by Portia Moore
“Oh, she won’t be,” Vincent says firmly, and I feel my heart leap in my chest with happiness. I throw my arms around him, giving him a tight, quick hug. “Thank you so much!” I tell him, overflowing with happiness. I’m suddenly grateful for whatever idiot kids were poking around the house, even if they did scare Erin. It gives me an excuse to stay here with her, just like I’d planned to ask.
“I’ll just stay until my parents can get back, and then I’ll get back to you in New York as soon as I can….”
My voice trails off as I see his face harden imperceptibly, so slightly that no one but me probably notices. But I know his expressions intimately now, and I know exactly what that means—I’ve misunderstood somehow or said something wrong.
“Thank you, Brenda,” he tells the neighbor without looking at me again. “I’ll take the girls back to the house now, but I appreciate you looking out for them.”
He says nothing until he has us back at the house, and I see him wrinkle his nose slightly as we walk into the living room with the faded couches and ottoman and outdated television set. He turns to Erin almost as soon as we’re inside, still ignoring me entirely.
“Erin, how would you feel about coming to stay with us in New York?”
My heart starts to race again, but for an entirely different reason. No, no, no! This isn’t the plan! “Erin has school,” I remind Vincent quickly. “Mom wanted her to stay here for exactly that reason because she doesn’t want her education disrupted….”
Vincent’s eyes go cold, but before he can say anything to me, Erin quickly bursts into the conversation, her eyes wide and excited.
“At most, there’s only a month left of this school year!” she says quickly. “And with the circumstances with our dad, I’m sure my teachers would work with me, Rain. They did for my friend Kaitlyn when her grandma was really sick last year. They can do remote stuff now, and I can get all my assignments done online.”
Vincent’s face lights up with satisfaction at that. Erin looks as if she’s about to burst with excitement, and all I feel is sick and dizzy, so much so that I have to sit down on the ottoman.
“I’m sure it will work out just fine,” Vincent says smoothly, looking at us both. “In fact, I’ll call the school in the morning and discuss it.”
I might be sick and throw up right here. Vincent would love that.
“I need to talk to our parents about this first,” I say quickly, but Vincent waves a hand.
“I’m sure they’ll agree,” he says with that same charming smile, and he’s right. My mother wouldn’t tell him no for anything at this point. “The house was broken into, and the last thing your mother needs is something else to worry about. This will take one concern off of her shoulders, and I know how much that means to you, Poppy.” He smiles at me, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “And besides, that means Erin will get to celebrate your birthday with you, Poppy. Won’t that be nice?”
My birthday. With everything going on, I’d completely forgotten about it. I’m going to be twenty-one, finally legal--not that it matters. Vincent has exposed me to things and experiences that most thirty-year-olds haven’t had, and I can’t help but feel years older.
Erin squeals with excitement as Vincent asks her if she’s ever been to New York. He knows she hasn’t, of course.
“No, I haven’t!” Erin says excitedly, and Vincent pulls her down onto the couch to sit next to him. “It’s one of the best places on Earth,” he tells her. “You can get anything you want there, any time of day or night. You and Poppy can see anything in the city you want. I can get us into shows on Broadway and meet the actors. I can take you and your sister to some of the best restaurants. What’s your favorite food?”
Erin hesitates. The most expensive place she’s been to is probably Olive Garden, and Vincent knows it.
“I like seafood,” she says slowly. “And Italian.”
“I own a five-star Italian place. It’s where I took your sister for our first date. I’ll take you both there; it’ll be the best food you’ve ever had in your life. And there’s a Mediterranean restaurant where the fish is so tender it’ll make you cry, and sushi….”
I stop listening. I know now this is a done deal. It doesn’t matter what protests might come from the principal at the school or from my parents, Vincent will overcome them all. He’s already promised Erin the moon, and I know he’ll give it to her. There’s no chance of my stopping this. Erin’s coming to New York with us, instead of me staying here with her. I sit with a plastered smile on my face as the hope I had of getting away from him, having time to think and make a plan, dies right in front of me.
I feel numb and completely hopeless. I glance at Erin, who is looking at him as if he’s her big brother who came home to whisk her away from all this. I wonder if I looked as starry-eyed when he promised me the world--without revealing what I’d have to pay for it.
10
Zach
The spot Sonya has picked is a trendy, upscale bar in downtown Chicago. As promised, she has a driver pick me up and drop me off, and the moment I walk in, a smiling hostess directs me to a private table.
I immediately feel out of place. I dressed up for the occasion, but not too much, keeping in mind the sort of background I’m supposed to be coming from. I picked black fitted slacks and a blue button-down with my best shoes, but the way Sonya is dressed puts me to shame. She’s sitting at the side of the table, long bronzed legs crossed, wearing a gold metallic sheath dress that stops mid-thigh and clings to her every curve. It’s high-necked and sleeveless, not showing off anything but her toned arms and long legs. It’s one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen, and it’s clear that she knows it. Her long black hair is straight and shining, falling down her back, and she’s wearing long diamond earrings.
Behind her are her two bodyguards, like statues up against the wall, impassive and unmoving. She looks like a queen, waiting for me to approach.
She stands the moment I walk up to the table, grasping my forearms and kissing me on the cheek. “I’m glad you made it, Chase,” she says with a smile, as if I’m an old friend that she’s happy to see instead of how she usually looks at me—with a mix of curiosity and superiority. As if I had an option as to whether or not to show up.
“I ordered for us already,” she continues, sitting down gracefully. “But you’re welcome to get anything you like. It’s on me.”
I smile at her, that charming smile I turn on at the bar that always works so well, and settle into my chair. “I’m sure you know exactly what I want,” I say, with a hint of flirtation. I’m in the game now, so all I can do is play.
Her dark eyes meet mine, and I’m suddenly super aware of how full her lips are, crimson with lipstick.
“Are you ambitious?” she asks with a perfectly arched brow and a mischievous smile. I wait until after the waitress drops off our drinks—a martini for her and an old-fashioned for me. She sips at the cold glass, setting it down and meeting my eyes.
“I am,” I admit. “But I’m patient, too.”
She considers this, sliding her finger around the damp rim of her glass. “Success can be a fickle thing. Sometimes it requires impulsiveness, sometimes restraint. You have both?”
“I’ll do whatever the job takes,” I assure her, taking a sip of my drink.
“I was impressed with how you handled the robbery,” she continues. “I can’t think of many people that would have done what you did. You didn’t stop to worry about the consequences of breaking into the office, or whether you should confront them, or even your safety. You protected the club and me, and you did what had to be done.” She pauses. “What is your comfort level with that kind of work? Is this something you think you could do outside of a crisis?”
I smile at her, forcing myself not to chuckle. She has no idea. “It feels like home.”
She finishes her martini as the waitress approaches again, setting down two plates in front of us with the same thing on both—a file
t with a side of sweet potatoes and roasted vegetables—as well as fresh drinks for us.
“I hope you like steak,” she says with a smile, reaching for her knife and fork. “This place serves one of the best filets in town.”
“I’ve never turned down a good steak,” I tell her honestly with a grin. I can’t wait to dig in. I can’t afford this shit with what I make with my cover or even my real salary.
“I have a party to go to tonight,” Sonya says as she slices off a tiny strip of the steak. “Would you like to accompany me?”
She says it as a question, but I know it’s an order.
“Sounds like a plan,” I answer promptly with an excited grin.
“Good,” she says with satisfaction.
After dinner, she pays the bill and finishes her drink, striding towards the door without a word. I follow her with her guards bringing up the rear. There’s a car waiting at the curb: a gleaming black Ferrari. I feel my fingers twitch just looking at it. If my career is my first love, that car is my mistress, and this one’s a fucking beauty.
She says something to her guards in a foreign language that sounds like Italian, and one of them looks less than pleased, but nods. She turns towards me and smiles. “Chase will drive me,” she says, in a voice that implies it’s less a request than a command, but I’m more than happy to do so.
“Fine with me,” I tell her, barely concealing my excitement. Fuck the party. I can’t believe I’m going to get to drive that Ferrari!
The leather is buttery-smooth, and the interior smells expensive. The moment I start it up, I can hear the purr of the engine, promising a good ride in the right hands. I touch the steering wheel almost reverently as Sonya slides into the seat next to me.
All of a sudden, I get a flash of a memory—Rain in my old car next to me, her giggle of excitement when I sped up, pushing the car to its limits.
I try to push the thought of her out of my head. I know she’ll invade my mind tonight the moment I close my eyes, but I have to keep her out right now.
“Where to?” I ask Sonya with a grin. She puts in the directions—some address in the ritziest part of town up north, the Gold Coast area of Chicago.
She doesn’t talk much on the ride, but I’d have had a hard time paying attention if she did. This might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I can feel her eyes on me as I drive. “You like it?” she asks with a touch of laughter in her voice. I flash her a confused grin. “Driving a car like this?”
“Who wouldn’t?” I glance over, unable to keep the grin off of my face.
“You’d be surprised at how close the things we dream of are if the right decisions are made.”
“It looks like you’ve made the right decisions,” I tell her with a laugh.
She pauses for a moment. “The question is, will you make the right ones?” she counters back with a glimmer of a smile.
The party is on the penthouse level of a high-rise. I have to fight to keep my expression neutral when we walk in. The entire place is decorated in modern art and expensive furniture that looks uncomfortable to sit on. Everything is gilded, with plush rugs on the gleaming floors and beautiful people standing around every square inch. I’ve never seen anything like it. The men are all wearing expensive suits, groomed, and holding drinks in crystal glasses. All the women are like Sonya—beautiful, slender, with perfect curves and gorgeous white-toothed smiles, expensive jewelry on their fingers and wrists and ears. Everyone has a drink in hand. Two women who look like supermodels are snorting lines of cocaine off of a glass-topped table in plain view, a man seated next to one of them with his hand on the neck of the girl next to him, massaging it as she snorts a line and then passes the rolled-up bill to the brunette next to her.
Sonya takes me up to the next level, to the rooftop with a massive pool and a wet bar. The deck is filled with people, while the pool is mostly full of girls in bikinis. Three of them are swimming nude, their bodies on full display in the water. I quickly look away. This is like a black hole that would be all too easy to get sucked into.
Sonya leads us to three men that I recognize from the night I served them champagne at the Palace with their underage companion.
There’s a different girl there with them tonight, this one a little older—maybe even of age, but if she is, it’s barely. She’s still blonde and waifish, wearing a tight emerald green dress that stops at the top of her thighs. She looks like a rabbit caught in a trap, her eyes wide and nervous, knowing that there’s no escape from what these men will want to do to her. Her expression is a little glassy, and I know then that they’ve gotten some kind of drug into her, something to make her more malleable, without enough spark to fight back.
It makes me feel sick, and I have to look away.
Sonya says something to the men in Italian again, glancing at me and then back at them, and they respond with the same. The oldest man—the one closest to the girl—gives me an assessing look that goes from forehead to toes and back up again. I keep my expression cool, meeting his eyes without any sort of emotion, just waiting for him to make a judgment—whatever it is that he’s looking for.
“Follow me,” the man says in English, turning towards a door near them that leads down the stairs into the penthouse. We follow him and the other two men, with the girl in tow, into an elevator. He hits the button for the basement, and I feel a chill run down my spine, but I’m careful not to show it. I simply stand there next to Sonya, silent and observing, but ready.
I wish I had my gun.
The basement is dark. When the man flips on the light switch as we step out, it takes my eyes a second to adjust. The girl cries out, and it only takes me a second to see why.
There’s a man in a chair in the center of the room, tied to it. His mouth is covered with duct tape, and I can tell he’s terrified by the way his eyes are bugging out.
“This is one of the men who tried to rob us earlier,” Sonya says as we approach. “The one you shot in the leg.” She looks at me, her eyes emotionless and direct. “It had to have been an inside job. We need the name of the one who tipped him off.”
My stomach drops to my feet. It all fits together then, what she asked me at the restaurant—how far I would be willing to go, what I would be willing to do. I know exactly what she and the others want from me. And I know I can’t refuse. If I do, at worst, I might wind up next to him. At best, I won’t make any more headway in the organization. I said I was the guy who could get things done, and this is my test, the chance they’re giving me to put truth to my words.
I hear the girl behind me whimpering, and one of the men hisses at her to shut up. I know why they’ve brought her down here with them; they want her to see what they’re capable of, what her future could be if she ever breathes a word of anything she might hear, if she fights back, if she says no. I feel my stomach churning like I might throw up, but I fight it down.
This is the job. This is what I have to do. They warned us about this at the academy, but I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.
There’s a table next to him with a knife, a gun, pliers, and other instruments I don’t even want to think about. I grab the knife and step forward. The man’s eyes fix onto mine, wide and pleading, and I can hear his muffled screams under the duct tape. I rip it off of his mouth, and before he can beg me not to, I drive the knife down into the muscle of his thigh, right above where I shot him this afternoon.
I hear his scream again, thin and reedy, and I look into his eyes, close enough to smell his breath, which is so awful it smells like a dead animal that’s been rotting for several days. I can sense the fear coming off of him.
“Just tell me the name of who tipped you off!” I hiss at him. “Don’t make me keep going.”
“I don’t know,” he whispers, and I hit him hard enough to split his lip and loosen a tooth or two. Blood trickles from his lip.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” I tell him. “I’m not going to st
op until you tell me. So go ahead and save yourself some pain.”
He shakes his head, and I push the knife deeper, twisting it. With my other hand, I press down on the gunshot wound. His leg is soaked with blood, and he starts screaming again, louder this time.
All I can smell is blood and terror and his stinking breath, and I want to vomit.
I don’t. I pull the knife out and shove it in again, higher, not quite hitting the femoral artery but close. “Next one goes in your balls,” I tell him flatly. “The name.”
Sweat drips down his face. “Derek!” he screams. “Derek was the one who told me about the shipment. He said—"
The last word turns into another scream as I yank the knife out and toss it onto the table. My hands are sweaty and covered in blood. I want to throw up. I want to shower.
I look up at Sonya instead and see the approving smile on her face.
“We have what we need,” she says lightly. “I can imagine you’d want a shower and some fresh clothes.”
I don’t say anything as we walk towards the elevator.
“Oh,” she adds as the door closes, “don’t worry about your shift tomorrow. You won’t be bartending anymore.”
I look at her, completely unsurprised and incapable of saying anything at all. I’d give anything for a drink right now.
She smiles at me as she presses the button with one manicured finger, leaving the three men behind to finish the job of the poor idiot who let Derek talk him into robbing these people.
“You’ll be far more useful in other ways,” she says, as the doors close.
After I clean up as best as I can in a bathroom, I try to stay focused as I walk with Sonya back down to the car. She doesn’t tell me where we’re going as she slides into the passenger’s seat and inputs an address into the navigation, but my thoughts are too tangled up to ask. I start the ignition, my brain’s autopilot taking over, and grit my teeth as I tell myself to pull it together.
