I shook free of the memories. They wouldn’t do me any good right now. “They aren’t going to check my ticket?”
“Friend of mine,” Sal said as we continued up the stairs. I figured a man who’d been around the scene as long as he had made a lot of friends.
We went up to what I thought was the balcony level of the theater, but then we kept going up.
“I didn’t know this place had so many levels.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted, as if that was all the explanation required.
Finally, we reached the top and then went back down a few steps so we were lower than the rest of the balcony. There were only two seats, and they were located in and faced directly toward the middle of the stage. Surely the best seats in the house.
He must have heard my stilettos knocking on the ground because as we approached Vince rose from his seated position.
Tonight, he wore a dark blue suit coat and pants, a lavender shirt, and dark blue tie with spots.
Even in a pink hue, the man still had me holding back my drool. It was uncanny.
“Kel. God, it’s good to see you.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in for a tight hug. Good Lord, I loved feeling his hard, muscular body against me. This man definitely didn’t need me defending him anymore, although I took pride in knowing that years ago, I’d stood up for what I thought was right. He’d shot up in high school, and apparently hadn’t stopped growing.
“I don’t hate seeing you, either,” I admitted.
“Come, sit.” Vince held my hand and guided me into the seat next to him. He nodded to Sal, and he stepped outside our private box where he would undoubtedly keep watch.
For a moment, we sat in silence, gazing at each other. I had so much I needed to say, yet I couldn’t find the words. My bare knee pressed against his. I enjoyed the warmth of human contact, even if it was through the cloth of his pants.
His pants. My eyes darted downward to his knee and I couldn’t help but let them briefly linger on his crotch and the fabric gathered there. Ah, okay. Hello, big sausage.
He flashed a smile, having caught me in the act. “Eyes up here, Kelly girl.” He touched my chin and guided me to him. I lost myself in his deep whiskey brown for a moment. My mind flashed to the black and tan I’d had earlier this week. Maybe I was reading far too much into our interaction for the moment. What would we make if we were mixed together? Something sweet, or unbelievably potent and hot.
“I had to lie to come here, you know,” I choked out the words, anything to take my mind off the hypnotic moment that was currently happening between me and him.
“I don’t like lies. But I’m glad you did come. Here.” We sat side-by-side, and he rested a hand on my knee, and I had to work to control my breathing as my heart pounded like a jackhammer.
“You know, I almost didn’t come, to be honest,” I said. The buzz of the people in the audience on the ground floor was palpable, though we still had fifteen minutes before they dimmed the lights.
“Because of your cousin?” He arched an eyebrow at me. I could feel his hand squeeze just a little bit tighter on my leg.
“Yes. Well, that and the fact that my dad might have a heart attack if he knew I was here with you. We cannot be friends. You can’t be kissing me on street corners. You can’t invite me to private theater shows. This cannot happen. Your family killed someone from my family, and now they’re going to be out for revenge. You know how it goes.”
He fingers slid down my thigh, leaving shivers behind as he removed it, and ran it through his thick, dark brown hair. “I know. We’re on the brink of all-out war. It’s not good, Kel. It’s awful.”
“So why did you have to kill Kyle?” My eyes blurred, filling with tears. I’d never been Kyle’s biggest fan, but he had a surprisingly redeeming streak of niceness in him occasionally. And the graphic nature of his death had gotten to me.
“Kel, I know I’m at the top, and I take full responsibility for what happened. But they came into one of our warehouse operations, you know, to bust it up. They came late that night. I think they figured the place would be empty. It wasn’t. Kyle was the guy leading the charge, yelling like crazy how he was gonna fuck our—listen, I don’t want to give you every detail. Basically, there was a shootout, he nipped one of our guys, and Kyle, well, he took a shot, too. It’s the grim reality we live in.”
I grabbed hold of his arm. “When will it stop, though? I can’t handle this. The blood, the money laundering, the dirty dealings. It’s like I’m living in a damn episode of the Sopranos, but it’s real life, not HBO! And then this secret meeting between us is the cherry on top. I have no idea what I’m even doing here. What we’re doing here. I’ve been back from college for less than a month and I already know this lifestyle isn’t for me. This isn’t who I am. Maybe I should tell you. I’ve made up my mind to go to California at the end of the summer.”
His ears perked up at that. “You what?”
“I’m leaving Chicago. Packing my things. I’m out of here. Gone like the wind and never coming back. I’ll get a job bartending out there, do the whole ‘fake actress thing.’ I’m tired of this shit, Vince. I love this city and it’ll always be a soft spot for me, but it’s gotten to a point in a very short time where I know that I can’t take it anymore.” Hell, I had enough experience, maybe I could get cast as an actress on the Irish version of the Sopranos, if someone ever wanted to tell that story.
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and narrowed his eyes at me. His warmth and that spicy scent of man and clean musk engulfed me. “You’d never leave. Your dad wouldn’t let you.”
“You think I care what he thinks? Well, I do,” I backtracked. “But he’ll understand. I’m sure of it.”
“You can’t leave,” Vince muttered, darting his eyes away from me. His forehead pinched together between his brows.
“Of course I can!” I snorted. “Like you said in the bar the other night, it’s a free country.”
He bit his lip a moment before opening his mouth. “If you go, it’s not going to be pretty. I have a bad feeling.”
“Why? One person doesn’t make a difference. This violence, this bloodshed, it’ll never end. It’s been going on for a hundred years. Maybe more.” Uttering the truth—that this had been going on for generations—sapped the fight from me.
Vince’s eyes suddenly looked tired. He glanced at the stage, then back at me. “Goddamn, you really are beautiful, you know that?”
He cupped my cheek with his hand, sending waves of heat through me. His thumb stroked my cheek, and even through the masquerade of cosmetics, I felt the subtle calluses on his fingers. He may work behind a desk, but he still got his hands dirty. “You have to stop saying things like that,” I pleaded.
“Why? Makes no sense to me to deny the obvious. Can’t a man state a fact? Because it’s a fact. You are gorgeous.” He leaned in closer to me without taking his eyes off mine, grabbed a lock of my hair, and inhaled. “It makes a man wonder, the things he could do with a girl like you by his side.”
“Cut it out. It can’t happen, so there’s no use talking about it,” I pushed him away even as my heart beat erratically in my ears. I wanted this. Wanted his attention and attraction so badly. But it couldn’t, wouldn’t happen. It was too dangerous. “You were a high school crush, sure. And, at one time, a friend. Things are different now.”
“Why?” His tone was suddenly stern. “Why are things different now? Because our grandparents were from a different area on the previous continent they lived in? It’s a bunch of superficial bullshit, Kel, and you fucking know it.”
He’d raised his voice, flexed his strength. He hadn’t yelled, but it was enough to give me a glimpse of the power this man was capable of. One snap of his fingers could kill a man. Or a woman, I supposed. His Cognac-colored eyes burned as he looked at me.
I couldn’t focus on the attraction flaming between us, so I grabbed onto anger. “You just killed my cousin. That’s on your wa
tch. What are we going to do, anyways? Save everyone?! Start openly dating and unite the two families? Ha! Talk about outrageous!”
He flexed his jaw, a muscle ticked beneath the subtle scruff shadowing his skin, and darted his eyes back and forth. He snapped his finger, and I jumped in my seat, he did it with such enthusiasm it sounded like a gunshot in the quiet. He looked at me with wide eyes.
“That’s it! That’s fucking it!”
“What’s it?”
“Kel, you’re a fucking genius! Yes. Why didn’t I think of this?”
“What?” I sang, extending the word into two syllables.
“You want to go to California. I want peace. At least for the summer.”
“Uh, yeah.”
He flashed me his patented lopsided smile, the one that used to incite the butterflies in my chest to flap wildly so many years ago. If I was being honest with myself, it still did, though now my panties were melting off, too. “You and I pretend to be in a relationship this summer. It’s the middle of May, now. Say, until October, we fake it. We become a public couple. We condemn the violence, and say how we’ll be united from now on.”
My heart dropped. “Oh, God,” I said breathlessly. “That sounds like one of the worst ideas ever, talk about being one of the most stressful summers ever. I’m not sure we’d even survive through the summer with the hellfire and brimstone this would rain down upon Chicago.”
Vince nudged my shoulder with his. “I could make it worth your while though.”
“What do you mean?” I squinted.
“I’ll make sure when you go to California, you are well off. You’ll have a nice little nest egg to start a new life.”
I couldn’t believe what he was offering. “Why would you do that?”
“Despite our differences, I like you. I always have. Hell, maybe I like you because of our differences. You could consider it more of…you doing me a favor, and me paying back the favor.” Vince turned in his seat and cupped my hands. “You’re an amazing person. You should get what you want out of this life. I’d consider it an honor to help you.”
I thought about the tip jar back at the Tavern. Fifty bucks a night wasn’t exactly ‘quit your job and start a new life’ savings, and I wasn’t about to take on a full-time job at a finance firm just to quit at the end of the summer. Vince was right. It would take me forever at that rate to build my getaway money.
“I don’t know, Vince. I know I said it, but it doesn’t mean it was a good idea.”
“You want to know what I think?”
I blinked up at him. How long had it been since a man listened to me? Surely not Pops or my brothers. They talked at me, told me what to do, but never listened or held a conversation with me. “What?”
“I think anything that your pretty little brain comes up with is a fantastic idea. And you’ll save lives. Kel, please. My advisers are telling me this is lining up to be maybe one of the bloodiest summers of them all with the tension that’s been brewing. I’m asking you as a friend. Hell, I’m begging you. I’ve got blood on my hands. I’ve got to do something.” His tone was deep and serious.
The lights dimmed all the way down and the curtain separated. The buzz of the crowd died down, and music began playing.
Vince hadn’t taken his eyes off me, not for one second. “You aren’t taking no for an answer, are you?” I whispered.
“No.”
I sighed. The damn man had an irrational hatred for that two-letter word. “I can’t believe I’m saying this. And maybe I am a little crazy. But you know what, I’ll be your fake girlfriend for the summer.”
Sei
Kelly was as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof beside me for the duration of the play. Her leg jogged, tapping her narrow heels against the thin carpeting. Only when I palmed her knee, soothing her like she was a high-strung filly, did she marginally relax. I half expected her to change her mind and rescind on her agreement.
During the intermission, she’d turned to me, mouth open as if to let me off gently, then she shook her head and went back to brooding. Although it was spur of the moment, it was a fucking genius plan. I was tired of the bloodshed, the fighting, and the low-simmering mania that only took a single spark to launch into a war. I’d do anything to stop it, even just for one summer.
The plan was so unlikely, it would work. Having an Irish girlfriend for a few months would save more than a few lives this summer. I was sure of it. Though the tension might ratchet up for a few weeks, it would die down once the families grew used to the idea. Though it was no hardship to have Kelly MacNamara on my arm. Wasn’t that what I always wanted? Just how far could I carry this charade? I wasn’t going to deny the potent chemistry which crackled between us. Though she’d calmed, I kept my fingers on her leg, tracing the firm muscle beneath her romper with the edge of my thumb—fostering a different kind of tension between both of us.
I could barely focus on the play I was so aware of her beside me. Shit, I didn’t even know what we were seeing. Something about a cop, a crime scene, and a ticking clock. Though it was a musical, it fit the grittiness that was playing out in my reality.
If Kel and I didn’t put a lid on the brewing war, when the clock ticked down so would a lot of lives on both sides. No one was innocent when it came to fighting between the families, thus none would be spared. That was the old way of thinking, and it remained true today.
Kel clung to my arm as the theater lights came up, and the patrons milled out the doors. Sal stepped into the box, giving me a curt nod that it was all clear. I wasn’t about to have an Abraham Lincoln moment up here. As the boss, I constantly had a target on my forehead, on my back, and everywhere in between. It was a fact of my life.
I bent toward Kelly. She smelled fucking amazing, powdery and feminine, and I barely resisted nuzzling her hair. “Ready for your debut?”
Her nervous eyes fluttered to my face. “Wait, you’re not going to let me tell my family first?”
I shook my head. “No. We already decided, right? It’s best to tear the Band-Aid off quick instead of making it painful and slow. Besides, by the time you get back home the worst of their anger will have passed.”
I was a bastard. I’d decided spur of the moment that I wouldn’t let her back out. If I let her go without there being some consequence, some nugget of rumor to reach her brothers and father, I knew I’d get the slip. Kel could be wily when she wanted.
Kelly closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and exhaled sharply. Her plush pink lips pursed subtly, drawing my attention. When she opened her eyes, she was calmer. “Okay, I can do this.”
My fingers crept up to her cheek, pulling her closer. Her pupils dilated until a thin rim of blue was visible around the black. She licked her lips, and I bit back a grin. She wanted me to kiss her. How fucking delicious. “You’re going to be amazing,” I whispered. My breath offered her a pseudo-kiss. I wanted to ransack her lips, slake my thirst with her mouth, but not here. Not now. There were eyes everywhere, and when—not if—we had our first kiss I wanted it to be just between us. Not a prop to make our “relationship” more real.
Kelly’s hands gripped my shoulder, holding onto the half-embrace. I stood and offered her my hand. “Where do you want to take your acting bow at?”
Kelly chewed on her bottom lip. Her eyes lit with a flash of inspiration. When she offered her idea, I didn’t know if she was a genius or a lunatic. But it would make a statement to both sides, that was for damn sure. “CPOG. I hear they have delicious pizza.”
Fucking CPOG. Her intelligence, and her sense of irony wasn’t lost on me with that choice. No matter where you went in Chicago, everything had been brushed by criminal activity. Even the Biograph Theater had its own notation in crime history. It was where John Dillinger had been executed police style on the sidewalk out front in the 1930s. That simple act was enough to turn it into a fucking landmark.
But the events at 2122 North Clark street on February 14, 1929, trumped even that. It wasn’t the start
, or even the middle, of the feud between the Italians and the Irish. There had been other bloody battles. It should have been another footnote to the violence which brewed between the Mob and the Mafia. But It had gone down on a day devoted to love, in public, and in the most brutal fashion. It was still talked about almost ninety years later. While the city had torn down the wall that seven of Kel’s Irish ancestors had been murdered against decades prior, people claimed that stretch of real estate was haunted. Especially some of the more superstitious and elderly people.
And right across the street from that very spot, the same spot that served as the ‘stage’ for the massacre was the restaurant Kel wanted to go to—the Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co, a new landmark birthed like a phoenix from the ashes of notoriety and villainy. CPOG embraced the infamy which brought the Valentine’s Day Massacre into the subconscious of the modern tourist and Chicagoan. It was a story told with every new slice of pie made.
I just shook my head. “You’re not playing around are you, sweetheart?”
Maybe it was kind of fitting. Capone and the Irish had warred over booze during prohibition. Now, I was fighting with her brethren over drugs and occasionally guns.
Her eyes held a gimlet of gleam in the theater’s low lights. “Both sides need to remember how bad it was if things are going to change. Us being together is one statement. Coming out in public there. Well, that’s another.”
Bartender with Benefits Page 26