Page 75 of The Masked King

MID-PEA-YEN

I type it into a search engine on my tablet and get no perfect matches.

I split it up and try again with the same result.

Then I try feeding various parts of it into a zip code database and get more results than I have the patience to process, so I forward it onto our IT guys and ask them to treat it as a priority.

Gio is deluded if he thinks I’m going to rest while he tracks down the police commissioner and uses the softly-softly approach. I won’t find Nyx / Kate Glasgow from the comfort of my own bed, and I’m fucked if I’m letting Malevsky think I’m running scared.

I wait for Luis to pick me up and head back to the casino where I saw the pakhan swapping anecdotes with the commissioner and his wife.

The place is practically empty; my body clock is fucked from the round trip to Rome, so I get comfortable in a booth in the restaurant and watch the comings and goings of wealthy New Yorkers, the kind of people who don’t have to worry about clocking in for a shift at the factory or making sure there’s enough food in the cupboards to feed the kids.

People like me.

Sure, I’ve led a privileged life. I don’t check the price next to the meal I want to order from the menu. I want something, I can get it.

But Megan didn’t grow up with the same privileges. She was out on the streets as a teenager with a baby sister to take care of, and I’ve seen the way she grounds Gio, the way she treats money as something to be used wisely rather than flaunted, the way she works hard for what she wants and takes nothing for granted. It isn’t something I was looking for in a relationship, having my feet planted firmly in the real world, but looking back now, I’m starting to wonder if losing Demi was written in the cards from the beginning. I didn’t allow her to ground me. I tried to elevate her to my position in the gold-lined clouds, and it was never going to work.

I eat my meal without tasting it and wash it down with a bottle of red.

Then I leave the building, dismiss Luis, and walk.

I want to find Kate Glasgow because I believe that if she isn’t Nyx, she knows who is. But I can’t give it my full attention while I’m back in the mired remains of my relationship with the only woman I could see myself growing old with.

Pacing the streets of Manhattan, I relive all the moments that made what we had so special. Wandering around the markets in Palermo, haggling over the price of a rug we didn’t need because that’s what tourists do. Riding a gondola in Venice. Climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Surfing in Hawaii. Finding a hidden speakeasy right here in Manhattan.

Every goddamned special moment bought and paid for with mafia money.

If I could ask Demi the same question, what are the special moments she remembers, I wonder if her list would even remotely resemble mine.

I sit on a bench in Central Park and slap my forehead with the heels of my hands. I thought I was so fucking grownup, so streetwise and confident and ready to face the world with the woman I love, but I didn’t have a fucking clue. All I saw was what my brother and Megan had: love that came naturally. I didn’t for one fucking second consider meeting Demi halfway.

It was my way or nothing.

I sit there in the fading light as the sky bathes in gray and violet and indigo stripes, and replay conversations that didn’t happen on a fucking ski slope or a gondola or a tourist spot on every other fucker’s bucket list.

And it hits me hard when my memory washes over them, dismissing them like revision notes that I know I won’t need to pass a test.

“It was all fucking me!” I yell at the sky as a dogwalker gives me a wide berth, his scruffy dog sticking close to his legs.

I don’t apologize.

Armed with my epiphany, I forget all about the casino and go back to my apartment. I haven’t given up on saving Nyx, but I’m not going to barge in there like a kid in a candy shop and risk my life in the process. I’m going to do it the right way.

Then I’m going to find Demi, and I’m not stopping until she has heard me out.

I’ve had a missed call from Gio, so I call him back outside my apartment building. “Any news?”

“Nothing. DI Goss hasn’t contacted anyone since he spoke to you this morning.”

“Maybe it wasn’t him I spoke to,” I suggest.

“I’ll keep searching.” Gio ends the call.

The sensor lights don’t instantly come on when I step out of the penthouse suite elevator and into my apartment. It’s my first inkling of danger, and I’m disappointed with myself for blundering straight into it just as I’ve made a silent vow to stay alive long enough to tell Demi how I feel about her.

I smile to myself. Fucking typical; the universe delivers an epiphany and then snatches it away from you with a gigantic middle finger to all the mistakes you made in the past.