I haven’t moved a muscle, like I’m playing one of those childhood games where you have to freeze. But then I turn my eyes from the face-suckers back to the guy.
“They’re not gonna go away,” I whisper at last.
“You stupid fuck,” the guy sighs.
“Please don’t kill me, dude. Like, I definitely have a death wish, but I kind of want it to be on my own terms, you know?”
The guy looks me over, our faces still so close together that his breath is warm on my cheek. After a second, the knife retreats back into its sheath with a soft whoosh, although the guy keeps his grip on the back of my neck.
“They’re coming back for me. A cop car scared them off, just for a second though. So you need to get me up,” the guy tells me.
Not I need help or Please help me. Just: You need to get me up. It’s not a request. It’s not even a command. It’s a statement with which I am expected to agree.
And agree I do. I let the guy hang onto my neck and gather those long gazelle legs underneath himself, and rise up, up out of the trash, with a surprising amount of grace for a guy who’s been beaten, stabbed, and left for dead.
Or something like that, anyway.
“Eyyyy,” says a voice from the entrance to the alleyway. “You got some fairy friend to help you? You never learn, do you?”
The face-sucking amoeba to our left looks up and separates back into two separate beings. Like animals sensing danger, they make a run for it past the four men milling around the alley entrance.
The men let them go.
The voice floats down the alley again. “Or maybe Tinkerbell was gonna suck your dick, make you feel all better?”
I guess I do look a bit like a sparkly fairy tonight, in my silver pants and top, my bright pink hair in a faux-hawk. If anyone else had said it, I might even thank them for the compliment.
“He can suck my dick when I’m done with you,” the voice continues, coming closer. “Then we’ll teach him a lesson, too.”
“Shit,” Lucifer mutters, and pushes me away. “Run. Go. Fuck off.”
“Mmm…nah.”
Lucifer is looking at me like I’m crazy. I guess I am. But we all die in the end, right? Here seems as good a place as any, right next to Lucifer Morningstar.
Besides, it’s too late to run. The five of them have come down the alley and cut off any opening we might’ve had. “Nice hair, Tinkerbell,” the leader says again with a sneer. “You know, you suck me good enough, maybe we’ll let you live.”
They have knives and chains.
“Let’s dance,” I tell him, spreading my arms in invitation.
“Let’s dance?” Lucifer mutters, but I can’t snark him back because someone’s coming straight at me.
I’m really more of a lover than a fighter. A duck-and-cover type. Or at least, that’s what I find out right now when the first fist gut-punches me and I fold in on myself, wheezing. I roll onto my back clutching my stomach, and look up at Lucifer. There’s a hint of incredulity in those cold eyes, but their frostiness is ripped away from me fast when the rest of the gang closes in.
It takes me a long few minutes to get my breath back and to scramble up to my feet, but by the time I do, two of the four are on the ground. My man is wrestling up close with the third, and he doesn’t notice the fourth one, the leader, raising a gun.
I notice him, though.
I always wondered how real my death drive is. You know? We all have one, according to Freud, but I guess he’s just a quack these days. Anyway, I’ve always wondered about mine. People around me think I’m nuts half the time, the risks I take, the shit I do. I saw Death early, is the thing, and he passed me over in favor of my Mom. Since then I’ve always felt like a kid left behind. I’ve done my best to give Death a chance to swing by and collect me again, but he never has.
Right now, in this alley, I can feel him standing close. A chill goes through me—fear? Or anticipation?
I don’t know. All I know is, some asshole is aiming a gun at my man, and I’m not going to let someone else take my seat in Death’s Cadillac.
Not this time.
I jump just as the gun goes off.
Chapter Three
FINCH
Guns are loud.
That’s something I’m going to take away from tonight, along with my life, apparently, because I’m not dead and I’m as surprised as anyone about that.
I’m still holding the wrist of the guy with the gun as Lucifer takes care of the other dude currently trying to kill him. But the gunman’s lips are pulled back from his teeth like a pissed-off dog, and he looks like he might literally bite me. It makes me quaver just a second, and it’s distracting enough for him to use his other hand to bitch-slap me into kingdom come. I let go and stumble away to the wall, pain making me nauseous, stomach heaving, trying to get rid of everything in it.
Another shot goes off and I flinch, but there’s no new pain. I risk a glance over my shoulder.
Lucifer is the last man standing.
He’s panting almost as hard as I am, staring at the gunman on the ground in front of him. Ex-gunman, I guess, because Lucifer has his gun now. And Ex-gunman is not moving, just lying there in a slowly-expanding pool of something dark.
The other men are still moving, but they sure aren’t threats. Lucifer looks at the gun in his hand and then at the other three guys lying around him, rolling and rocking on the ground in self-pity, moaning and cursing.
I can see the thought go through his eyes.
Kill them? Or leave them?
He glances at me, seems to come to a decision, and wipes the gun down methodically on the bottom of his sweater before putting it back into the hand of the dead guy.
Because I guess that’s what he is, now: dead.
Asshole jumped the line.
Lucifer is looking around again, and my heart lifts as he looks at me. But he turns his head back as sirens sound, coming closer. Those cold eyes flicker as he assesses the situation.
He should leave. Leave me with a dead body and three other still-living-and-pissed-off guys.
But with quick steps he comes to me where I’m still slouching against the wall, huffing for every breath. “You okay?” he asks, leaning up against the wall over me.
“I think I’m having a panic attack or something.”
He looks me over. “Looks like. You saved my life.”
I don’t correct him. I mean, I guess technically I did save him, but I didn’t jump at that guy out of the goodness of my heart.
No. Part of me honestly thought it was my turn tonight. My turn to die.
And then I realize Lucifer isn’t standing the way he is to mirror my body language and build empathy or some shit. He’s leaning up against the wall because he’s really fucking hurt. He was already down when I found him, and now he’s taken them all on in round two, and he’s not a superhero.
I mean, I assume he’s not a superhero. I look closer at his face. He’s death’s-head white.
“We need to get out of here,” he says. “Now.”
The sirens are getting ever-closer.
I really wish I were stone-cold sober right now. I take a deep breath and pull my shit together. He doesn’t complain when I get my shoulder under his armpit and pull him into me. He’s taller than me but lanky, so he’s not heavy. We begin to help each other forward, down the alley, and the guy buries his face in my neck as we come to the exit .
I give an involuntary shiver, wondering if he’s actually still into me despite having just shot someone—who wouldn’t be into this fine ass, after all?—but then I see the real reason for his sudden display of affection.
There’s a camera near the end of the alleyway.
As soon as we’re out of its range, Lucifer lifts his head again.
Looks like no one this side of the block heard the shot, but someone must have around the back, because those sirens are getting closer and closer.
There’s a line of taxi cabs starting
to form on the other side of the street; it’s about that time of night when inebriated and high young gays sally forth from the club with their choice of lay for the night. I pull the guy towards one of the taxis.
“No,” he mumbles, but it’s taking all his concentration to stay conscious for now, and there are no more arguments when we reach the cab.
“He’s really drunk,” I say with a wide smile at the driver. “Sorry.” And I bundle the guy into the car. The driver just grunts and throws a paper bag at us.
“He pukes, you pay triple.”
“Where…” the guy mumbles as I gets into the back seat beside him.
“The Grand on Fifth,” I tell the driver. “My hotel,” I say into the guy’s ear. “Don’t fucking pass out, or I’ll dump you at the hospital instead.”
I’m starting to sweat now, clammy and unpleasant. It’s hitting me: I could have died.
I should have died.
But I still haven’t died.
The hotel isn’t far, and I pay for the cab. No one in the hotel looks at me straight when I go in, but they give sidelong glances, thinking their bourgeois petty thoughts about the rich guy picking up street trash for the night. I don’t give a fuck. I’m concentrating hard on placing one foot in front of the other, pulling Lucifer along.
“Where are you taking—” he begins.
“There’s a camera at the elevators,” I say, and he puts his head down. He follows me, follows my feet, one after the other to the elevators.
My suite is exclusive enough that the elevator needs the card swiped before it will even accept the floor destination. When we finally get into my suite, I pull my houseguest into the lounge and dump him on the sofa. “You wait there,” I say. “I gotta—”
I don’t make it any further than that. I turn to the nearest vase and puke my fucking guts into it, and it all sprays out of me like poison. I heave and hurl until there’s nothing left, and then I stagger away from the vase and grab a bottle of water from the minibar.
After I’ve downed it in one go, I feel about a thousand times better. But Lucifer’s slumped on the sofa and there’s red smeared on the white leather. His breath is shallow, pained.
He might legit be dying or something.
I wonder if Death is here in this suite, chuckling as he chooses yet another over me.
“Always the bridesmaid,” I mutter, and turn back to the minibar.
This situation calls for booze, and lots of it.
It takes some time to persuade Lucifer that he needs medical attention, and it’s a blunt Hell, no, on going to any hospitals. “You need stitches,” I point out.
“You a doctor?”
“No, I’m a sensible human being. Fine, if you won’t go to the hospital, I’ll fucking stitch it. I’ll dunk the needle in vodka. It’s totally sterile. Well, kinda sterile. Better than a spit-and-shine, anyway.” I say all this as a way to get him to go to an actual goddamn medical practitioner, but he calls my bluff.
“Fine.”
“Wow. For serious? Okay. Hey, this could be fun!”
With a sigh and another look at the wide gash in his upper arm, he submits to my drunken arts and crafts. We go into the bathroom and I seat him on the edge of the spa bath.
“Take that hideous thing off,” I say, gesturing to his turtleneck sweater. He gives me an icy glare from under thick black lashes, but he starts to pull it up. He waves off my help with that, but does let me wash his arm down to clear the blood. It’s not a wide cut, but it is pretty deep.
I slosh his arm with a mini-vodka, ignoring his growl.
Then I grab the handy button-sewing kit provided with the hotel’s crest on it, and a pair of plastic gloves from one of my hair-dye boxes. I do my own hair, because I’m totally punk rock; bleach it and then color it with whatever I feel like at the time. Currently it’s bright flamingo pink.
Every time I color it I ruin all the towels and stain the marble around the sink, but the next day the cleaning crew have it sparkling again and a stack of virgin white towels waiting there as usual.
There are advantages to living in a hotel.
I thread a needle with the thinnest nylon thread I can find, pull on the plastic gloves, and start to close up his arm while he stoically hisses and grinds his teeth and drinks the rest of the minibar supplies.
I have to pause after I finally get the needle through his skin, because another wave of nausea comes over me. This is definitely not like sewing on a button.
“So, what’s your name?” I ask conversationally, to take his mind off it all.
He doesn’t answer.
“I’m Finch,” I say. “Nice to meet you, Lucifer.”
He jerks at that. Or maybe it was just the needle going back into his flesh. I gotta say, guy is taking it like a world-class stoic.
“You can call me Lucifer if you like,” he says, after a pause. His gaze flickers over to me, and I feel my nipples tighten up like those eyes are ice running over my body. “So, what’s your story, baby bird? You live here, in a hotel?”
“I do.”
“Who does that?”
“Me, I guess. And rock stars.”
“Your daddy paying for this room?”
“Yup. My actual father, not my Daddy.” Lucifer meant it as an insult, but why should I be offended? I can’t help having a rich dad. Besides, Pops is just keeping me out of his hair here in New York so he doesn’t have to look at me. Ever since Mom died, he’s despised me. But I can go him one better: I don’t feel anything towards him at all.
“How ’bout you?” I ask. “Where do you lay your head?”
He grimaces in pain as my needle starts pulling through the thread. “Not so nice a place as this, that’s for sure.
The bathroom is filling with the stink of alcohol and blood. Still, it is a nice bathroom, all art deco, black wood and white marble.
“You’re sure the hotel staff won’t call the pigs?” he asks suddenly.
“Hell, no,” I snort. “Half the time they’re the ones hooking me up with shit. Nope, they know to keep their mouths shut. They don’t want trouble any more than we do. So tell me, Lucifer, why were those bad guys chasing your tail? Were they Angels of the Lord sent to do away with you?”
I catch his eyes in the mirror, but this time I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“They were from the Clemenza family.”
“Oh. Are they, like, a gang?”
His eyebrows go up. “The Clemenzas,” he repeats. “One of the Five Families of New York?”
I think it over. “Oh, the crime families?” I say at last, a vague memory swimming up to mind. “Yeah, I don’t really follow that kinda thing. I thought the Mob got topped and tailed a while back—not so powerful anymore?”
He gives me an incredulous look in the mirror. “You’re trying to tell me you don’t know about the crime syndicates in New York? I don’t believe that. No one in this city as rich as you doesn’t have connections.”
I laugh at that. “Well, that’s where your logic falters, buddy. My fam ain’t from New York. We’re Boston-based, except for me. Black sheep.”
“Pink sheep,” he corrects me with a ghost of a smile, looking at my hair. I grin back at him. “What’s your natural color?”
“Pretty dark. Most of my family are redheads, except for me. So I figured why not dye it to fit in? Strangely enough, my Pops wasn’t that keen on it when he saw it. Okay,” I say, snipping off the thread. “Good as new.”
“I look like Frankenstein,” he mutters.
“You look like Frankenstein’s monster,” I correct him cheerfully. It doesn’t go down well. The eyes bore into mine. “Still hot, though,” I add quickly.
His eyes drop to my waistband. He’s still sitting on the side of the tub, and he pulls me in between his spread thighs, running a hand over my abs. “These pants are ridiculous,” he says, pulling at my silver waistband.
“These pants are Marc Jacobs.”
“Take them off.”
He pushes back on my hips and gives me an expectant look, like he’s used to guys stripping off for him on command. There’s a bruise starting to come up on his cheekbone, his arm is all puffy and red where I sewed it up, and I’ve never seen anyone look sexier than he does right now.
I take off my pants obediently. His eyebrows give the merest twitch when he sees I have no underwear on. “I need to bandage up your arm,” I point out.
“With what?” He can’t take his eyes off my dick, which is already getting interested.
In response, I grab the clean hand towel and the tiny pair of sewing scissors, and snip and rip it into shreds. By the time I get him bandaged up, towel shreds over Band-Aids, he’s got his hands all over my junk, pulling me into hardness while he pets my balls.
“I mean, that cut’s probably gonna get infected,” I say, my voice hitching as he rubs a thumb over my slit. “But, uh, yeah. I think I did a pretty good job for someone with no actual medical training. Dude, was that the first guy you’ve ever killed? ’Cause you seem super chill about it.”
My adrenaline is finally wearing off along with the drug high, and a spike of caution has surged up in me. I took a killer back to my hotel room. I mean, sure, maybe I wanna die, but not by the hand of some serial killer who might do weird shit to my body afterwards. That’s not cool.
Lucifer looks up at me, like he’s annoyed I’m taking his attention away from my cock, and shrugs. “It was self-defense, baby bird. But if you’re freaking out, I can give you something else to think about.”
Chapter Four
LUCA
Growing up gay in a tough neighborhood with the inability to pretend to be something you’re not means you get used to pain, fast.
But I haven’t felt pain like this in a while.
Married to the Mobster Page 2