“I’m not here for money,” the stranger said.
I glanced around, looking for witnesses, escape routes, a path to safety. “Then how can I help you?”
He made a gesture with his hand, drawing my attention back to the switchblade he held. “Wanted a little chat. What do you say? Will you take my confession?”
“I’m not able to—” I began, moving away, but he hobbled quickly forward and grabbed my sweater.
“Come on, that’s no way to greet a seeker, is it?” He hauled me across to the confession box, opened it and shoved me inside. “I just want to talk, boy,” he said again, but the manic grin and the switchblade made me shudder. “Just want to talk. And it’s your ordination I want to talk about.”
“You need to leave,” I said, trying and failing to sound firm.
“I’ll leave once we’ve had our discussion. How’s that?” I tried to tell him to get away from me, but I was wordless, my mouth dry, my throat closed up. He held the knife up close to my mouth. “Cat got your tongue? Maybe I should cut it out if it’s so useless, eh?”
With a sharp sting the blade broke my skin and a warm trickle ran from the side of my mouth to my chin. In my terror, all I could do was pray silently and try not to make any sudden moves.
For the first time ever in Our Lady of Mercy, I felt utterly alone.
Chapter Two
Teo
“Thanks, Vitali,” Luca D’Amato said to me as I handed Finch off to him on the steps leading down from Our Lady to the street. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Don Morelli,” I murmured, bowing my head.
There was a town car parked at the bottom of the stairs, and I gave a brief salute to Gio Carlucci, who was leaning against the car while he waited for the Boss to come back down.
Finch, hanging off the Boss and staring at him like no one else in the world existed, gave me the smallest glance over his shoulder. “Thanks, Teo,” he said. “Oh, and, uh. Sorry about the whole chastity belt thing. Aidan knew I was kidding, though.”
I nodded, though I didn’t think that was true. “Have a good night, Mr. D.”
“What chastity belt thing?” Luca asked, frowning at Finch.
“Nothing, nothing. Teo just thinks I should be more respectful to Priest Boy. But I’m just getting my jokes in before Aidan really does disappear up the Pope’s ass. Teo, you need a ride anywhere?”
Two things convinced me that would be a bad idea. The first was the way the Boss was staring at Finch like he wanted to start pulling off his clothes as soon as they got into the back of that town car.
The second was my own conscience, which didn’t like the idea of leaving Aidan O’Leary to finish cleaning up all the mess from the afternoon. Finch meant well, I did believe that, but he also didn’t enjoy the parts of charity that required more hard work than verbal sparring with the neighborhood kids. Hewasvery good at the verbal sparring, it was true. Not so much the cleaning.
So I shook my head. “No thanks, Mr. D. I’ll make my own way.”
At that, Finch finally paid me more attention, and I didn’t like the spark in his eye. “Oh, yeah? Gonna go back in and offer to lend a hand?” He gave a lecherous wink.
“Just seems like I could do a bit more good this afternoon before I call it a day.”
“Mm. Guess he’s not made that lifelong vow of chastityyet,” Finch said. “Try your luck if you want; just don’t expect anything back.”
I suppressed the desire to roll my eyes and turned away. “Goodnight, Boss,” I added, although the Don didn’t seem to have heard any of my exchange with Finch.
“’Night,” he called back, his fingers already playing at Finch’s collar. I didn’t envy Carlucci the drive back.
Chuckling to myself, I jogged back up the steps, pausing to crane my head and take in the church before I went in. Some days I couldn’t believe the life I was living now. When I wasn’t walking around in Our Lady like I belonged there, I was driving up and down Fifth Avenue in a town car, or partying at Kismet Nightclub.
When I was on bodyguard duty, wherever Finch D’Amato went, I went. And Finch D’Amato went to a lot of different places in the city, that was for sure. Recently, though, Our Lady had become my favorite place to be. Part of it was the peace and quiet of the place. The townhouse was always busy and seemed full of people. The nightclub—well, it was a nightclub.
There was another reason I liked the church, and that had to do with Aidan O’Leary.
I knew the man was pure. I’d known it from the second I’d met him. I could see the goodness shining from his face when Mr. D introduced me to him, and at first it made me almost ashamed to be near him. I didn’t see how Finch could stand it, sometimes, us so tainted being around someone so innocent.
