Archie drums the side of his glass. “Goddamn tragic.”
I look at him, every line of his face steeped in misery. “Archie… Why do you work for Mr. Parker?”
For a second I think I’ve taken things too far, that he’s going to hit me or worse. Then his face crumples, his eyes squeezing shut. “I don’t fuckin’ know, Kitten. This situation… it’s even worse than I thought it could be. And I’ve thought some fucked-up shit.”
“You mean abducting me from the hospital?”
“I meaneverything.” He picks up his whiskey and drains it. “You really wanna know the truth?”
I nod.
“Bill and I did some jobs for Parker right out of college. Good money. Plenty of side benefits. After a while, we got in with the main security team. That’s when we found out about all the fucked-up shit that’s being covered up and moved around and disappeared. And don’t ask what I mean by that. I’m not low enough to tell you.”
A shiver goes down my spine.
“Bill and I tried to leave,” Archie mumbles. “Go work somewhere else, but it turned out Parker had some exit policies he didn’t exactly write on our starter paychecks.”
“Did you have to give him a lot of money?”
Archie’s smile is humorless. “You stick with him or you got dropped into the Hudson minus your head and your hands, Kitten.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. ‘Oh.’” Archie’s smile fades. “Bill and I thought it was over, and we’d die working for Parker, but then we heard rumors Eli Morelli and his boys are taking him down. That they’re gonna knock over his business and kill him. Bill and I thought all our Christmases had come at once. All we had to do was wait. We thought ‘Velvet House’ is brutal but they’re not gonna kill everyone who ever worked for Parker. We might even be able to get a new job running with them, who fuckin’ knows?’”
Archie shakes his head.
“Then I got abducted?” I ask quietly.
“Then you got fuckin’ abducted,” Archie agrees. “Once that happened all bets were off. Parker went from a controlling nutjob to certified psychopath. He put a bullet through my friend Connor’s head right in front of me.”
All the air rushes from my lungs. “No.”
“Yeah. Killed him and two other guys just because he was pissed you’d gone. Those guys had nothing to do with the fucking wedding. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Archie’s mouth twists as he stares into memories I can’t see. I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
He shakes me away. “I don’t need your sympathy, Kitten.”
“But—”
“Save your fine feelings for the Velvet House boys. Bill and I knew what we signed up for, we protect bad men by day and do a lot worse by night. But we won’t work for a psychopath and that’s why you’re here. You’re the eighteen-year-old bargaining chip that’s gonna get me and my brother out of Parker’s crew.”
He drains his whiskey and taps the bar. The bartender swoops over. “What can I—”
“Double this time. Right away, darlin’.”
I watch as he finishes his second drink and orders a third. When he finishes that, he mumbles something I can’t hear.
I lean closer. “Sorry?”
Archie clears his throat. “Coulda been Bill he shot.”
My heart contracts. “Oh, Archie.”
“Don’t, January. Don’t‘oh, Archie’me. It coulda been my brother he killed. Coulda been that poor little redhead bitch, and what would I have done? Nothin’. I’da got shot myself before I could take Parker out so I stayed right where I was when he killed Connor. What kind of man does that make me?”
His mouth jerks sideways and I can’t stand it anymore. I throw myself off my stool and wrap my arms around his back. “I’m so sorry.”
