The phone in my pocket vibrated.
I didn’t have to check the screen to know who it was. Only one person in my life had the timing to interrupt a crowded bar, a hot woman, and a pepper that wanted me dead.
I stood.
Nella’s attention dropped to the movement. “Going somewhere?”
“Outside.”
“You need permission to leave now?”
“No. I’m giving you the courtesy of missing me.”
She snorted and turned back to the shaker. “Try not to get lost on your way to the boardwalk. It’s the giant wooden thing full of tourists making bad sandal choices.”
I walked out through the open front and into the humid night.
The boardwalk had gone pink and gold under the bar lights. Palm fronds rattled above the rail. Beyond the patio, the Atlantic moved in dark strips between bodies, umbrellas, and late swimmers who didn’t know enough to stay out of the water after sunset.
I put the phone to my ear. “Sal.”
“Nico,” my uncle said. “Tell me you’re not still sitting in that woman’s bar.”
“She has five days.”
“She has a courtesy window.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Don’t get cute with me. Cute makes men slow.”
Behind me, Nella’s voice cut through the music and tourist noise.
“Table nine, nobody dies of thirst in six minutes. I promise the tequila is coming.”
The room responded to her. Chairs shifted. Someone laughed. The pressure eased.
“She’s busy,” I said.
“She’s late.”
“She knows.”
“Does she know you’re not on vacation?”
I looked down at my open linen shirt, swim trunks, and sandals. “My wardrobe may have confused her.”
Sal was silent for one beat.
I’d annoyed him. Good. Annoyance was safer than suspicion.
“You collect,” he said. “You don’t flirt with the debtor.”
“She’s a person.”
“She’s a balance with a deadline.”
My jaw tightened. Across the patio, Nella caught a man trying to move his chair into the service path and pointed him back into place without spilling the drink in her hand.
