“So, you’re easy?”
That makes her snarl and glower at me.
I wink.
I can see her hands, and I expect them to twitch. Either with a desire to slap me or clench them into fists to keep fromdoing that. She does nothing. My free hand reaches toward her hair, and she finally reacts. She grabs my wrist and digs her nails into a pressure point. It might make a weaker person stop, but I’ve been trained to overcome my body’s natural reaction to surrender. It’s not that she’s weak; I’m stronger.
I grasp the wig and tug. It doesn’t move.
“Ouch.” It’s said with no bite.
I pull harder this time, and it still doesn’t budge.
“Super glue?”
“Are you seven and in a school yard? Are you pulling my hair because you like me?”
“Like you? I wouldn’t go that far. Want to fuck you?”
I leave that unanswered.
We’re back to an impasse as we stare at each other. I acted on impulse and got into the car. I hadn’t decided what I would do to or with her. I don’t have a strategy, which is beyond unusual for me. I could’ve observed her observing me. I could’ve learned more by playing dumb. I’ll likely live to regret this.
“You and I are going to have a far lengthier conversation than either of us wants while sitting in a car. You’re going to take me to your hotel, and we’ll talk there. You donotwant me to choose our location.”
If I do, it’ll be the bodega on Long Island where we handle our most unsavory work. If she goes there, she’ll never leave alive. I haven’t decided if I need to do anything that extreme. I’d prefer not to torture her or kill her, but I reserve the right to change my mind.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You can’t get out of the car faster than I can shoot you. You can’t draw a gun or knife faster than I can shoot you. And you can’t shove a needle in me faster than I can shoot you. Turn on the engine, put the car in drive, and go.”
I reach back for my seatbelt while I speak. While I’d be more comfortable not having to hold up my arm that has the gun pressed to her ribs, I can do it for hours. Another thing I was trained to do. The men in my family have the endurance of a woman in labor for seventy hours. We’re trained to stay awake for days at a time. To stand or squat for hours, holding our arms out to the side, in front of us, or overhead. Sweaty palms or not, we can hang from a beam practically by our fingertips while a weight presses on them. AstheCartelfamily for generations, we’d be an anthropologist’s wet dream.
“I suppose my choices are wait it out here until sundown when your men can drag me out of the car and stuff me in the trunk of another vehicle, or let them follow us, then drag me out.”
“I’d never let anyone stuff you in a trunk,chiquita.”
Her eyes widen a fraction at my adamance. Her gaze sweeps over me before she dips her chin.
“You’d torture me and confine me in some other kind of cage, just not the trunk of a car.”
“Depending on how things go from now on, you’ll discover whether you’re right. Drive, Tiffani with an i.”
“For fuck’s sake.” She mutters more than speaks, and I chuckle.
“If you don’t like me calling you that, give me another name. Who would you have been at the club? Who were you at the O’Rourkes’ gala?”
She swallows when I mention the last place I saw her. She thought I hadn’t recognized her. I knew who she was the moment my gaze landed on her table. Every syndicate man’s gaze sweeps our surroundings every couple of minutes. No one lets their situational awareness dull, especially not when our women and children are around. There aren’t any kids inmy family—for now—but my mother, aunts, and cousins-in-law were there.
“Since I haven’t pretended not to know you, I suppose there’s little point in denying I was at either of those places.”
“There’s no point at all. So, Tiffani with an i, what would you rather I call you?”
“I was Giselle at the club and Liz at the gala.”
“Mmm. Giselle is certainly more fitting. Though, wouldn’t it be Gisella?”
Her left index finger curls a centimeter on her lap, but it’s a tell. I’ve mostly ruled out her being Latina, though she could be Brazilian. My guess is Italian or French, maybe Swiss. With current syndicate geopolitics, I’m leaning heavily toward Italian. It’s just a question of where. Naples? Venice? Calabria? Sicily? Apulia?
