by Lili Valente
Instead, I hesitate, a part of me wanting to put off hearing about this man Red used to love before it all went to shit.
Bash may have been sucking at his job since he and Penny split last month—thank God she’s back and things at Magnificent Bastard Consulting will soon return to their anal-retentive state of organization—but his intake form on Cat did contain a few useful pieces of information. Evidently, the feelings between her and Nico weren’t always one-sided. She copped to caring about him and to being “swept up by the intensity” of their relationship.
I remember that was the exact phrase she used, but it’s hard to imagine Cat being swept up by anything.
She isn’t that kind of person. She’s levelheaded and logical, passionate, but a woman who reserves her fire for issues of societal injustice, not interpersonal relationships. In fact, aside from that one night when she seemed as carried away by the chemistry between us as I was, I’ve never seen Red lose control. Get angry, get loud, get feisty—yes. But never lose control.
Even that night in the woods, the lapse in her restraint had been physical, not emotional. She wasn’t in love with me; she’d just wanted to get rid of her virginity with a friend she could trust.
So what happened?
What opened up a practical woman like Cat to the ravages of a dysfunctional kind of love?
“This is kind of weird, isn’t it?” She swirls her straw through her thick shake.
“How so?” I take a deep pull on my drink, approving of the lime to cucumber and kale ratio.
She shrugs, an uncertainty in the gesture that isn’t like the Cat I remember, either. “I mean in some ways we’re old friends, but in other ways we’re strangers. I know what will make you laugh, but until today I didn’t even know your name, let alone anything about your past or what you’ve been up to for the last eleven years.”
“It is kind of strange, I guess. But that’s what makes Dasher clubs so great. You get all the fun of a close group of friends with none of the real life drama.”
“You’re right,” she says, with a wistful smile. “We did have a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll get back into the lifestyle when all of this is over.”
“I run with the Lower Manhattan Dashers. We have a good time.”
She nods, casting her gaze down at her drink. “That’s a little far for me, but I hear the Brooklyn club is good.”
“If you like hipsters in fake retro T-shirts with your alcohol poisoning.”
“And who doesn’t,” she deadpans. “Though I prefer gladiator types in overpriced organic tee shirts.”
I grin. “How could you tell my T-shirt was organic?”
“I’m an Apache scout, remember?” She points two fingers toward her eyes before swiveling them in my direction. “Nothing’s getting past me.” Her smile curdles at the edges. “Except all the things that got past me for the past six months. Like my ex being up to his elbows in dirty money and having mob connections going back five generations.”
I sigh, not enjoying having my organized crime suspicions confirmed. “The mob. No shit? What tipped you off, the creepy goons who work for him or the thousand-dollar suit?”
“Touché,” she says wryly. “But in my defense, Nico was good at hiding things he didn’t want me to see. At least in the beginning.” She runs a hand through her hair with a long sigh. “Which is where I should probably start. Or maybe even a little before.”
“Go for it.” I sit back in my chair and get as comfortable as I can on the unpadded metal seat. “I’ll cut in if I need clarification, but otherwise, talk until you’re talked out, and then we can go back and fill in any holes.”
She nods and gives her shake another stir. “It started when my dad died. It was right after that crazy March snow storm last year, the one that knocked the power out for almost a week.”
“I remember. And I’m sorry,” I say automatically, though her voice is steady, and she actually looks less upset than she did a few minutes ago.
“Don’t be,” she says, before adding with a shake of her head, “I mean, you can be. That’s fine. I’m sorry, too, but not for the obvious reasons. I respected my father, and I’ll always be grateful to him for many things, but our relationship was never what you’d call easy.”
She sighs again. “I spent the first fifteen years of my life trying to be just like him and the next fifteen wavering between being too scared to show him who I really was, and trying my best to piss him off. And…” She rolls her eyes as her lips twist unhappily. “Anyway, I’ll save that shit for my therapist, but the point is that he died before we could find our way to anything resembling a healthy relationship. Or achieve closure. Or any of that good stuff.”
“Dads can be hard.” I cross my arms, thinking of my own father. We get along better than we used to, but I’ll always be a disappointment to dear old dad. I chose passion over hundreds of years of family tradition, and he’s never forgiven me for it, no matter how proud he is of me for building a successful business from the ground up.
Red nods. “Yeah, they can be. And my dad was. Right until the end.”
I wince. “No good good-bye?”
“No good good-bye, which I thought I was okay with. But if that was true, I wouldn’t have gotten involved with Nico. I knew from the second I met him that he was trouble. Though, I never imagined he was involved with anything illegal.” She laughs breathily. “We met at a bar conference, for God’s sake. As far as I knew he was just another predictably cutthroat chief legal officer for the Fortune 500.”
“So he’s a lawyer, too?” I think back on Nico’s eloquent condescension and showy suit, and nod. “I can see it.”
“He is, but he’s not just a CEO’s evil legal lapdog.” She leans in lowering her voice. “He’s also a consigliere, legal advisor to one of New York’s last thriving mob families, and third in line to be the big, bad mob boss of the next generation. Which, considering the turnover in that line of work, makes his ascension to the ranks of Al Capone types fairly likely.”
“Well, shit, Red.” Fuck. This is even worse than I thought. Nico’s not just a cog in a dangerous machine; he’s one of the people calling the shots.
And scheduling the hits.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
My breath whistles through my teeth. “You don’t mess around when it comes to making enemies, do you?”
Cat winces. “I know. But I honestly don’t think he wants to grow up to be a crime lord. Like I said, he has political aspirations, even White House fantasies. He’s been trying to distance himself from that world.”
I snort. “It doesn’t matter. A guy with mob ties, even distant ones, is never going to be president.”
Her lips twist. “I don’t know. When Trump cinched the GOP nomination all my preconceived notions about what the American people will put up with as far as crass, crazy, and weirdly orange are concerned went out the window.”
I nod, conceding the point.
“And Nico really does hide what he is very well. When I first met him, I had no clue he was part of organized crime,” she says, wadding her straw wrapper into a tiny little ball. “I only knew that he was an arrogant ass my father would have hated with the passion of a thousand white-hot waffle makers. That alone was enough to make me say yes to a first date.”
I arch a brow. “And the second date?”
“Well, he was charming in his way,” she says, tossing her straw-wrapper ball to the center of the table. “And the sex was pretty fucking phenomenal.”
I watch the wrapper roll across the metal surface, ignoring the growly feelings inspired by imagining Nico and Cat in bed together and the voice in my head that insists she only thinks she’s had “phenomenal” because I haven’t had my chance with her yet. These are inappropriate thoughts and feelings to have for a client, and I should be concentrating on her story, not my own reaction to it.
“But I don’t have a fucking clue why I let things go as far as I did.” She snatches her drink from the table and sucks vigorously at t
he straw, draining it several inches. “Maybe I have a brain tumor or something.” She pops her straw back in her mouth and takes down another giant mouthful of ice-cold shake.
“Hopefully not, but you’re going to give yourself a brain freeze if you’re not careful.”
“I don’t get brain freeze.” She sets the drink back on the table. “I’m a super-solider, remember?”
“I do, which is why I don’t understand this,” I say, shaking my head. “My ‘dude’s not right’ detector started going off the second I laid eyes on that guy. The lights are on, but no one’s home. At least, not anyone I want to meet.”
“He used to hide it better, I swear he did,” she says, that haunted look creeping in to tighten her features. “It’s only since I told him I was calling off the engagement that his mask started to slip. I never saw the Nico you saw today before that. He faked having a soul very well.”
“You were engaged?” I fight to keep the surprise from my tone. I had no idea it had gotten that serious, that she’d actually agree to marry that scum dumpster before changing her mind.
“Only for a couple of weeks.” She glances down at her folded hands, not meeting my eyes. “As soon as I said yes, our entire relationship changed. He started getting bossy with me outside the bedroom and assuming that he was going to have a level of control over my life that was never going to be okay. He wanted me to quit my job and text him every time I left his building. He even talked about putting a tracking device on my car…” She shakes her head. “All kinds of crazy stuff. But he kept insisting it was for my own safety, which made me ask questions I should have asked in the beginning.”
She takes another survey of the room. We’re now the only occupied table—the two women finished their shakes and left a while ago—but she still leans in to whisper her next words, “That’s when I found out that he’s been helping launder money for the Mancuso family for years, and that his grandfather pretty much owned Brooklyn in the fifties.”
I sit back hard enough to send the front legs of my chair lifting off the floor.
Mancuso.
This keeps getting better and better.
I’m far from up on current events—I prefer to get my news from the Onion and the pissed off political activists who swing into the shop to get inked—but even I know about the Mancusos. They’re New York’s most untouchable crime family, a group of highly intelligent, highly dangerous criminals who have managed to avoid prosecution for decades, all while ruling an empire built on blood and fear. Federal prosecutors have tried to bring several higher ups in the organization to trial twice, but each time key witnesses vanished before they could take the stand, and the mob bosses went free.
People who have dirt on the Mancusos have a way of disappearing on an alarmingly regular basis.
Disappearing…
The phrase is no longer the least bit funny, and the fact that Petey, the “disappearing” specialist, was glaring at Red less than an hour ago makes me determined not to let her out of my sight. No one is disappearing on my watch. Even if I have to break every one of Bash’s rules, I’m keeping Red alive until we can find a way out of this hot mess we’ve landed in.
CHAPTER TWELVE
From the texts of Aidan Knight and Sebastian “Bash” Prince,
with cell phone appropriation by Penny Pickett.
From Bash: End it, Aidan. Right now.
She lied on the application, which renders our contract null and void.
Go home, lock your door, and then give me a call back. We’ll figure out together what to do next. You’ve got a friend at the NYPD, right?
Aidan: Yeah, Lipman made Detective last year. But—
Bash: No buts. Get home and call Lipman. See if he can hook you up with someone who can help Catherine. And if that’s a bust, Penny knows a guy who’s former FBI.
Aidan: I’ll give Lipman a call as soon as I can, but I can’t bail on this assignment. Cat’s ex already saw us together this morning.
Bash: So what? Did you give him a name?
Aidan: Not my full name, no, but Cat mentioned my first name, and I hear mob guys are pretty good at getting information when they want it. And he’s going to want it. Cat says he takes jealousy to the insane place.
Bash: What’s to be jealous of? As far as he knows you and Catherine had brunch.
Aidan: Had brunch and then made out on his car.
Bash: Fuck!
No, don’t fuck.
So what? Brunch and making out. That’s not enough to get a price on your head. I know you like being the hero, but this isn’t what you signed up for. We take down average, run of the mill assholes. MBC isn’t equipped to take on the mob.
Aidan: I know, but I—
Bash: Get. Out. Of. There.
Now. Ten minutes ago if possible. You’re going to end up in the witness protection program, man.
Aidan: You’re not listening.
Bash: Or dead. Mobsters kill people, Aidan!
This is Penny, btw. I took Bash’s phone because I text faster than he does, but I speak for both of us when I say that this is crazy pants. We feel for this woman, we really do, but we LOVE you, and we do not want to see you hurt or killed for any reason.
But especially because of MBC.
This isn’t even your passion work. This is something you’re doing for extra cash, and extra cash is not worth endangering a single hair on your precious, furry, lumberjack face. So come over to Bash’s right now, and we’ll call my friend who used to be with the FBI and get some advice on how to put this fire out ASAP.
Bash wants his phone back because he thinks I’m going overboard with calling in the FBI guy right away, but I’m not going overboard.
Trust me, I know all about psychos.
My mom dated lots of psychos, including a guy who was with the Croatian mob. And Ivan was scary as shit, and no one has ever even heard of the Croatian mob. Ivan was a My Little Pony mobster compared to this Nico guy. This guy is a wild, angry, baby-eating, Italian-stallion mobster psycho who is fully capable of hiring people to fit you with concrete shoes and make sure your body is never found.
So get your butt over here right now.
Aidan?
Aidan are you still there?
Aidan if you don’t text back in the next minute, Bash and I are going to track you down and kidnap you. I’m serious!
Aidan, this is Bash again. Please don’t make me put clothes on and come have a serious talk with you. Just get out of there, go home, lock your door, and call me.
We can sort this out without losing our cool or anyone having to put on pants.
Aidan: I’m staying with Catherine at her place.
She isn’t thrilled about it, either, but I can’t leave her alone. We were followed when we left my gym today, I’d bet money on it. My skin crawled all the way back to the shop.
I tried to get Cat to stay with me at my place, but she wouldn’t. She thinks an overnight might piss Nico off to the point of doing something dangerous. But I say bring it on. The sooner he does something crazy enough to get arrested, the sooner he’s confined to a cell where he can’t get his hands on his ex-girlfriend.
Bash: He might not be able to get to her, but mobsters have people to do this kind of shit for them.
He’ll probably send one of them to stab you in your sleep and then you’ll be dead because you are not a cop, or an ex-Navy SEAL, or even in possession of CPR certification—a lapse in excellence and preparedness I want you to remedy as soon as you have a free weekend to take the course down at the Y.
I can’t believe I sent you out without being certified.
Penny has threatened to sue me herself just to teach me a lesson about not being responsible for perfectly preventable deaths.
Aidan: I’m glad Penny’s back to whip your ass into shape.
Which brings me to another important point: if I’d had a picture of our client beforehand, the way I was supposed to, this never would have happened. I would have b
een able to see that she was someone I have a history with, and could have turned the job down before we got started.
But now it’s too late so we’ll just have to get through this the best we can.
Bash: What?! What kind of history? Who is this woman?
Aidan: It doesn’t matter. What matters is that this is your fault, Bash, which means the ball is in my court.
If you make the mess, you don’t get to tell me how to clean it up.
Bash: Now hold on a fucking second
Aidan: Don’t bother texting again. I’m turning off my phone. I’ll touch base when Catherine and I have a game plan in place.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Red puts up a good fight, stalling by riding the 1 train all the way into the Bronx and back again, and then trying to ditch me in Times Square as we move between trains. But I remain stubbornly glued to her side, ignoring her protests that me spending the night at her place is the dumbest idea ever conceived by man.
Finally, around seven o’clock, she gives up, disembarks at the 14th Street Station, and leads me out into the muted evening light aboveground.
We emerge at the edges of a quiet Chelsea neighborhood and turn left along a tree-lined street, moving away from the hum of traffic on the Avenue and the hot dog and gyro vendors selling a quick evening meal to people headed home from work.
“You want a hot dog?” I jab a thumb over my shoulder. “I can run back and get a few. I’m not expecting you to feed me.”
“I’d rather fish something out of the garbage,” she says, her voice rough after hours of raising it to be heard over the roar of the trains underground.
“Delivery it is.” I smile, pulling in a deep breath of the cooling air. “I see you lied about the Lower Manhattan Dashers being too far for you to travel. I’m starting to think I can’t trust a word out of your mouth.”
“Again, I was lying to protect you,” she says wearily. “I didn’t want you to feel obligated to invite me into your club and then have it be weird. I was trying to keep your safe place safe, jackass.”