The hall ended at a heavy wooden door where conversation filtered through. The rhythm bantered, but the words were muddled, and the tone straddled the divide between boisterous and subdued. Something in the middle ground unnerved her, and Amelia meant to be brave but couldn’t manage the task as Jack shouldered open the door.
Alarming normalcy existed on the other side. A basement lounge exuded shabby elegance with brick walls and distressed wood. Gas lamps imbued a steady amber glow, and mismatched oriental rugs laid in a patchwork against wide-plank floors.
The space fit the two dozen or so men milling about but still managed stripped-bare intimacy. A handful of men gathered around a large, oval table, their voices rising over the pulse of moody music.
A mahogany bar ran along the longest wall. A few men nursed cocktails there between drags of cigarettes, and a handful more swayed with pleasured intoxication. The camaraderie flowed as freely as the booze, it seemed.
Jack regarded the room with evident pride. “We shadow walk tonight,” he told her as if Amelia should know what it meant.
She didn’t and only assumed it was an obscure reference to the horrors ahead. Her head spun, but she didn’t ask and tried to keep pace as Jack cut across the room. Curious eyes followed like falling dominos as she went. A secret passed from lips to ears, ears to lips, and manifested on puffs of smoke, the haze of which hung thick and pungent in the air.
In the corner was an alcove closed off to the rest of the room. Jack stopped at the gossamer drapes in its entry way and assessed Amelia’s injuries. With the pad of his thumb, he wiped the trickle of blood from her throat but gave up the effort when she jerked away.
“In here,” he said and held open the drapes.
Amelia planted measured steps inside. It was a noble effort not to slink in defeated, but her heart thumped a frantic beat when she saw Emory there.
He engulfed the leather wingback he sat in. Like Jack, he wore black—t-shirt, jeans rolled at the ankle, motorcycle boots—and his inky hair hung loose about his broad shoulders. A handgun and rocks glass laid on a coffee table in front of him.
Time and terror had distorted Amelia’s memory and diminished the piercing quality of his stare. His eyes gleamed citrine in the muted light, but agitation unseated stoicism as his gaze roamed her battered body.
Amelia abandoned her stubborn commitment to bravery. She could stand firm and speak loudly, but Emory would see the truth of what she was—caught and petrified. She turned to flee, but Jack blocked her path, and a hoarse laugh sounded from the corner.
Amelia hadn’t noticed the other man sitting there but recognition clobbered her. Unlike the photograph in her father’s office, Liam Moriarty didn’t smile, only observed in a pressed black suit and his grey hair parted to the side. The cigar he puffed flurried ash, and he muttered something to Emory.
Amelia expected an old man to have handed over his legacy,but Liam looked to be in his late fifties. Then again, the Moriartys weren’t dusty La Cosa Nostra with rigid traditions. The mixed identity of ages and ethnicities in the other room proved that. So too did Emory, in his early thirties and capable enough to inherit an empire.
“What happened to the other kid?” Emory asked Jack, his voice as deep as distant thunder.
Brian.Jack sighed small and shrugged even smaller. He spared so little, but an almighty inferno raged in Amelia. Soon, she’d erupt, but Emory beat her to it, and his fury flooded the alcove for all the wrong reasons.
“Who’s cleaning it up?” he demanded as if it mattered to him.
Yes, who sopped up the blood with a dirty dish rag? Who retrieved Brian’s body from the pot-holed parking lot? Who sewed his eyes shut so his parents wouldn’t have to tuck him into a casket with milk-foam pupils peeled to the sky?
When Jack didn’t answer, Emory shot from his seat, snatched his gun, and tore through the gossamer veil. The din beyond dampened with his presence, all except Damon ranting maniacally.
Jack tugged Amelia toward the lounge, but she pinned her heels to the floor and turned to Liam because somewhere on her father’s desk was a picture of a kind soul with a warm smile.
He offered no warmth, only a solemn nod as if to say, “This will go better if you obey.”
In the lounge, Jack pushed a chair against the wall and gestured for Amelia to sit. One man shoved Damon to the floor, and the others circled around. Emory squatted in front of Damon and hoisted him up by the front of his shirt.
“What did I tell you before you left?”
Blood seeped from Damon’s cheek and dribbled down the front of his shirt. He glanced at Amelia.
“You said you wanted her alive. So what I broke her pretty face? That bitch got far less than she deserves.”
“Wrong part. What did I tell you?”
Quiet at first, Damon’s huffs devolved into deranged laughter. When he didn’t answer, Emory shouted over his shoulder.
“Jack, what did I tell Damon?”
“We don’t tolerate messes. You wanted it done quick and clean. No blowback on us.”
Emory stood, but Damon also sprung to his feet, crashed through the circle, and lunged at Amelia. A scuffle ensued as Amelia braced for impact. Emory snatched Damon by the back of his shirt and hurled him to the floor. The other men broke with laughter, and Amelia lost her last shred of composure.
