There wouldn’t be a single freckle on her skin that I wouldn’t know intimately.
I longed to run my finger down her nose, to memorize how it felt against my skin. I had already memorized the lines of her body. The way she fit against me. How she felt pressed against my chest. The scent of her still seemed to drift underneath my nose when I least expected it.
Back to the fucking point. She owes me.
“Capo,” Rocco said, reminding me that I was in his office. He was being a wise ass, calling mebossin Italian. He was the closest thing to a brother I’d ever known, but we were not brothers. Not by blood, but one thing I learned the hard way, family was not always blood. Family was a title that was earned, not given. Even though we were close, there was still a gap. For him. For me. There always was when it came to the world we lived in.
I turned from the window, the city of New York sprawling around me, and took another drink of whiskey. I set it down on his rich mahogany desk, fixing my tie. “Sì,” I said. “Get the paperwork ready.”
“Her name.” His eyes scrutinized me without the weight of judgment.
I checked my watch for the time. I had somewhere else I needed to be. “Let her decide.”
“I’ll send Guido.”
“Sì.” I grinned. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy that, since she knows Guido and the Faustifamigliaso well. A familiar face might make this easier.”
He returned the grin, nodded once, and then started the paperwork.
8
Mariposa
It had been over a week since The Club andhim, and so much had happened during that time.
I hadn’t heard anything fromhim. After his escort had led me to a waiting car, a car that had tinted windows, a privacy glass, and looked like it cost the amount of a townhouse in New York, a suited driver brought me home. I made him drop me two blocks from Keely’s place, though I had a feeling he followed me.
So, that life experience tanked. My body wasn’t even worth enough to sell.
I blamed it on my nose and then tried to move on.
It was easier to do when so much good was happening around me. Keely was able to not work as hard when Harrison paid a month’s worth of her rent. The situation with Sierra really hit her hard. She was having nightmares after seeing the girl she roomed with for so long dead. The detectives ruled that Sierra had been murdered. Harrison told me she had been brutally stabbed. Armino Scarpone was their number one suspect, but he hadn’t been found yet.
It was scary to think he was on the loose, but there were so many like him out there, the fact thathewas out there didn’t really shock us. We prepared and then survived the best we could.
Two days after Harrison was able to help Keely with the rent, she got a call. She got a huge part in a famous Broadway show. We all knew she would someday, but it was a shock when it happened. The best shock any of us could’ve ever expected. She deserved it and so much more.
Keely had demanded that I stay with her. She didn’t want me out on the streets since Armino had seen us leaving that day. He knew Keely and I were home when he’d been banging on the door and screaming. Harrison thought that maybe he’d want to eliminate any witnesses, but it was too late. Keely and I had already spoken to the police since we were both there. We were the last three people (Keely, Armino, and me) who saw Sierra alive, apart from the clerk at the store. She had run out to buy stockings and was ambushed on her way home.
Regardless of my feelings on taking handouts, I decided to stay with Kee. Not because I couldn’t face the streets again, but because I worried for her. She was having a really rough time, even when she should’ve been celebrating. But my rule of no kindness unless repaid still applied, so to make it up to her, I helped her pack. Since she got the better job, she was moving into a nicer place once her lease was up at the place she shared with Sierra.
The teapot went off and she jumped up to do whatever it was she did with it. I wasn’t a tea person, but Kee and Co. (her entire family) swore by the stuff. Her mother was what she called “a tea-leaf reader.” I didn’t want to try and read anything but grind particles floating around in my cup of coffee.
I watched her for a moment and then went back to packing things she wouldn’t need for the kitchen.
“Mari?”
“Yeah?”
I looked at her again. She was putting bags in the kettle. Something sweet but spicy filled the air. Vanilla. Cinnamon.Cinnamon.It made me think ofhismouth—I cut the thought off before I could get carried away. I thought I’d only remember chocolate, but apparently, that had been alie I fed myself.
“I keep thinking…all of these good things started happening after Sierra died. I don’t have to work so hard to keep up with the rent for this ratty ass place. Getting the call about the show. It all seems so sudden. Do you think…how do I even say this without sounding like a cold-hearted bitch?” Keely dunked another bag in, studying it. “Sierra had her ways, but for the most part, I felt sorry for her. She reminded me of you.”
I swallowed hard. “She did?”
She nodded, pouring the hot liquid into an old teacup. “Not her personality. Her story. How she had to fight to survive. She definitely had a mean streak about her, which you don’t, but she was an orphan. And then she went into foster care. I think she had to fight for her food; that’s why I never said anything when she’d count her eggs or cheese.”
Keely stirred the cup and then took a seat. She tucked a fiery red curl behind her ear. “What I’m getting at is this. I wonder if she was stopping her happiness, therefore mine. I hate—hate—that she was murdered, but even before, I was thinking it was time for us to part ways. Now that she’s gone, I feel…lighter.”
