“Why can’t I do the job my brother did for you?”
“I suppose that could be considered.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Not quite.” He chuckled under his breath. “You’re quite an interesting young lady, Miss Ford. Not at all what I expected.”
“Thank you, I think.”
His smiled vanished and he grabbed my arm with a little more force than before. A flame of anger flared in his blue eyes, darkening the sea color.
“Ouch, that hurts.”
“With all of that said, however, I won’t allow you or your family to stiff me of fifty grand.” By the time, he finished his sentence his face was inches from mine and his spit hit my cheek from his hissed words.
“How . . . how . . . how much?”
“Your brother owes me nearly fifty thousand dollars. I really don’t want to have make threats, Miss Ford. So I hope you can make the right choice before I have to do something I really don’t want to do.”
Out of options, the only words I could mutter were the ones I didn’t know if I really wanted to say.
“I’ll pack my things.”
FIVE
“I KNEW YOU’D MAKE the right choice. I’ll have Catalano see you to the house, then.” With a tip of his fedora, Vincent strode for the door. The rusty hinges creaked as he yanked it open.
“Catalano, help Miss Ford pack her things and take her to the house. I shall ride with Dom and meet you there.”
Max crossed through the threshold after Vincent left, but remained silent as he gently shut the door behind him. His staring eyes burned into me as he waited in silence, second after second, then minute after minute.
Tension tickled through my skin, teasing to the edge of collapsing all thought and feeling in my body. Inch by inch, the walls began to close in on me, taunting me as they crept in and in and in.
Breathe, Evelyn, just breathe.
“Miss Ford?” Max finally said. His gruff tone showed little mercy, mirroring his stiff shoulders. “We don’t have all day, so what can I help you pack?”
I ignored his effort to spur me into action. Far too stunned and unable to put thought to movement or speech, my whole world turned upside down in one confusing mess that threatened to knock my feet out from underneath me.
I wrapped my arms around my shoulders. “When I awoke this morning, I just wanted to find a job.”
“Well, then, you did what you set out to accomplish.”
Max’s once pitiful gaze from the theater had disappeared, replaced with a cold, hardened darkness that lay inside the deep brown. Confusing and shameful, it burned the last of my frayed nerves.
“Why do you look upon me as though I’m to blame, as though I was the foolish one for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“I—”
“No, this is not my fault. I took your money. I left the theater. I didn’t know Mr. Giovanni would be waiting for me when I returned home. I didn’t know that Frank had sought employment with him or that he’d foolishly gotten locked up.”
A rebuttal swam in Max’s eyes while a defense of words sat on the tip of his tongue, building through his chest as he inhaled a deep breath.
I waited for the backlash, waited for the lecture barreling toward me, but he said not a word as he slid both of his hands in the pockets of his trousers.
“I thought about Frank, too, this morning,” I continued. “However, I didn’t know where he was. I suppose I wanted to believe so badly that he’d found a job, one that kept him from coming home for one reason or another. I didn’t wish to dwell on the fact he was missing.”
“He’s not missing.”
“No, he’s not. He’s in jail.”
Max closed his eyes as a groan whispered from his lips. “Your family really has a knack for trouble. You know that?”
“Well, I’m sorry to be such a bother.” My crisp voice shot at him, bitter and harsh.
He opened his mouth to retort, but said nothing and shook his head.
“What happened to my brother?”
“I don’t know if I’m the one who can tell you or not, but I do know that now is not the time for you to know everything.”
“Why?”
“Because now is not the time.” He stepped forward, pointing a finger in my face. His voice held a commanding depth that rattled through my body.
I fled from him quickly and braced myself against the wall.
His eyes widened at my reaction. His hard glare softened and his eyes darted to the floor. He retreated several steps away from me and ran his hands through his hair.
“I’ll inform Vinny of your inquiry. When he gives his permission to inform you, I will. You have my word.” His shoulders hunched and his voice remorsefully lightened to barely above a whisper. “Now, what can I help you pack?”
I shot him a glare as I fetched a tattered bag from behind the dresser. I yanked open one of the drawers and shoved the only clothes I owned deep inside the bag.
I glanced around the rest of the hovel. Attached to nothing, not one single thing proved any worth in taking. Filled with worthless junk, whoever moved into this place could have it all after I left. I didn’t want anything.
As I tucked the bag under my arm, my fingers grasped the brown grocery sack in the corner. The thick paper crinkled in my clammy hand.
“I don’t have anything else I want to take.”
“I can carry those for you.” Max scurried after me.
He reached for the bags, but I ripped them from his grasp.
“I don’t need your help.”
As I strode out of the door, Benjamin grabbed me. He swung me around him, and braced himself in between Max and me with his fists high in the air, poised to punch.
“Evelyn, run!”
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
Max calmly folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t offer any fight or raise his own fists. He just stood there and stared without blinking at the scrawny young boy attempting to ward off a man twice his size.
“Evelyn, run.” With another struggled movement, Benjamin shoved me in the opposite direction of them.
“Stop, Benjamin, just stop. You need to go home.”
“Are you in trouble?”
The concern in his eyes weighed heavy on my guilt. I hated the thought of lying to him, but I didn’t want to tell him the truth. Not to mention, my life wasn’t his business.
He wasn’t a beau, although he desperately desired to be, and he wasn’t my family. He was a friend of Frank, who insinuated himself into my life far too much for my taste.
“Benjamin, Mr. Catalano is taking me to Frank. I know where he is. He’s found employment, and I’m leaving. You need to go home.”
“But that just doesn’t make any sense.”
I reached into the collar of my dress and withdrew the wad of cash wedged in my brassiere. “Please, Benjamin, take this and go home.”
With his eyes wide, he shook his head, and raised both hands. “Where did you get that dough?”
I shoved the paper bills in one of his hands and the bag of food in the other. “Just take the money and groceries, and go home.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t stick around to listen to his words.
“Don’t even think about it. Just go home.”
I heard Max warn as I strode off.
I didn’t glance over my shoulder or stop walking until I rounded the corner and stumbled down the pathway toward the city streets.
In the destitution around me, my emotions swung like a pendulum. I hated this mare’s nest of a place, and yet, although rundown, I could return to my hovel no matter what sort of hell happened in the outside world.
Rent free, I could still have a roof over my head even without money. Not everyone lived so lucky, but I did, and now a stranger had forced me to abandon my only place of solace and security for the unknown.
Max trotted after me until he reached my side.
; “I apologize if I wasn’t supposed to give him the money,” I whispered.
“It was yours to do with as you pleased so you might as well help a boyfriend if you want.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“But he wants to be.”
“I’m still sorry for giving it away. The only clothes I own are in my bag and I don’t have another pair of shoes. Now, without that money, I can’t buy myself a more appropriate wardrobe.”
“Vinny will see to it that you have clothes.”
“And I’m supposed to . . . he’s just going to pay for everything?”
Max nodded and withdrew a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his blazer, sliding one out with his fingers.
“That’s the deal.”
“But I’m supposed to work to pay off a debt, not dig myself deeper.”
He shrugged his shoulders and with utter indifference in his eyes, his lips curved into a slight frown.
A flash of silver glimmered in the sunlight as he lit his cigarette then tucked the polished lighter back into his pocket. He quickened his pace to stride several feet ahead of me and puffs of smoke billowed above his head.
Fear and dread crept along my skin. My life now a sudden whirlwind of an adventure I didn’t know if I wanted to take, and yet, didn’t have a choice to refuse.
Max continued ahead of me toward a black Rolls Royce parked along the side of the street. The orange and yellow evening sky reflected in some of the color and brightened the darkness.
Sleek windows, brand new tires, and shiny chrome accessories, the car drove out of any fantasy I had ever had about a vehicle—a beautiful package of steal and leather like a chariot waiting to carry me away.
Max opened the back seat passenger door and motioned for me to get in. My backside slid against the seat. Soft and lush, my fingertips grazed along the white buckskin as he shut the door behind me.
After several strides, he opened his door and slid into the driver seat, flipping the key over to start the motor. A low rumble vibrated from the purr of the engine and with pressure on the gas pedal, it roared and propelled us away from the sidewalk.
“Evelyn!” Benjamin rushed out into the middle of the street. His lungs heaved from running and he clutched his chest.
I glanced at him through the window.
Concern dimmed through the blueness of his eyes. The grocery bag fell from his arms and hit the ground, tumbling several inches from the force of the fall. Before the Rolls Royce vanished from sight, he raised his hand and waved goodbye.
The tires spun underneath me, bouncing the automobile with every bump and pothole.
Max kept his eyes forward, although he occasionally glanced at me through the rearview mirror above his head. Each time we caught each other’s glimpse, we both looked away. So many questions fired off in my mind, and yet, I couldn’t find the words to speak or the gumption to ask.
As we continued to travel down street after street, businesses soon gave way to apartment buildings, and then to magnificent homes. Whether painted or built with bricks, the mansions were adorned with wrap around porches, elegant columns, and tall windows. Each one resembled ones I’d seen in magazines, never in real life.
Wrought iron gates and fences protected the lush lawns and the Buckthorn and Black Cherry trees, standing so tall they hid some of the houses behind them. Their leaves rustled in the breeze in deep shades of green even in the fading sunlight.
A nervous energy fluttered against my curiosity and I leaned over toward the window. A far cry from the city of hovels I just left, I gazed out into the sea of homes from my dreams as a little girl.
“Have you ever been to this neighborhood?” Without turning his head, Max’s eyes stared at mine through the mirror.
I leaned away from the window and shook my head.
“This is just one of many houses you will come to know.”
“Mr. Giovanni owns more than one house?”
“He owns several, all in different parts of the city, along with several business and warehouse buildings, including the burlesque theater you strolled into today.”
A sense of remorse hummed through Max’s tone as though a war of guilt raged in his mind. He slowed the automobile and turned down a long, winding driveway toward a mansion that crushed every daydream I’d ever had, pounding it into dust.
A gasp left my lips.
“Mr. Giovanni lives here?”
With a subtle shake of his head, Max snickered and twisted the key off. The once purring engine died and he shoved his door open. Slothfulness whispered in his movements as he strode around the automobile and I couldn’t help but feel grateful for the moments to myself so I could collect my thoughts.
After he opened my door, he stuck his hand out for me to take.
I hesitated, staring at his fingers.
“Miss Ford?”
Tears stung my eyes.
His lips curved into a deep scowl and he glanced down the street for a moment. “Please don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just . . . scared.”
My last word seemed to resonate in his shoulders. No longer the broad stance, he hunched as though my fear brought him pain.
“You don’t have to be scared, Miss Ford. You really don’t. I promise you that no one will hurt you. Not when I’m around.”
His eyes locked onto mine, not in anger, but with fierceness and a sense of reassurance that stole my breath.
A raw emotion I hadn’t seen in him before, like a wall had collapsed or a façade had shattered, both of them leaving a softness to a man I thought of as stark.
“You really do have a knack for walking into trouble without meaning to.” He sighed deeply and stuck his hand out for me to take once more.
My fingers touched his and glided along his palm.
The smooth, gruffness in his skin warmed my own, soft and gentle, and yet, with a toughness as though a breathless brawn stood inches from me, only he concealed it, masking his strength and authority for some unknown, secret reason.
With my hand in his, I stepped out of the automobile and out onto the bricked driveway.
SIX
THICK ROSE BUSHES lined the walkway toward the front door of the mansion. The buds hadn’t fully bloomed, and yet, their sweet fragrance tickled my nose.
My shoes scuffed along the stone colored bricks as I followed Max, my feet weighted with a suffocating heaviness.
Certainly beautiful, the residence mimicked every home I had daydreamed about in my youth. Ones I imagined I’d share with my handsome, rich husband, living a life of hosting fancy dinner parties for all of our friends.
Our children would grow up playing outside, decorating Christmas trees, and celebrating birthdays, Easter, and Thanksgiving.
From their first days of primary school to their high school graduations, they would grow up eating pancakes while wearing pajamas and socks around the breakfast table to bringing over our grandchildren to play.
Yes, this house was just like those dreams.
However, it held a difference that tightened in my chest.
Birds chirped from the trees around the front yard in an effort to soak up the last rays of the sun before the darkness consumed and the storm brewing the distance thundered and boomed around them.
As Max opened the front door and stepped inside, he glanced over his shoulder, noticing my vacillation.
“Miss Ford?”
My eyes met his and my heart pounded with the thought of fleeing down the street crossing my mind.
“Miss Ford?”
“I’m coming.”
With a deep breath, I stepped over the threshold and on to the white marble floors of a space that was bigger than my parent’s old apartment.
The elegance of the foyer stole all thought from my head, a remarkable sight that shamed any of my dreams.
My eyes danced from the dark cherry wood furniture with their luscious fabric to the staircase circling up toward the second floor t
o the large crystal chandelier that hung in the middle of the room. The rainbow colors from the crystals reflected off the soft tan and white wallpapered walls.
I caught Max’s slight smirk. For a moment, I had forgotten the whole days’ events leading me to this very second. The utter sophistication around me had stirred through my blood, and I lost all concept of my whereabouts.
“I take it you like the house.” Max chuckled as he removed his light gray fedora and tossed it on one of the tables.
“It’s beautiful.”
He gave a slight nod as his hand gently pressed against the small of my back, leading me past the staircase toward two dark cherry doors that he knocked on twice.
“Come in,” a man’s voice beckoned from the other side.
As Max and I entered the room, Vincent and two women rose to their feet. While he smiled a broad grin, the two women gazed down their long, thin noses at me with a sense of repulsion.
“Ah, Miss Ford, you are here. Come in, come in.” Vincent strolled to my side, wrapping his arm around my shoulders to lead me into the room. His grip tender, and yet, whispered with firmness. “I trust that your travels here were satisfactory?”
“Yes, they were.”
“Excellent, excellent. I’d like you to meet Marjorie and Sophia Moreau. They own a fabulous dress shop downtown and they are here to give you a new wardrobe.”
Vincent released me and clapped his hand a couple of times. Within seconds, a few housemaids rushed through the parlor doors, wedging racks and racks of dresses in every nook they could fill.
“Ooo . . .” Not even a word, the sound escaped through my stunned exhaled breath.
Vincent led me toward the couch. The soft white velvet cushion, thicker than any bed I’d ever slept on, engulfed me.
“I want you to enjoy yourself this evening. Try on everything, and please, anything you like, you may keep.”
“Are you sure?”
“Anything you like, you may keep, and don’t forget to try on the shoes and hats.”
“Um . . . all right.”
He bent over and rested his hand against the back of the couch behind me, leaning in close to my face.
“I have dinner plans this evening, so I will not see you until tomorrow. However, I leave you with Catalano and Mr. Phelps, my butler. They shall see to anything you should require. I hope you have a lovely evening.”
As the Liquor Flows Page 5