Her eyebrows knotted and her mouth set tighter. “I think he’s looking for an excuse to have me killed. Probably even to kill me himself.”
She looked up and her leg was against mine. I forced myself not to look down, not to see how her skirt had ridden up her thigh.
“If that’s true,” I told her, “then he made the dumbest mistake of his life.”
That look, right there. She knew not to believe what I said; she hardly knew me at all, but I could see how much she wanted it to be true. Her voice was just a breath. “How so?”
“He’s had me hired to protect you.”
Her face darkened. “Not from him.”
I laughed again. “Let him try that with me. Make sure you’re on hand to watch.” She didn’t believe me still, and that made sense, but I saw her eyes drop some of their tension just hearing it. The words made her feel better. It felt good to see the shine come back into her eyes.
And sure, Tony could hire another dozen guys, have me hauled off, and cut into little pieces. But in a real, developing situation, I could get kinetic and take him and any of his best men, no problem. I wondered then how it would go if Bruto was one of those men. That thought wasn’t totally unwelcome.
“You know why he had you hired?”
“He said my job is to keep you safe.”
“Right. Safe for him.”
“Safe is still safe.”
“Safe as in ‘secure,’ as well. He had a goon tail me. I gave him the slip. That’s why now he wants someone closer.”
She gave him the slip? This girl was like a Russian nesting doll. Every time you looked, she was something else, something you hadn’t expected. And all of her somethings so far were appetite stimulants to me. I couldn’t suppress the chuckle completely. “How long did you get away for?”
“It was the day before yesterday. When I met you in the bar.”
“Oh.”
“I managed to get free the whole afternoon, too.”
“What did you do?”
She gave me a look. “You sure I should tell you?” She gave me that with a cute, naughty little smile. I thought my pants might rip.
“You can tell me.”
“I went to a shooting range. Got a lesson.”
Way to go. I tried not to show too much reaction as I said, “How did you do?”
“The Marine who taught me said I was a natural.”
“I bet he did.” I chuckled again and looked her up and down. “I would have told you the same thing, long as you kept the gun pointed away from yourself. Did he stand close behind you, wrap his arms around to hold your hands in his?”
Her thigh lifted as she smiled. There was even the ripple of a giggle busting out of there. She brushed her hair with her fingers. Touched the back of her neck. Oh, man. Could I not just fuck her? Just a bit?
“No, Captain Ryan said he knew that I was serious. He saw it as soon as I walked in. He said, ‘You really mean it, don’t you? You don’t want to learn to shoot, I can tell. You need to.’“ She pressed her lips together as she glanced out the window. “He was sweet.”
“Did you get a gun?”
“Should I be telling you that?”
“That means you did. He get you a Beretta?”
She nodded.
“Good to know not all the Marines are idiots.”
She bashed my leg. Her chin flattened and her eyes blazed. I moved my hands under my thighs. Hoped my weight would keep them there. This bright, curvy redhead had such a spirit she made my blood race.
“You keeping it with you?” I looked at her little clutch bag.
She nodded. Good thing, too. It might just save her life. Nine times out of ten, when a person really needs a weapon, the ten or twenty seconds it takes to produce it and get prepared to use it are the time they should have been firing, and by then it’s all too damn late.
I did not want to see that happen to Alexa. “Well, don’t think that’s going to mean I’ll leave you to protect yourself. I won’t let on that you’ve got it, and I’m going to act as though you don’t.”
Her eyes shone. I told her, “Any trouble, leave it to me.”
She pressed a smile between her lips. She was quiet a moment. “Thanks for not saying anything in the apartment.”
“About what?”
“About us meeting in the bar. About, you know, what happened.”
I said, “Nothing happened.” She looked up at me.
“Didn’t it?” her voice was smoky and she looked right down at the circus tent growing in my lap. Then her eyes flicked back up. “You sure, soldier?”
“SEAL, ma’am. Ex.”
“Oh, yeah. One that doesn’t balance balls.” Her smile lifted me. “What happened? Why did you get out?” She had a way of cutting right to the bone of a thing.
“Wasn’t my idea.” The words dragged in my throat.
She nodded like she understood. She couldn’t possibly understand. There was no way. Yet I felt as though she did, and it felt good. Like she knew me.
“It isn’t something I like to talk about,” I told her.
“You didn’t have to say that.” She gave me a tender smile. Then she said, “You think you’ve got problems. I’ve got to find someone who can do a halfway decent job on my hair at in New York on a Thursday afternoon with no notice whatsoever.”
As we talked, I realized my fists were balled. I wanted to smash that Fat Tony guy so bad. I remembered then what she said in the bar. She had told me, “I need a man, but not for what you’re thinking of.” Maybe I was beginning to see what she’d meant.
The rest of the ride, she fixed her makeup. By the time we got to the park, she was back to looking like she had before. It was only now, seeing her transformed and then transformed back, I could see what it was she reminded me of. She looked like an Italian movie star in the nineteen fifties.
Not her clothes particularly, but her style. Her glow.
CHAPTER NINE
LUKA SAT UNDER the big mirror with the floral frame, kept as neutral an expression as he could manage, but he had to keep getting up to pace outside.
Waiting in the salon was too much for him. The smell of all the product, the dryers, and probably the feminine chatter all made him uncomfortable. The magazines didn’t seem to be much help to him, either.
A sigh went up from all of the women in the salon in unison as he stepped out through the door. While Luka peered in the window, still keeping me in his sight as he got some air, Gianfranco’s voice pined as he asked me, “Is he yours?”
That gave me a charge. Not that Gianfranco might think it, but considering it myself. How it might feel if Luka was mine. More likely it would be the other way around, I thought. I would be his. “No,” I said, shifting on the chair. “He’s my bodyguard.”
Gianfranco peered out at him. “Ask him if he’d like to guard another body. Anytime. Mine’s in sore need.”
On the way back to the apartment, I sat much farther away from him in the cab. It would be death for us both if I didn’t keep my hands off him, but short of having them bound or removed, I didn’t see how I was going to do it.
~~
When we got back to the apartment, Tony was all smiles. That made me suspicious. At least he didn’t pretend to notice what I’d been able to get Gianfranco to do with my hair.
Tony handed me a glass of wine. I knew that was ominous. Bruto stood behind him as he said, “Tonight, you’ll go take a meeting. Be my representative.” I held the glass, but I didn’t take a sip of the wine. He beamed. “My emissary.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You will go meet with some business associates. Take them a message from me.”
“Go where?” I kept my voice level.
“A club. A very nice club. You will be an honored guest.”
I was liking this less and less. “Who are these ‘associates’?”
“A very fine Russian gentleman.” And why did that not surprise me? “A man of great taste named Vassily.”
“And why do you want me to represent you?”
“Alas,” he turned his head and glanced at Bruto, “I have a conflicting engagement.” There was something unusually covert in his glance.
What, I thought, is Tony going gay now? Is this his way of coming out? No, that was impossible. Well, no, of course, it wasn’t impossible that he was covertly gay; it wasn’t even particularly unlikely. If he hated all women as much as he seemed to hate me, that would be pretty much like a standard, repressed, gay homophobe overcompensating.
What was impossible was that an Italian American mobster like Tony would come out in front of me. Or Luka. Or anyone. It was still an almost certain death sentence. What was going on?
“You want me to go and meet with the Russian Mafia? That’s a pretty elaborate way to get me killed, isn’t it?”
Tony put his hand on my shoulder. It was all I could do to stop myself from shrinking away from him and melting into the floor. “It’s going to be fine,” he said. “They know to expect you. It’s a public place. You have nothing to worry about.”
“More public than the street downstairs?”
“Luka will be there with you. You saw him handle himself this afternoon. Now. Go make yourself elegant. Caesar’s wife.” He had a little grin to himself.
That’s the kind of thing that Tony thinks is a compliment. Thinks he’s saying something nice. I know you can make yourself elegant. Prick.
I went and picked out my most gorgeous, white cotton shirt. Loose and sexy, open right to the bottom of my breasts. When I wore that, I could see men fighting to keep their eyes on mine. It didn’t really show anything, but it had that tantalizing look that it might at any moment.
Gunmetal stockings and tall, strappy Manolo Blahniks for maximum click. The shirt looked fantastic worn out over my Max Mara black leather skirt. It was short with an uneven hem, lace hanging underneath and a zipper wound around it.
A long, heavy sliver chain and my black Donna Karan suit coat finished the look. I shot the shirt cuffs to hang out of the jacket sleeves. Checking the mirror I thought I should get a black trilby hat, one of those with a narrow brim, snapped down at the front. That would set this off.
The one good thing about being Tony’s fiancé was that he let me buy all the clothes I wanted. Before, all the money I could earn went to housekeeping, food, and bailing my father out of his bad decisions. My clothes budget wouldn’t have fed a cat.
From Tony’s credit card, I learned that I had actually developed pretty good taste, and now I had the clothes to prove it.
When I stepped back into the lounge, I was pleased to see Luka’s eyes widen. He straightened up as he saw me. God knows what had happened to Mikey, Tony’s driver, earlier on, but Tony was chatting happily with him on the phone as Luka and I were leaving. I heard him make arrangements for Mike to drive Bruto and himself to the North Cove Marina.
Obviously, that was a way more important journey than mine, down to the club in the financial district. We took a cab through the night traffic.
On the way, Luka said, “He couldn’t send you if he thought there were any risk. If anything happens to you, Carmine Monreale will have him killed. And not in a nice way.”
I was surprised to hear Carmine’s name. He was a very distant cousin, or more likely an uncle. Can you have distant uncles? I never knew what he was, really. I had seen him some when I was little, and he was always very kind to me. He was silver-haired, elegant, very big—at least to me back then—and we knew that he was a Capo.
Did he still take an interest in me? Surely not. It had probably been ten years since I saw him. It was nice of Luka, though, trying to reassure me like that. He said, “I still think it’s a dick move, though, sending you.”
“Why?”
“I can’t see what you’re going to say or do that Bruto or I couldn’t have said or done.”
“So why do you think he’s sending me?”
“Kinda typical of a guy like Tony. Don’t say this to anyone, okay? Any of the guys know that I talked to you like this, anyone, you understand me?” I liked that he seemed ready to trust me like that. “It would be good enough cause to have me whacked. And there’s nothing they like more than a whacking.”
I said, “You can trust me, Luka. Anything you tell me.” I made a zippy-lip move with my pinched thumb and finger across my mouth. He looked at me for a moment. Judging whether to believe me, I guess. While he watched me, my stomach tightened. I wanted him to trust me. Not just about this.
He said, “I think he wants to show off. He wants to tell them, ‘I send you a message, look, I can send this beautiful woman to deliver it. And I know you won’t do a thing about it.’ Everything for these old-school guys is about respect and honor.”
“How can he know they won’t do anything?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. It can only be because he’s sure they need the message but bad. I can’t see it any other way.”
“You sure there won’t be any more to it than that?”
“I’ll be there.” His voice was like a warm embrace. When he told me, “There won’t be any more to it than that,” I believed him. He was like a dream come true. Only, like a dream, he was on the other side of an invisible wall. A barrier that I couldn’t, daren’t, cross.
But how I wanted to. How I longed to.
~~
A discreet, elegant blue neon sign marked the street entrance to the club. Entry was down a wide iron, spiral stair. Inside the place was a plush hush. Cool, like the kind of place you might find super-hot jazz musicians. Or gangsters. A girl who seemed like she was in charge greeted me with a knowing smile. She seemed to know who I was right away.
She touched my arm and looked hard at me. “You know who you’re here to meet?”
What business was it of hers who I was here to meet? “I believe they’re a Russian party.”
She pressed her lips together and led me to the booth. Luka followed close behind. Maybe I got this girl wrong, I thought. Maybe she’s genuinely concerned for me.
Six men sat around the circular booth. At the back, in the center, was a big man with his head almost shaved. His gray eyes drilled me over a pair of shades.
“Welcome.” He didn’t smile and he didn’t stand. “I am Vassily Alexeyvich.” He was big, and from what I could see, athletically built. His features were strong and his eyes were commanding.
“Join us,” he said and he gestured to a chair. “Sit.”
He was establishing his power. Marking the territory as his dominion. Men came to the apartment to meet with Tony. The power plays and displays were like neon signs to me by now. I felt strong with Luka standing just a couple of feet behind me.
The idea of him right there, where I needed him but out of sight, gave me a charge big enough to make my voice falter if I didn’t keep it down, on a low simmer.
He was there for me. I had to show power, and he would be a prop if I needed it. The strength was mine. He would be the instrument, if anyone was foolish enough to doubt me. It sounded perfect. Now to see if I could carry it off.
Perfectly Damaged: Luka : A bad boy mafia romance Page 5