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This is a haunt…

Mistresses. Quiet lunches. Bags that go upstairs and do not come down the same. It’s the kind of place where the senior men come to escape the lower ranks, talk amongst themselves at a remove from the day to day bullshit that comes with this business.

I keep my helmet on. Full tint. Chin down. Just another expensive bike across the street. If anyone spots me, they’ll assume I’m a courier or speed freak looking for his next urban adventure.

The last thing anyone would expect would be for the masked rider to be Dmitri Pakev. In fact, I’m almost certain that no one outside of Hardy and Mackensie knows that I can even ride a motorcycle.

I kill the engine.

Elias’s arms loosen a fraction and then tighten again, as if his body has not received the order to stop hunting the thrill.

“Off,” I say.

He slides down. Helmet off. Hair wild. Eyes bright. His mouth is parted like the ride is still inside him.

“You go in,” I tell him. “Enquire about a job. Housekeeping. Hostess. Whatever they will let a pretty boy ask for. If you can, you look. You listen. You are not a spy in a film. You are a boy who needs work. The last thing you do is get caught.”

“I won’t let you down,” Elias says, his eyes focused and a steeliness to him that impresses me. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

I look into Elias’s eyes. He means what he says. He isn’t a bullshitter.

“Good.” I take the small device from my jacket. No bigger than a coin and a lie. “Reception. Near the main desk if you can. Be quick and subtle. Do not hunt for the perfect spot so long that a man with a radio notices you hunting.”

He takes it from my palm like it is a tip.

Elias is confident. Maybe too confident. That can get him killed. But on the other hand, it can also get me Tito Lucci.

I watch as Elias walks. I watch him cross and disappear into glass and gold.

The door swallows the boy as I stay on the bike.

I wait. The city ticks. My mind does not stay on the door. It goes backward.

MANY YEARS AGO…

I am standing in the kitchen and the world is ending in a man’s mouth. One of my father’s generals… a man who ate at our table.

He says my father is dead.

Then he says the other thing. The thing that makes me scream.

“I’m sorry son,” he begins. “There’s no easy way to say this…”

FBI. Informant. Rat…

These are the words of nightmares for a family like ours. And now here I am, hearing it said about the man I admire most in this whole fucked up world.

I refuse it. I tell him he is a liar. I tell him I will put him on the floor if he says it again.

But he says it again.

I feel myself almost blackout in rage. My arms begin to swing. I lose all control. The kitchen goes. I trash it…

Glass. Wood. A chair against a wall.

My own voice ripping out of me in a language that is not words.

I am wild with it. Shock and pain in the same blood.