because he takes a step away.
“I’m worried you’re going to get home and find her dead,” he says. “You know your family.”
I laugh. “I do, and I’m the worst of the lot.”
“Do they know she has your protection?” He lifts one shoulder. “Her burn concerns me, and you’re out here—”
<
br /> I growl, and he clamps his mouth shut.
“I’m out here doing my job. Trying to find my brother’s killer, which has proven next to impossible, and now there are more fires to put out. So the West princess can stay in her tower until I return. If you’re so worried about her, check on her.” I raise my eyebrow. “Or maybe you’re worried the family will turn on you?”
He bows his head. “I’ll check in on her.”
When he doesn’t say anything else, I nod curtly and continue on my way. The doctor is a good man—one of the better ones I know, anyway. Loyal to a fault, practices smart medicine. He cares about his patients and doesn’t usually let something like ethics get in the way.
Or, perhaps he’s aware that there would be a lot more damage caused if he wasn’t there to patch us back up.
I can’t imagine my father in a hospital. I almost didn’t have to imagine it, if Wilder had made it that far.
Died in the ambulance. Sudden and shocking. The bullet didn’t kill him as quickly as it should’ve. It shredded his heart just enough to cause pain, but it still beat. Ten minutes, maybe longer. Then, flatline.
Sam waits for me at my truck, a rag in his hand.
“Well?” I demand.
He shrugs. “Started begging for his life as soon as you were out of earshot. I think he just wants to go home.”
I sigh. “Fine. Have someone watch him. One step out of place, and we pull him back in.”
He nods.
I hand him a radio. “He can sit for a while. Right now, I need you to do something for me.”
He perks up, until I lay out my plan. Then he becomes slightly less thrilled.
But I don’t really give a fuck. This is part of the job.
Sam climbs back up to the control booth, and I wind my way between shipping containers.
“There,” he says over the radio, along with a burst of static.
Not sure what the hell there is, so I crane my head and glare at the camera.
“I see you,” he says.
I lift the radio to my mouth. “No shit. Which way?”
Sam guides me down the stacks, following the path our mystery figure took. I don’t know if that person is involved—I’m just going on intuition. And part of intuition is follow through.
