“Better give the people what they want, baby.” She gave him a killing look, and he grinned back. “Go on now, let’s see what you’ve got.”
“We need to talk.”
The crowd had picked up a chant: BIL-LY. BIL-LY. BIL-LY.
“It can wait. I got all night.”
Her eyes narrowed at the corners. Damn, she was so entirely pissed. Tony found himself enjoying this chick. Enough balls to stand up, but not so much to be stupid.
“Don’t do anything to anybody. Just ... sit until we can talk.”
“You givin’ me orders now?”
“Please,” she added, without much grace.
Conceding with a nod, he stepped to the side and waved her forward. She went to the stage. The crowd encouraged her with cheers and woo-hoos. The singer helped her onto the stage, and they stood there for a minute, away from the mic, and talked—it didn’t look at all like a friendly little chat. The singer was getting an earful, and giving one right back.
Oh yeah, this was fun.
There was a tall two-top close by, where a guy was sitting. Two empty stools close, and two glittery mini-purses on the table. Two half-full glasses of white wine, lipstick on the rims. And a glass of water. That dude was a third wheel, the safe guy friend two girls had brought out like an accessory. Sfigato. Chum.
He went over and dropped his hand on the guy’s shoulder. “This table’s taken.”
“What? Yeah, uh—we ...” Mr. Safety looked up and caught a good look at Tony’s face, and started to get the picture. He cast a quick, searching look across the dance floor, now full of people stopped and waiting for the music to start again. “Um ... well ...”
“Now, my friend. Up you go.”
The guy gathered up his purses and wine and water in an awkward bundle and shuffled off. Tony sat, and nodded for Bluto to do the same.
Poor guy. His name was actually just David. He’d gotten saddled with the nickname while he was running, just a neckbeard slob of a teenager working a route near Providence. Tough enough to get Angie’s attention, but not smart enough to choke out a shitty moniker before it took on a life of its own.
Way back in grade school, a kid had tried to get the other kids to call Tony ‘Choco-Nuts.’ He’d beat that kid bloody, and nobody called him anything but Tony after that. When he first joined up with the Paganos, other associates tried to call him Tony Chocolate. But Tony didn’t want a nickname, certainly not one that was food-related, especially not candy. He was not chum, and he was not sweet. So he put an end to it, in similar fashion.
Bluto, no matter how tough he ended up being, was stuck with that name forever now. Even if he reached the top of the heap, the only thing he could expect was not being called it to his face. Donnie ‘The Face’ Goretti knew all about that.
“I don’t know—shit, I don’t know what to sing,” Billy was saying into the mic. After a second, the singer chick, who played keyboards, too, plunked out a few notes, and a lot of the people on the dance floor seemed to recognize the tune from that little trill. Tony thought he did, too, but not enough to place it.
“Okay. I guess I’m P!nk tonight. I’m gonna sing ‘Try.’” She cleared her throat, then stepped back from the mic—not far enough for it to miss her doing a quick vocal scale to warm up. She nodded at the band, and the drummer knocked out a beat on her sticks.
Tony liked P!nk’s music, and he was curious now. Did Billy have that kind of voice?
Yes, in fact, she did. A great voice. It took her only a bar or two to get into this surprise performance, and then it was clear she’d performed before. She was all the way in, holding the mic like a lover, belting out that song, hitting every note. She even looked a little like P!nk, now that he was thinking that way. Sexy-butch.
He was pretty fucking turned on, actually. Shit.
“Can I get you fellas anything?” A pretty redhead in the West Egg staff get up—short black skirt, shimmery gold top—stood at Bluto’s shoulder and smiled at Tony. No name tag, but Alonzo had called his buyer here a ‘little redheaded hottie,’ and here she was.
“Nicole?”
Her smile grew a bit. “Yes! Hi. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
Just about once a week, he did some face time here. It was SOP to make sure all the businesses in the Cove got a little reminder that the Pagano Brothers were paying attention, and the mid-level soldiers got that duty unless there was significant trouble, when higher-ups checked in. But he didn’t think this chick had ever been his waitress. Usually, Billy dealt with him herself.
He could handle shit right now. Take the little redheaded hottie by the arm and get her someplace private. Get his answers, leave his message. Not hurt her, not a chick, but scare her. Thoroughly. Make sure the message got across. Find a guy she cared about if hurt was necessary. Boyfriend, brother, or father. He could handle this shit and get out of here. Call his day done, finally.
On the stage, Billy was belting out the chorus. Now the crowd was singing along with her. He’d told her he wouldn’t do anything until they could talk.
Not that he owed her that consideration.
He listened for a bit, caught up in watching the same woman who’d been trying so hard to stand her ground with him a few minutes ago now thoroughly swept up in a song she hadn’t wanted to sing.
The song ended, and the crowd gave her enthusiastic props. Tony turned his attention back to the little waitress. His quarry for the night. Chum. “Couple of Sams.”
“On tap?”
“That’s fine.”
Her smile still glowing, she left them, unaware how hard her night was going to get.
“Sams? You mean Sam Adams? I don’t like that crap,” Bluto complained.
“I don’t give a fuck.”
Billy was off the stage and making her way back through an adoring crowd, and the singer was thanking her and being ignored.
Tony stood and buttoned his suit jacket. “You stay here, Blute. I’m gonna talk to the owner chick. Keep your eyes on the redhead. She’s our mark.”
“Why didn’t we take her? She was standin’ right here.”
“Because I don’t want to take her yet.”
Billy finally arrived. She was sweaty now, and flushed, but it only made her look sexier. Like she’d just been well fucked.
“Thank you for waiting. Can we go back to my office to talk?”
He stepped to the side. “Lead the way.”
Leaving Bluto behind, he followed Billy through the club. They passed Nicole, with a tray of two draft beers on her hand. She saw them and paused, confused, but Billy didn’t give her more than a cursory glance. She led him to the back, to a red door near the kitchen, where she keyed a code into a pad above the knob. It opened, and she waved him forward.
“No, baby. After you.”
She gave him a dissatisfied huff and went through the door, which led directly up a set of stairs. Halfway up was a landing, with another door at the side. She opened it; it wasn’t locked. She hit a switch, and the room filled with soft light. He followed her in, and found himself in her office, as advertised. A window behind her desk showed the club below. The glass must have been treated with something, because the stage lights didn’t glare. Good insulation, too. Though the bassline thumped against the floor, it wasn’t loud in here.
The furniture was mismatched and old fashioned, but it looked like she meant it that way. Nothing went together, but it all worked, somehow.
“What’s further up the stairs?” he asked as he closed the door. He could see that the stairs ended in open space up above. No other door.
“My apartment.”
“You live here?”
“I do. I’d think you’d know that.”
“If I’d needed to know where you live, I’d’ve known.”
Her lips twisted up into an irritated knot, and she moved behind her desk. Trying to establish ownership of the space and shift power in her own favor. Nice try.
Seeing a lit
tle bar setup on the far wall, Tony went to it and, without asking, poured himself a glass of good scotch. He didn’t offer her one. Drink in hand, he unbuttoned his jacket, sat in an armchair facing her desk, and slouched comfortably.
“So, I waited. Why did I wait?”
“I don’t believe Nicole is selling.”
“I don’t care what you believe, baby. I’ve got good word on it, and there’s only two ways this goes from here: you help me handle the problem, or you become part of the problem. Which one—that’s your call.” He sipped his drink.
“She’s a good server, and I’ve been clear with my staff about the rules. She wouldn’t fuck me over like this.”
“Yet I still need to talk to her.”
“’Talk.’ Right. You don’t handle problems with talking. You handle problems by cutting people’s legs off.”
He loved that rumor. It was wrong, but in the right ways. He’d shot that Swinton asshole in the knee. One shot. And Swinton had fired a shotgun at him and Trey Pagano already, so he’d more than deserved it. Not Tony’s fault the doctors couldn’t save the bottom half of his leg.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Talking’s our preferred way of handling trouble. It’s when people don’t hear that things get messy. Like you not hearing me right now. Two choices, baby. What’s your pick? Are you part of the solution or the problem?”
“Let me talk to her.”
So she could send her little waitress running? Did she think he was new at this? “No.” Swallowing down the rest of his scotch, he set the empty glass on her desk. “Okay, time’s up. I came up here to see if you had something interesting to say, but you don’t.”
He stood and turned to the door. Billy jumped up and ran from her desk to the door, blocking his way.
“Stop. This is crazy. If she’s selling, I’ll tell her to stop. Problem solved.”
Tony walked all the way up to her, so close he could feel her tits brushing his chest as her breaths heaved softly. The sparkle in her eye makeup had scattered over her cheeks a little. She glittered. And yeah, her eyes were blue. With darker blue in a ring around the iris.
Her lips were dark red, but not shiny. It was lipstick, obviously, but he could almost imagine her lips were naturally that color. Dark as chianti.
With one index finger, he drew a slow line from her chin, down her throat, straight down her chest, where her silk blouse sagged open to show her bra. Letting his knuckle graze the swell of a tit, he hooked his finger in at the center of her bra, where there was a little black satin bow. He played his voice soft, like sex, and said, “You already talked to her. You said yourself, she knows the rules. She broke them anyway. Unless you’re lying to me, and you’re in on it.”
“I’m not in on anything. But I’m not letting you hurt her.”
She stood there, letting him touch her but clearly hating it. Her eyes were sharp as cut glass with her fury. An idea caught his attention—a way to gauge this chick’s steel.
He smiled and leaned in, brushed his nose across her neck. “What’ll you do to save her? You got anything I want?”
Her chest went still as her breath dammed up. “You are a son of a bitch.”
He laughed but didn’t lean back. “Not nice to talk about my mamma that way,” he murmured, as if he were seducing her. “You didn’t answer my question. What’ve you got for me, baby?” He let his tongue out and tasted the skin above a pulse point. Salty. Sweet.
Tony was, indeed, a son of a bitch. But he had no intention of taking anything of this chick’s body she wouldn’t freely give. For one, that was bullshit behavior even for him. For another, Angie would take his balls and hang them over the rearview in that loud damn Hellcat. And he didn’t want to think what the don would do. Pagano men did not hurt women.
Physically.
That said, he enjoyed seeing where a woman in this situation would draw the line. Where this woman in particular would draw it. A lot could be learned from taking someone to the brink of their endurance. All the most important things that made them who they were sat right on that line.
Then Tony felt a sharp pain in his gut. He grunted and stepped back, pulling one side of his suit coat open. There was a red spot growing on his dress shirt, around a little tear, about an inch long.
And Billy Jones held a fucking silver letter opener in her hand, its tip gleaming red. It shook a little and then went still as she got control of her trembling hand. She must have hidden it in her jacket sleeve while she was at her desk. Before he could grab it, she tossed it away, and it landed on the floor behind her desk, out of reach of them both.
The bitch had fucking stabbed him. He yanked his shirt from his pants and lifted to see what she’d done. Not much, a little gash the same inch wide as the cut in his shirt. Enough to bleed and sting like a motherfucker, but no real damage.
She’d damn well gotten his attention, though. He lifted his hand and stared at the blood on his fingers. “You crazy little bitch! You know who I am, and you do this?”
“You are a pig. I won’t give you anything of me. And I’m not giving you Nicole, either. I pay you fuckers to protect me, and my staff, and my business. I pay more than I can afford, and I do it without complaint. So I will handle my problem with my staff my goddamn self. And you will back the fuck off and fucking let me. If I fail, then you can take it out on me. I know what you’re capable of, and if that’s what you want to do, I guess go ahead. But I deserve a chance to fix this my way first.”
It wasn’t the stabbing holding him back—his reaction to that was shock more than anything. It was her. He was impressed, plain and simple, and could not remember the last time anyone, man or woman, had stood up to him like this when he was on the job—not some whiny protest about how unfair life was, not shrieking rage, like that Dominican bastard he’d shot the other day, but just toe to toe, making demands of her own, and making a not insignificant amount of sense.
He liked people who fought back. Really fought. Not just flailed and blustered, but came hard. He’d taken her to the brink, and she’d shown herself to be a warrior.
When he stared hard into her eyes, she stared right back. She was scared, he could see it, but she stood there, strong and full of fight. Fuck, he was hard for her. That little show he’d put on, getting all up in her space, had gotten him stirred—no, her singing had lit the fuse, if he were honest about it—and now, he badly wanted to fuck her.
But he was bleeding, and she was likely to gouge his eyes out if he leaned in again. He didn’t think even he could manage to turn this moment into a bona fide seduction.
So he smiled. “Okay, baby. We’ll try it your way. But if I hear even a whisper of that action goin’ down here ever again, starting right now, it’s you I come for—and you and me, we’re all talked out on this. If I come for you, it’ll be messy. That’s the deal.”
She stared a little longer, reading his face, and then gave him one bob of her head in agreement and stepped away from the door.
“You have a good night now, Billy Jones.” He reached for the doorknob. “And watch out for sharp objects.”
“Wait.”
At her word, Tony stopped and pushed the door back to latch. He turned around. “Change your mind?”
“No. Here. You’re bleeding.” She opened a cabinet and pulled out a first aid kit.
Okay, that was funny. “You’re gonna fill your divot, huh?”
She took out a large Band-Aid and opened the wrapping. Apparently, she was going to nurse him, full out. This was a twist he hadn’t expected.
“You golf?” she asked as she pulled the Band-Aid from its package.
The question came out of nowhere. “Please?”
“You said, ‘fill your divot.’ That’s a golf thing.”
Ah, right. “A little. Mainly, I like the driving range, but I get out on the course sometimes.” Golf was one of the few things he’d done with his father that had gone okay, because Tony had a natural inclination for the sport, and, m
ore importantly, was both good enough and smart enough to impress his father without besting him. Angie liked to play a round, too, and had tapped Tony for a partner when he’d heard he was good.
“You play?” he asked. Wait, were they having a normal conversation now? Small talk?
“I did, through high school. I was on my school’s team. Not much since.”
She brought the Band-Aid over. He lifted his shirt again and let her cover the hole she’d made in his gut.
Her fingers were cool and soft. That dark polish on her nails sparkled and seemed to change color as she moved.
“When I fix up a guy I just hurt, it’s because I plan to do a lot worse to him later,” he said, primarily to orient his focus away from her hands on him. “That your plan?”
She almost smiled. She didn’t, but almost. “No. I just ... didn’t want you going through my club leaving a trail of blood.”
He chuckled. “Well, thanks.” Tucking in his shirt—that little pinprick was going to hurt for a bit—he buttoned his jacket. “I’ll be seein’ you, Billy Jones.”
He left her standing in her office and went down to collect Bluto. They were done for the night.
~ 6 ~
The first thing Billy did when Tony left was puke into her wastebasket. She picked it up from the floor beside her desk and hurled.
What the fuck had she gotten herself into? What the fuck had just happened? What the fuck would happen next?
Hugging the basket like a teddy bear, she went to the window and looked out over her club, trying to find Tony, through the stage lights and the dance floor and the happy crowd of libation-lubricated patrons. She wanted to watch him leave the club. Him and his chubby friend.
She homed in on the two-top they’d been sitting at when she’d come off the stage—fucking Carly, putting her on the spot like that. She had a rage to let loose about that, too, but not right now. Right now, she had to get her hands around the idea that she’d just fucking bargained with a fucking Paganos Brother enforcer to put herself in his sights in place of Nicole.
Who the fuck did she think she was, Katniss Everdeen?
Accidental Evils Page 6