“You mentioned that before,” I said. “What does he want with me?”
“He’s curious,” he said.
“He knows,” I said. “About us.”
“He doesn’t believe me capable of putting love above loyalty, but he wants to find out for himself.”
“He’s giving you the benefit of the doubt?”
“He’s having a hard time believing that I’d throw it all away for this.” He turned and looked at me, the fire in the depths of his eyes coming to life in the darkness. “He loved once. Years ago. He trusted her completely. She turned on him.”
“That’s when the rules began?”
He nodded. “She disappeared before she could do too much damage.”
I held his stare. “He killed her.”
“The passion between them spawned a great love affair and a great tragedy.”
I turned away from his stare and looked out the window. “How do you know it was him?”
He sighed and then placed his phone in my upturned palm. I looked down at it. It was a picture of me sleeping, the rose in my hand.
“He was in and out,” he said. “That’s how he works.”
“He’s what you are,” I said.
“Was. He existed in this life years ago, but only the men in this life know exactly what he did. He was never after the spotlight. Nor would he have gotten it. He was undocumented here. What the men in this life used to call ‘Zips.’ With no record, they were able to do things other men couldn’t without getting caught. No record. No identification.”
“‘Zips.’ That sounds like a slur.”
He shrugged. “That’s what they called them. It’s like the old ‘Mustache Pete’ term.”
“The Boss got in and then he got out of my condo?” I said, getting back on topic.
“The business is his great love. His greatest passion. No one stands in the way of his legacy. Of what he’s determined to leave behind.”
“Club Desolation and everything that belongs to it. His one true love.” Something stirred in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was my gut sensing something or my actual gut reacting to the events of the night. “He taught you everything you know.”
“Everything,” he said. “I took it and made it my own.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“The picture—”
“A glimpse. To remind me of what’s at stake if I was even considering breaking the oath.”
“But Big Bismo said they would kill you first—”
“Big Bismo only runs his mouth. Nothing else. Everything he does, he’s ordered to do. He knows what’s going on, and is telling New York that he suspects it, but until The Boss says move, he’s as still as a puppet without a master. I’m a special case. The Boss governs me, no one else.”
I suspected that was because he was far more dangerous than anyone else. They were afraid of him. That was why they wanted to kill him—the reason other than our affair.
“The Boss believes you’ll come around.”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t be the first man to be infatuated with one of the workers.”
“He trusts you,” I said. “That you’ll do the ‘right’ thing.”
