That was exactly what I’d been avoiding. Thinking about one huge word—yes.
I always found something to redirect my thoughts when they went there. Maybe if he did ask soon, I’d just blurt the first response that came to my mind. I had a teacher once who told me that if I didn’t know an answer on a test, I should always go with the one that felt right and leave it at that.
“It’s probably coming from your gut,” she’d said.
It was tiring thinking about the marauder (Kelly) and the detective (Stone) at the same time. I didn’t even want to compare them, and for some reason, it felt as if I knew Kelly as much as I did Stone. Maybe even better, which was bullshit, because I’d only met him twice. Still, thinking about them in the same space of time felt like a mind trap.
Enough thinking about men then.
I glanced into the backseat at Mari. She had been quiet, probably dreading the moment we pulled up to my apartment. I knew she had no money. She had told me before we left for the fair that she had been fired. She was kicked out of her apartment and beaten up by the prick Merv, her landlord. Her beautiful face was full of bruises and splits from his fists.
My own fists balled when I thought about him doing that to her over not paying rent.
She and I needed to come up with a plan for her life, and fast. She’d refuse any help outright offered, so I’d have to work around her aversion to accepting kindness without feeling like she had earned it first. I had to think of doing nice things for Mari in terms of a job. She did something for me. I paid her for it. Then she wouldn’t consider it accepting something for free.
It was a fucked-up way to live, but she was a kid from the streets. To accept kindness from strangers could get her killed or make her wish that she were dead if she ended up owing the wrong person. So even though I hated that she was that way with my family and me, I never faulted her for it. I understood.
As we pulled up to my apartment, her eyes fell to her old leather bag. I could feel the weight of her situation fall on my back, and I wished there was more I could do. It never felt like enough. It never would. Not until I knew she was taken care of.
“I’m coming in for a sec,” Harrison said, shutting the car off. “Give me a minute.”
I gave him a narrow look, wondering what he was up to, but I was dying to get comfortable, so I got out. I waited for Mari and we walked together to my apartment. We were both quiet, but I could feel her relief the moment we stepped inside and she realized that my roommate, Sierra, was not home.
My roommate was another kid from the streets, and it was hard to tell who had the hardest life, Mari or Sierra. They both ran a good race for immediate candidates for heaven. As much hell as they went through on earth, I felt they both deserved a direct in. But for all they were the same, they handled their situations differently.
Sierra was not opposed to stepping on anyone to get a hand up. She fraternized with men who could easily put others on an endangered species list. She’d probably cut a starving person for touching her stash of food, even if she had plenty.
Mari was a gentler soul. She kept her head down and worked—when she could keep a job. Mari was terrible with keeping work, even though I’d gotten her plenty of jobs over the years. And even though Mari didn’t have a cent to her name, she’d give her last crumbs to a starving pigeon if she felt like she could help it, maybe because not many people tried to help her, and she knew how it felt.
I itched at a raw spot on my side from the dress. The cheap material made me feel like I was wearing one big fucking shirt tag. “I’m going to get out of these clothes,” I said, going for my room. “Don’t even think about leaving, Mari!” I yelled over my shoulder. I could see her eyeing the door. “We need to work on a plan. We need to get your shit together before you disappear on me. If you do, no fucking joke, I’m going to hunt you down.”
Before I made it to the hall, she took a seat on the sofa. It was second-hand and threadbare, but Mari sunk into it like it was made of the finest silk. I sighed, understanding. My feet were on fire from standing on them all day. I ditched the dress—if it wasn’t rented, I would’ve burned the bitch—and put on a comfortable sweater with yoga pants. It took me a few minutes to tame my wild hair into a somewhat respectable ponytail. When I made it back to the hall, I stopped before Harrison and Mari noticed me.
Harrison sat next to Mari on the sofa, talking to her.
My family and I called him “Grumpy Indiana Jones” behind his back. For as far back as I could remember, Harrison was always a man. He was one of those kids that could pull off a suit and tie at two. But around Mari, he never sounded as grumpy as he did with everyone else. So to hear him be nice to her pulled at my heartstrings. She really needed it, but I also knew she hated it, and I didn’t need her to find any excuse to run away from me.
“What did you do?” I said, shocking them both. Mari startled like they had been caught doing something wrong. My brother stood, putting some space between them, sticking his hands in his pockets.
“Nothing, Kee,” he said. “I gave Mari a gift for her birthday, sort of.”
“Her birthday isn’t until October,” I said, pointing out the obvious. Not for the first time, I wondered how Harrison truly felt about Mari. It seemed to go beyond a brotherly type of relationship for him. He’d never admitted it to me, and I’d decided not to admit my suspicions to her, but sometimes it was hard to see him look at her and not think, there’s more there.
Harrison shrugged. “I hate being late.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but a loud knock came at the door. I looked toward the sound, wondering who’d be coming over so late. Sierra wasn’t home, and unless she was, her boyfriends stayed away. Her men went wherever she went.
“Expecting someone?” Harrison asked.
I shook my head. “No, Sierra said she was going to be home late.”
“I’ll get it,” he said.
Mari came to stand beside me while Harrison talked to someone on the other side of the door. A minute later, he came in, followed by two men.
SHIT! The word buzzed to life like a neon warning in the darkness of my mind.
He wouldn’t.
“Keely,” Harrison said. “This is Detective Scott Stone and Detective Paul Marinetti.”
Scott stepped up first, offering his hand, playing his part well, but the softness in his eyes was so apparent to me. He let his hand linger a moment too long before the older man offered his. His partner. Scott had mentioned him before. Scott thought that he needed to retire, and he felt Paul was too soft on hard criminals. More specifically, ones affiliated with organized crime.
In general, Scott didn’t agree with everyday crimes, but he seemed to have a separate extremely hard spot for anyone associated with organized crime and the like. Scott and his family specifically went after gangsters and the “families” they belonged to with a passion that almost bordered on obsession. It went past the job and became personal.
After meeting his family in Louisiana, I found the reason why: his aunt and unborn cousin were killed by a drunk driver, who also happened to be the son of one of the most notorious Italian crime families in history. The Faustis. They were considered royalty in Italy and beyond, but Scott’s family saw them as nothing but low-down murderers who should all be sentenced to life without parole.
“Ms. Ryan,” Scott said, a serious look on his face, bringing my focus fully on him. “I regret to have to inform you that your roommate, Sierra Andruzzi, was found dead. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you, but this is the first time we’ve been able to.”
My legs moved without conscious thought. I didn’t realize I’d taken a seat on the sofa until I saw Mari move away from me after she and Harrison had helped me sit. “She…” I shook my head. “She told me she wouldn’t be back until later. Her ex-boyfriend. Armino. He was at our door earlier. Mad. She broke up with him. Did he…”
Armino Scarpone was Sierra’s latest conquest. He had money.
Connections. His family was one of the five, meaning they were connected. He was a good-looking son of a bitch, but I had warned her about him more than once. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d take no for an answer.
Sierra had told him no—she’d broken up with him.
He was at our door before Mari and I left for the fair, banging and shouting things at Sierra. She’d told us that he’d get sick of waiting around after a while and leave. Maybe she didn’t know him well enough, because he’d been sitting in his expensive car when we left, smoking a cigarette, watching our door.
“From what we’ve pieced together, Ms. Andruzzi ran to the store earlier, and that’s when she was assaulted and then murdered. It seems like she was headed back here. As of right now, we can’t say for sure. That’s why we’re here. To piece the time together.”
“I—” What was I even supposed to say?
“We hate to ask you to do this, Ms. Ryan, but would you mind coming with us to identify the body? We cannot find a next of kin for Ms. Andruzzi.”
“No,” I said, knowing they wouldn’t find anyone to claim her. “She was a foster kid.” She’d mentioned once, with a sharp, sarcastic twist of the tongue, that her mom was more concerned with eating pills than with feeding her food.
“My sister is not—”
“No,” I said, cutting Harrison off. “I’ll do it. It’s the least I can do for her. Let me grab my things.”
As I stood, Scott handed Harrison his card and told him the address to the place where Sierra was being held was on the back. Harrison told him we’d be there shortly.
Scott gave me a pointed look when he warned us that Armino might be lurking. We were the last people to see him before Sierra was murdered.
Before I went to grab my shoes, my eyes found Mari. She stood in the middle of the room, not sure what to do. She almost looked guilty. I knew it was because she didn’t like Sierra, but she felt bad that she had been murdered.
That made the two of us.
Even though their behavior was miles apart, I couldn’t separate their situations in my mind. If something ever happened to Mari?—hell no. I refused to even think about it. She was my sister. The only one I had left.
In that moment, she reminded me of a scared butterfly, not sure where to go to find safety. She had no place to go.
“Mari?” Harrison said before I could. “Come with us.”
I stood next to him, forming a unit.
“No,” she said. “I’d rather not.”
“You can’t disappear,” I said, and I made sure that she heard the pleading in it. “I need to know where you are. After what happened to you…and now tonight…” Without warning, I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her tight. It was what I wished I’d done to my sister before she left and I never saw her again.
“Can I stay here?” she asked, her voice breathy. She wanted to step out of my embrace—affection made her uneasy—but she didn’t move.
“Sierra’s old man.” Harrison shook his head. “It might not be—”
“He’s not coming back here.” Mari took a step back, and I released her. Our relationship was a lot of give and take. “He’s probably long gone.”
I nodded, eager to agree so she wouldn’t leave. “Yeah, he’s probably gone. Just make sure to lock the doors.”
I tried to keep the fear off my face, to hide the “please don’t leave me too” vibe from my body. If pushed too far, Mari would leave, and I’d suffer hell for it. Wondering where she had gone and if someone else had hurt her, maybe even taken her life.
“I will,” she said.
“Use the cellphone—” Harrison nodded toward the sofa “—to call me if you need anything. My number’s programmed in.”
We waited outside of the apartment after we’d walked out of it, listening while Mari locked the door. Then I took a deep breath, not ready to do what had to be done, but determined to claim a girl who never had anyone claim her before.
Even though the girl I looked at was Sierra Andruzzi, my roommate, she looked different to me somehow.
Every person I’d ever seen in death had always looked peaceful. In death, Sierra looked extremely pissed off. Like she was mad that it took Armino so long to end her life, or that he had actually done it and she wasn’t strong enough to fight him off.
Detective Marinetti had told Harrison that her hands were frozen, like claws. Armino had stabbed her to death. Even though Armino was only a suspect, my gut told me he had killed her.
There were times I had worried that one day I’d find Sierra dead, but from something self-inflicted. Though she was hard to rattle, I saw the struggle in her eyes, how tired she was, and she’d sleep for days. Other days, she was so wired that she couldn’t sleep. I had tried talking to her about getting help, but she’d always laugh at me and tell me I was the funniest girl in all of New York, and even though she liked me, she’d like me even better if I’d mind my own fucking business.
That was when I knew I could help her, cook her meals when she was too tired to get out of bed, but not directly. After all, Mari was similar. She couldn’t accept kindness either.
Mari.
The thought of her made my palms sweaty. She had checked on me, texting with the new phone Harrison had given her as a “birthday” gift. He’d told me on the ride over that she paid him two bucks for the phone. She wouldn’t accept it without paying for it. Either way, I was just glad I had a way to keep in touch with her.
Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but after seeing Sierra, I told Mari the conclusion I had come to about Harrison. He was in love with her. I told her not to answer if she didn’t want to, but the situation made me uneasy.
I considered Mari my sister. Harrison was my brother.
In his eyes, though, she was a woman. A woman he was in love with. It explained why he was so fucking grumpy all of the time. He must’ve been harboring his feelings silently since whenever.
That aside, she had texted me that she was going out. She promised me that she’d keep in touch, but it made me worry. What that prick of a landlord had done to her could’ve easily ended in the same way it had for Sierra.
The entire night felt like a nightmare.
I looked up when the door to the investigation room opened. Scott walked in and sat across from me. He slipped a cup of coffee my way. I took it but couldn’t bear the thought of drinking it. I wanted to erase Sierra’s face from my mind, but guilt ate me up inside. I was all she had. How could I want to lessen the impact of her death, when I was the only one who seemed to care about her life?
“This isn’t your fault,” Scott said.
I slid the coffee between my palms. “I know.”
“Girl like her.” He shrugged. “Bound to happen.”
Girl like her. Bound to happen.
Scott’s attitude was one of the things I disliked about him the most. It was no secret that he saw things that haunted him. There were times I saw them in his eyes, the ghosts, and I’d know that he was still human because he could be haunted. But there were other times when I wanted to throttle him for being so careless with his words.
It was no secret that Sierra was looking for an easy way out with a rich man. It didn’t matter who he was or what he did. She craved security like she craved food after being starved her entire life. Scott, though, acted like she went out every night with a gun in her hand looking for someone to kill or rob. Even though she didn’t, he still grouped her in with those who lived by the sword and died by it, too. It pissed me off, as much as organized crime seemed to piss him off.
“Don’t give me that look.” He sighed. “I didn’t say she deserved it. I said it was bound to happen.”
“I know what you said.”
“And?”
“It sounds callous and cold. She was my friend.”
“A friend that was bound to bring you trouble. And she has.” He took the coffee from me, taking a sip. “Armino Scarpone is
a killer. He knows you and your friend can testify that he made a scene outside of your apartment before you left. Then his ex-girlfriend, because she broke up with him not long before, ends up stabbed to death outside of a store on her way back to your apartment. His family’s not fond of leaving witnesses that can testify against them. It’s a code. Just like when they kill an entire family because they don’t want retribution down the line.”
“I’m not worried about Armino. If he comes looking for trouble, he’ll find it.”
Scott threw back his head and laughed. Then he looked me in the eye. “What are you going to do, Keely? Kill him with your bow and arrow? Shit!” He stood abruptly, the chair almost falling back. “The Scarpones! You’re going to stay with me. Do you understand?”
“I’m not leaving Mari—”
“Mari. Mari. Mari. What’s with you and Mari? Why do you care about her so much?”
I stood, refusing to allow him to look down at me. “She’s my sister!”
“No, she’s your friend!”
“And what kind of friend are you? Would you leave a friend who was like a brother to you when he needed you the most?
“We’re not talking about me!” he shouted.
“Maybe we should! Maybe we should talk about how big of an ass you’re being!”
I went to fly past him, but he grabbed me by the arm. I refused to look at him. My heart was in my throat. Tears pushed against my defenses. My neck was on fire, scorching red because of my temper.
“Marry me, Keely Shea Ryan.”
From the corner of my eye I could see him digging in his pocket with his free hand. He lifted the ring high enough that I could see it in my peripheral. It was a traditional Irish Claddagh ring. The heart was made from an emerald, and the crown had three diamonds.
Mari was going to tell me it was a bad omen. Bad things always come in threes, Kee.
I licked my dry lips. “What?” I whispered, trying to buy time.
“Marry me, Keely. Live with me. I’ll keep you safe.”
Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2) Page 6