by B. B. Hamel
“What are you doing here, asshole?”
He laughed. “Good to see you too, Cora. I had fun at your wedding.”
“Whatever. Where’s Vincent?”
“Waiting inside.” He looked around me. “Reid, glad you could make it.”
“Dante. Nice place.”
“Come check out the inside.” Dante stepped back and waved us through. I walked into the grand foyer with its tile mosaic and the absurd chandelier hanging over the sweeping central staircase. Little flecks of dried concrete were scattered around, but otherwise the place looked immaculate: wood-paneled walls, oil paintings, muted lighting, every trapping of wealth and power imaginable.
Reid looked around and seemed unimpressed. “I bet that chandelier costs a fortune to light.”
“We never turn the thing on.” Dante waved a hand at it. “Absurd relic of an older age. Hell, this whole house is a relic.”
He walked down a long, carpeted hallway then turned left. Doors sprouted off into various rooms and I caught sight of the inside of a few of them: a piano surrounded by books, a pool table, a stereo system, a gym, a sauna. Dante led us to a set of double doors with intricate brass leaf motifs inlaid all through the dark wood. He pushed them open and revealed a large open space surrounded by ten-foot-tall bookshelves crammed with leather volumes. A single large oak conference room table dominated the space.
Vincent stood at the head of it. He smiled and gestured toward us. “Glad you could make it on such short notice.”
I stood in the doorway and crossed my arms over my chest. Reid stayed next to me, head cocked slightly, a little smile on his face as Dante walked over to the conference table and sat down, spinning side to side in his seat. I hated being back in this house, hated being in this room in particular. It used to be Don Leone’s office and I didn’t have a single good memory of the place. My father would disappear in here sometimes when I was younger and I’d be stuck in a side room with the cousins. They’d be playing some game I hated and would treat me like shit for being a girl, and I’d have to stand up to them to get any respect at all. I remembered Vincent in particular was a nasty little shit—always smiling, acting like he owned the place because his father was the Don. Then after that was all over, my father would come out in a horrible mood, drag me by the arm back to the car, and proceeded to berate me all the way back to his little kingdom.
The whole place reeked of bad memories. I wished I could tear up the carpeting and burn down the bookshelves, or maybe drop a nuke on the whole building. I’d love to see it all burn down—and it almost did once, though unfortunately they rebuilt.
“What do you want, Vincent?” I cocked my head and did my best to give him an annoyed stare. “It’s late. We were in the middle of dinner.”
“Cute,” Dante said. “Man and wife dining together. Almost like you’re for real.”
Reid’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.
“We need to talk about what happened.” Vincent gestured at the table. “Please, come sit down.”
Reid looked at me and I didn’t move.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I disagree.” His jaw flexed. “Come sit, Cora.”
“I’m not a dog. I don’t sit on command.”
He sighed and rubbed his temple. “You always were a contrarian. If someone told you to do something, you’d make sure to do the opposite.”
“Thing is, you mafia guys all think you can just command someone to do whatever you want, and you actually expect them to do it.” I shook my head. “Unfortunately, that’s not how this works. You need my help, so quit acting like you control me and start showing some respect.”
I glanced at Reid, expecting him to be pissed—but instead, he had a strange smile on his face, like he was impressed. I felt myself flush, though I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like I cared if he was interested in anything I did, and I wasn’t speaking up for his amusement. Vincent thought he could push me around and make me do whatever he wanted just because he was paying me. I had to make sure he was disabused of that notion as soon as possible or else the orders would never stop.
“All right. Fine. Please, Cora. Come sit and tell me what happened so we can come up with a plan moving forward.”
I didn’t move and I could feel Vincent getting more and more annoyed, but finally I walked forward and took a seat. Reid followed and sat down next to me, grinning at the two men like he just watched them get kicked in the nuts by a girl.
Which they sort of did, at least metaphorically. I couldn’t help but feel a little proud.
Vincent sighed and sat back. “I heard about the attack, but it was secondhand. I hoped you could fill in some blanks.”
I looked at Reid and he leaned forward. “The man that attacked us is named Jarvis. He runs some two-bit Irish gang out of West Philly, but that’s all I know about his crew right now. I have some guys looking into it.”
“You don’t even know where he’s at?” Dante asked. “And he got the drop on you?”
“I haven’t been too worried about that sort of thing.” Reid shook his head and balled his hands into fists. “Fact is, I didn’t expect some little nothing like Jarvis to make a big move.”
“And yet he did.” Vincent frowned and tapped a finger on the table. “What makes you think it won’t happen again?”
“I’m going to handle him.”
“How, exactly?”
“However I damn well please.” There was an edge in Reid’s voice that surprised me and sent a small chill down my spine.
“That’s not good enough,” Dante said.
Reid sat back in his chair and gestured at them. “Please, by all means, if you two have a better idea then speak up.”
“You’re supposed to be calming the city down, not getting into gunfights in the damn street,” Vincent said
“I know what I’m supposed to do, and I told you that I’m going to handle it.” Reid sat forward again, palms flat on the table. “I hope you realize that I don’t work for you.”
“You don’t?” Vincent tilted his head and smiled. “My mistake. I thought you did, since you married my cousin, and since your boss has had his tongue halfway up my asshole for the past few months.”
Reid went stock-still and his body clenched with tension. I sucked in a breath and my eyes went wide as I looked from him to Vincent. I could tell Vincent was trying to provoke Reid, but I didn’t know why. It made no sense, not really—they should be trying work together to figure out how to handle Jarvis and get the city back into some semblance of order. Instead, they were having a stupid pissing match.
“Reid,” I said. “Don’t.” On impulse, I reached out and put my hand on his thigh. He was trembling anger, but a strange thing happened.
As soon as I touched him, he turned to me, looked into my eyes—and seemed to calm down. Not entirely, not enough that his body relaxed, but he stopped trembling with the effort of holding himself back.
“I understand you think you own this city,” Reid said, keeping his voice steady, despite the stupid grin Vincent wore. “I understand you think you don’t need us, not really. The politicians, they won’t turn on you. But there’s something you don’t understand.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“We don’t give a fuck about the politicians, or the police, or the rich tech assholes or the marketers or the CEOs or the state senators. We’ve been working on the streets for years, and we just took down one of the most powerful crime syndicates on the East Coast. You think you really want to fuck with us right now with your family split between two cities?”
Vincent’s jaw worked but he said nothing for a few long beats. I rubbed my eyes and pushed back my frustration. I should have known this would turn into a pissing match, but I hoped they could set that ego stuff aside for a little while at least. Clearly, I was wrong.
“Enough,” I said, holding up my hands. “We’re all in this right now. So can we please figure out how
to take care of the problems in front of us instead of trying to decide who’s the tougher mafia dickhead?”
Vincent grunted and let out a breath. “Fine. I want to be involved in whatever you do with this Jarvis asshole.”
“How do you think that’ll work?” Reid asked.
“I’ll send a guy with you. He’ll work recon and report back to me.”
Reid shook his head. “That won’t fly.”
“Look, you little—”
I spoke up before Vincent could finish that sentence and make things worse. “I’ll report to you.”
Everyone looked at me, including Reid. He seemed almost hurt and betrayed—like I’d just plunged a dagger into his heart instead of saved his ass. That said a lot about how he viewed me. The guy didn’t trust me at all, and figured that I was turning on him that first opportunity I got.
Well, fine, let him think that, the bastard.
“You will?” Vincent shook his head. “You’re his wife.”
“On paper. Look, you want to be involved and Reid’s not going to let you have someone hovering over his shoulder. I’ll stay involved in whatever he’s doing and report back to you, that way we all win.”
Silence descended. Reid looked like he wanted to argue, but his jaw clenched and set, and he didn’t open his mouth.
“It’s a good plan,” Dante said. “It feels relatively fair.”
“Fine,” Vincent snapped. “You report to me. But if I find out that you’re lying, or misleading, or anything like that, then I promise I’ll—”
“Don’t threaten my wife.” Reid stood up. “We done here?”
Vincent gestured. “We’re done. You can go.”
Reid snorted, turned, and walked to the door. He disappeared into the hallway without waiting.
I stood up. “Don’t be such an idiot, Vincent. He’s not one of your little soldiers, you can’t just push him around. Be smart and diplomatic, and maybe you’ll get somewhere.”
He sneered at me, but said nothing. I turned and left the room, shutting the door behind me. I found Reid further down the hallway, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and an annoyed expression on his face. He looked up as I approached and stood up straight.
I didn’t want to explain what I did back there. Frankly, I didn’t feel like I should have needed to explain—he should have understood and accepted that it was the best way to go about this, and that I wouldn’t completely throw him under the bus.
Too bad that wasn’t how he saw it.
9
Reid
The next two weeks were quiet. When Cora first moved into my house, I thought I’d never get used to having her around—another body in the way, another way of living to muck up my bachelor lifestyle. But of course we got used to each other, people always got used to the way things were. We fell into a rhythm, one that half-ignored each other, drifting past the other in the halls, catching glimpses of her in the morning—wondering how she looked naked with the shower water sliding off her smooth skin, wondering what she was wearing underneath a tiny pair of cotton shorts barely covering her gorgeous ass. We spoke a little bit, but no more than necessary.
Work kept me busy. Jarvis hunted around the margins of my crew, and I kept getting glimpses of him, hints of his existence, but never a direct sighting. I had no clue where he was keeping himself and where his men disappeared to after harassing my guys in the street. There were no direct confrontations, no gunfire, no murders, no death—and that was a good thing. But we couldn’t seem to pin him down.
I knew I had to do something to break myself out of my rut. I was spinning my wheels at work and at home, trying to hunt down Jarvis, barely keeping within Cora’s orbit, and I felt like my opportunity was slipping away—but I wasn’t sure which opportunity, whether it was to take and have Cora the way I wanted, or to kill Jarvis and end his threat forever.
I came home early one Friday evening and found Cora in her bedroom. I knocked once before opening the door, and she looked up from a paperback with narrowed eyes. She wasn’t used to me bothering her in her room.
“I have something for you.” I held out a black dress bag.
She raised an eyebrow. “Again?”
“Put it on.” I walked to the bed and tossed it down. “We have somewhere to be.”
“Where’s that from?”
“Fendi. Try it on.”
She hesitated and I could see she didn’t want to take the bait. Things had been so easy for her lately. I hadn’t pushed her or asked anything of her, mainly because I wanted things to cool off. I didn’t want the memory of Jarvis’s attack to taint whatever we had growing here—if there was anything at all.
“Fine.” She tossed the book aside and got up. “What’s this for?”
“There’s an event tonight and Hedeon wants us to show up.”
She chewed on her lip as she unzipped the bag. The dress was long and black with very thin, subtle pleats along the fitted skirt and delicate, almost bird-like long oblongs of cloth around the bust. The sleeves were short, and a sheer black lace covered her breasts—but showed enough to hint at something more. She held it up against her then tilted her head at me.
“Going to leave?”
“Didn’t plan on it.”
She made a face and stared at me, but I didn’t move. We stood like that for a few seconds before she snorted and turned around. I watched her take off her shirt and marveled at the muscles in her back and the hint of her breasts I saw as she bent her back to slip off her shorts. She wore a pair of black cotton panties that looked a size too small, her beautiful ass spilling out of them, and I felt myself stir. I had to step back and hold the doorframe to keep myself under control.
She pulled the dress on and zipped the back before turning to me. I stared at her for a long moment, feeling that strange, intense need for her again, before nodding once and gesturing at the bathroom mirror.
I stood behind her as she looked at herself. Neither of us spoke until she half turned, and I saw the small smile on her lips, and I knew—
“You love it,” I said.
“I really do. Where the hell do you get this stuff?”
“Funny what money can buy.” I drifted toward the door. “Get ready. We’re leaving in an hour.”
She nodded and looked back at the mirror. I stayed in the doorway admiring her, and I wondered how the hell I’d let things get so quiet between us, how I let them remain so strained—when she could so easily make me feel like this.
I turned and left her there, heading back to my room to get changed.
The ballroom at the Ben was typically used for weddings. The wide-open area featured large, elegant arches, decorative fluting along the columns, a sizable dance floor, round tables with white linens, and an embossed, reflective ceiling. The place screamed European elegance, or at least it tried hard to mirror an old world charm while still somehow making it a clumsy approximation.
I was the only mafia guy in the place. Cora stood close to me, our black outfits blending in with the fancy ballgowns draped off older women, wives of senators and mayors and business moguls. Cora was by far the most beautiful woman in the room, and I caught more than one man staring in her direction. I couldn’t decide if I was jealous or excited—and maybe a bit of both.
We found the bar and got drinks. She sipped a white wine and scanned the space as I clutched my whiskey in my hand.
“What’s the plan for tonight?” she asked. “I assume there’s a reason Hedeon wants us to be here.”
I moved closer to her. “What, this can’t just be a fun thing for us?”
“I didn’t think you mafia guys did fun.”
“We don’t. Not normally.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “What makes you different then?”
“Oh, maybe it’s my pretty wife.”
She laughed and shook her head. I grinned at her and realized I couldn’t take my eyes away. I should’ve been looking at the crowd and sizing
it up. She was right, Hedeon had sent me with a mission, but I realized that I didn’t much care about it at all.
Maybe it was that dress, or maybe it was just her, but I couldn’t stop thinking about taking her back to our house and undressing her nice and slow.
I kept seeing her back as she bent forward to pull the dress on and the glimpse of her breast, the curve of her spine.
“Seriously, what are we doing here?”
“All business. You need to loosen up a bit.”
She ignored that. “I recognize some of the people here from that night you took me to dinner.”
I sipped my whiskey and accepted that she wasn’t going to drop this. “Hedeon wants us to talk to the police chief.”
She snorted and gave me a look. “Excuse me?”
“There are rumors about the shooting. They might want to prosecute.”
Her face drained of color. “Prosecute?”
“Don’t worry, they’re not coming for us. But allegedly they have a fall guy they want to blame it on, one of Hedeon’s men that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They got a local to give them a positive ID on him, even if he wasn’t anywhere near the scene.”
“They’re going to send an innocent man to jail?”
I tilted my head. “He’s not exactly innocent.”
She waved that off. “Innocent of this.”
“True enough. Well, I don’t know what to tell you. This is Philadelphia, my darling. It’s not rich enough or big enough to get away from rampant corruption and politics.”
“Politics. Worse than corruption.” She made a face.
I laughed softly and slipped my hand onto her lower back. She looked at me with a fire in her eyes and I knew she wanted to tell me to keep my fucking hands to myself—but she wouldn’t though, not in public, not with so many people crowded nearby. I moved closer to her and leaned down to whisper into her ear.
“Don’t be so serious. We can have fun tonight, you know?”
“Yeah? What’s your idea of fun?”