by Nina Park
"Alright, alright." Benny looked like something out of a bad movie about the 1950s, wearing a cheap suit and Dean Martin hair. He started to say something smart, Vincent could tell by the look on his face, but then his expression sobered. "Vince. You ain't here looking for work."
All of Vincent's nerves crackled to attention. "No, man. Why do you ask?"
Benny glanced at his partner and lowered his voice. Vincent wasn't naive enough to think the other man couldn't hear, but it was a nice gesture anyway. "There are stories about the Costas. About the boss. About things going wrong, and no one's sure what's up. And he ain't been seen in weeks."
"Oh, yeah?" Vincent kept his face perfectly still and calm. He didn't know anything so he couldn't share anything, so there wasn't any point in pretending he was trying to hide anything. All he had to do was not show a big reaction.
Benny scoffed. "This is why I never played poker with you, you son of a bitch. Come inside. Marco will definitely want to talk to you, hear what's up."
Vincent nodded, moving past Benny as the other man opened the door. "That's cool. I just want to be real clear, Benny; I'm here because I don't know what the hell's going on either. I've been out of town for months – get back and find out everything's gone wild." It was true enough that he didn't even have to try and make it into a story.
Too many guys who kept court in a bar like this would put themselves in a dingy corner where they could see everything before anyone could see them. That wasn't how Marco Delgado worked. He wore a bright white shirt that shone under the lights, and his table was placed directly under one. Marco was blond, had bright blue eyes, and everyone sighed when he smiled. Marco was older than Vincent and Benny, and as a favored son of the Delgado boss, his status had been assured early. Vincent and Benny had been aware of him, but he was something of a local celebrity to them.
Marco had a pile of paperwork in front of him and a gorgeous girl leaning on his arm, playing on her phone. She wasn't popping bubble gum and rolling her eyes at the wall, so Vincent liked her immediately; she was also incredible to look at. He didn't look at her, not directly; once upon a time, Marco had been the sort of guy to take offense to something like that, and Vincent was not interested in causing trouble.
At least, not yet.
Marco kept him waiting a while, which wasn't really unexpected. Vincent stayed quietly still, his hands crossed in front of his belt, and waited. It was one good thing about his experience as a guard; he could hold this position as long as those guys in front of the Queen's house in the funny hats.
After a while, Marco pushed away the ledger in front of him and looked up. His gaze took Vincent in from head to toe, then nodded. "It's been a long time, Vinnie."
Vincent tried not to obviously wince at the nickname. When he'd joined the Costas, he'd been very careful to only introduce himself as Vincent. It seemed much more grown up. Better overall. But you didn't correct someone when you needed something from them. That was just not a great plan.
"Pleased to see you, Mr. Delgado."
Marco waved a hand, dismissing the formality easily. "Please, Vinnie, we've known each other a long time now. Sit, tell me what's happening. It can't be something simple that brought you here. I know the Costas well."
The Delgados and the Costas weren't enemies, but they didn't exactly work together either. Being here was a risk, but it was the only reasonable next step.
"I thought I did too," Vincent said, trying to find a way to lead into his dilemma without giving away information that could get him in even deeper trouble. "But things are happening that are concerning. And, frankly, I need some help figuring out what's happening and what to do."
Marco leaned over and whispered something in the girl's ear. She nodded and smiled, slipping out of the booth and going – well, somewhere else. When Marco leaned back in, all the jolliness was gone from his face. He steepled his fingers and leaned forward, his entire appearance on edge, ready for action. "Tell me."
"There's something rotten. Someone feeding out bad information. I don't know who to trust."
Marco looked confused. "I'm not going to try and insult you, Vinnie, but last I knew you were a bodyguard for the Costas. Sure, you worked directly for Frank, but thinking isn't really your job. Unless you think that whatever is going on is going to implicate you, and you're looking to get protection from somewhere else?"
"It may come to that," Vincent said, trying his best to choose his words carefully. "But first, I have to know what's happening. You—" This was, possibly, the biggest risk he was going to need to take. "—are aware of what happened to Frank?"
Marco's gaze became even more intense. "Let's say I don't."
That was the adult version of "I know, but why don't you tell me so that I know you know." In for a penny, though, in for a pound.
"A few months back, Frank Costa was shot. In his own restaurant, from a long distance. There's been no real news that I've been able to pick up since. I don't even know if the man is still alive. I need to figure out what's happening to figure out if it's safe to even be here in the city." He tried to keep his tone level, but Marco had been reading faces and body language for decades.
"Why haven't you been around to – oh." Marco grinned just a little, a touch of satisfaction brushing his lips. "You're watching over the girl, aren't you? His daughter. What's her name again?"
"Alina."
"Mmm, yes." Marco sighed. "I bumped into her when she and Frank were on vacation down in Buenos Aires two summers ago. That girl has grown up just gorgeous. Tell me you've had a sample while you two have been hiding away."
Vincent felt his face growing bright red; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been so angry. It didn't matter that three months ago he would have – and did – think of Alina using the exact same language. From someone else, it was very different.
Marco seemed to recognize the anger and put his hands up to yield, still laughing just a little to himself. "I'm sorry," he said, and he sounded like he meant it. "I didn't realize it was like that. No harm meant."
Vincent nodded his forgiveness; the man didn't deserve any more, not while fury was still coursing through his veins.
"So you've got the girl, and you're keeping her under wraps until the coast is clear."
"Until either I can bring her home, or I know that she needs to disappear."
Marco nodded slowly. "I understand. But what do you need from me?"
"Information. There are a lot of players in the game, and if I'm going to get through this, I need to understand who's who."
"Sit," Marco said, and Vincent sat. "Hungry?"
Before Vincent could answer the question, his stomach let out a long, low growl. It was impossible not to laugh, even with the strain in the room.
"Now," Marco said. "Tell me what's going on. Everything you say will remain in the strictest of confidence."
Chapter Sixteen
Alina was about ready to crawl out of her skin by the time Vincent got back to the house.
"He's alive," she said before he'd even made it all the way in the front door. "I found him, Vincent. He's in rehab, he's had tons of infections, and he's still really sick, but he's alive."
She flung herself into his arms, and he wrapped her up with the one hand that wasn't trying to deal with his keys, but there was something off about it, like he wasn't quite the kind of happy she'd anticipated.
"Vincent?" She pulled back to get a look at his face. There was something dark and stormy there, and she didn't like it at all. "Vincent, come on. We need to get back in the car and go to the hospital. I need to see my dad."
All the things Alina wanted to tell her father were burning up in her mind. Since she'd put together where he was and waited for Vincent to get home, all she'd done was practice speeches about where she'd been, what she'd gone through, and what was happening now. She'd imagined him trying to roar over her getting involved with someone like Vincent, and her needing to talk him down with her calm but passionate arguments
. But she'd never stopped to think that Vincent would be anything but happy for her.
"You don't understand," Vincent said, and the voice – it was as hard and cold as it had been that very first night when he'd pulled her away from Johnny and tossed her drunk ass into an SUV before driving off into the night. This was the man who hadn't stopped to ask if she was okay, if he'd hurt her, if there were anything she needed to pick up. The man who just did his job.
The man who didn't give a shit about her.
Part of Alina understood. She'd seen her own father like this more than once. This was how men like them could survive in the world they made. Vincent had gone wherever he'd gone to find whatever he'd found, and it had clicked him over into that mode where all he did was solve problems and create solutions. She was proposing another problem – leaving their relative safe house in order to go out into the world. He knew he could take care of himself, and for obvious reasons, he was concerned about her ability to do the same. Especially as a pregnant woman. The stereotypes sucked, but when moving too fast made her so dizzy it was hard to stand, it was hard to argue too hard against them.
"You're right," she said, pulling out the soothing tone that worked on every single man she'd ever known in her life. He didn't soften immediately, but she could see some reaction happening very fast. He started to settle, especially once she smoothed a hand down his chest. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have jumped on you like that. I know it's more complicated than it sounds. I was just so excited that he—" She didn't have to work too hard to get a tear in her eye. "That he might really be alive."
She knew she'd won when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her tight against his chest. "I know, babe. I know. We just have to be careful now. What I found out – it isn't as much as I hoped, nowhere near close."
"Can you tell me?"
He shook his head. "I don't even understand it myself yet, and as much as I trust the source – it's important to be sure. You understand?"
She nodded hard.
"So, let's do this instead. Tell me how you found your dad. How you know he's okay."
Alina led him over to the table, going over her notes and phone records. She'd gotten rid of the rest of her father's common aliases, only leaving out the one she'd tracked down – she was her father's daughter in so very many ways – and showing him all the different hospitals she'd called. The path she'd been able to track from surgery to the intensive care unit to the wound care department and then finally into rehab.
He nodded through it all, and he actually seemed somewhat impressed with her detective work. That gave her a little bit of warmth in her body that made her relax a little bit more. And it made what she knew she was going to do just a little bit worse.
"You look exhausted," she said after he'd gone through all of her notes and nodded and looked suitably impressed. "And, frankly, you smell like smoke. Why don't you go have a shower, and I'll go and make us some lunch? Then we can talk about what you found out."
He gave her a look that was soft and kind and looked utterly out of place on his face. His hand cupped her cheek, and he leaned over. The press of his lips against her was soft. If he was the kind of man who might say that he loved her, she was pretty sure he would have said it then.
"Thank you. That's... yeah. It was hard, seeing the people I did, talking to them about what's going on. A shower will help. And then we can figure out the next step. Together."
Her heart twisted up in her chest, hard and sharp. She kept a smile on her face, however, as she nodded. "That sounds really great. You go clean up. I'll be here."
He kissed her again before he walked out of the room.
Alina spent a minute thinking of the right thing to do. The right thing to do would be to follow him. She was smitten with an image of dropping to her knees and sucking him off in the shower, his hand in her hair and the water splashing down on her face. That was what he would expect. That was what the Alina she wanted to be would do. The silly little party girl, the mob princess... that's what she would do.
But over the past few months, she'd found a different sort of Alina. A girl who was resourceful, brave, and unwilling to give up. She had more to do than just have fun and figure out what to do with her life now; she was going to be a mother. She had someone to protect.
But it was more than that. She needed to take care of her father, too. He'd watched over her for so many years, and even though he'd worked so hard to distance her from his life, and she'd been more than happy with that distance – she'd always thought that someday she would take care of him in his twilight years. That she would care for him as he had for her. Nor perfectly perhaps, but somehow.
She wanted to listen to Vincent. She wanted to be calm and rational and careful. But this was her father. She had to take care of her father.
She reached into the pocket of Vincent's leather jacket, where she'd seen him drop the car keys after he came inside. With only the slightest sense of misgiving, she crept to the front door, went out and closed it quietly behind her, then got into the car and drove away.
She made a few turns at random, just to give her heart a chance to slow down its throbbing pulse. She tried to recall the last time she'd really and truly disobeyed the rules someone had set down for her – ignored everything she was supposed to do and be and say – and done what she believed to be right. An example didn't easily come to mind.
"Well, college is a time for new experiences, I guess," she said out loud, even though she'd obviously been withdrawn from all her classes and probably school by now, and she'd been enough of a party girl that she'd run through her basic allotment of new experiences without question. But all the same, it was a better rallying cry than some.
She pulled the note with the hospital address out of her pocket and plugged it into her GPS. Her phone thought for a moment before calculating a route; she poked it until it was choosing more backroads than it was highways. It would take a little longer to drive, but she would also be a little harder to find, just in case Vincent realized what had happened immediately. She was banking on him taking some extra time in the shower while he waited for her to come up and kneel for him.
There was a not small part of herself that worried she was going to ruin this forever. She had no idea really if she and Vincent had a good thing going. They had pretty amazing sex, and they'd managed to be stuck in the same space day in and day out for months without killing each other, and both of those things were positive signs. But at the same time... he was ultimately a guy she'd really known for less than half a year. She couldn't put him before her father. She just couldn't.
And the baby?
She pushed that thought away as hard as she could. She'd mostly refused to let herself think of it as a baby yet. It was a clump of cells, an embryo maybe, but it wasn't a baby. Not yet. Not yet because it was too dangerous for it to be a baby now. Not when there was so much on the line, so very many things being risked. She had to stay focused on what she knew and what she could control. If she could protect the baby, of course she would. She wasn't a monster. But the baby couldn't be her priority, not yet. It just couldn't.
It's half the reason you're doing this – so your father can know he's a grandfather. Even if he tells you to run and hide forever, you want him to know.
The voice inside her head was a jerk. It was just that simple.
A few miles down the road, she drove past a gas station. She pulled in to fill up the car, get some coffee, and stock up on some snacks. Protein heavy – snack packs of pretzels with hummus and cheese and nuts that some stores had started to carry. For the first time in ages, she pulled out her credit card. It seemed incredibly irresponsible – the first rule of being on the run was not to leave any kind of electronic trail – but who would still be watching her credit card? Wasn't it much more likely they would be watching her father's room anyway? If there was a trap, she was walking right into it, and making herself hungry along the way wasn't going to help her at all.
Besides, she'd forgotten to bring cash.
After that, her road trip continued in earnest. The GPS said it was going to be about two hours to her destination, based on current traffic. She steeled her nerves and pushed herself to keep driving. It was too late to turn back. Way, way too late.
***
She'd expected to be driving into the parking structure attached to a major research hospital. After all, that as certainly what it'd looked like on the website she'd tracked down. But instead, she found a single level lot around a two-story building that looked softer and more modern than any hospital she'd ever seen. The rehab wing at St. Stephen was apparently separated from the hospital by more than just a single long corridor – the entire aesthetic of the building was different.
That had to be good though; patients were here to recover from the kind of illnesses and trauma that took real physical and mental work on their parts. After surgeries or when life was actively being threatened, that was on the doctors; when someone needed to learn to walk or write or use their mobility aids, a lot more of that work was on the patient. Having somewhere nice to do it seemed – well, kind.