“You want to go?” Torrio’s brows flew up. “That ain’t happening. This gets done tonight. We can do it your way and make your brother happy, or we can do it mine, and you can deal with Paul later,” he told Viola, his tone sharp.
“No,” she said, backtracking. She knew full well what was at risk if Paul was unhappy. “I only meant that we could wait and catch them outside. We don’t know when they’ll come out of there, and if we stay too much longer, we’re gonna draw attention.”
Torrio frowned. “We’ll wait a little while longer.” Then he barked at a passing waiter to get him another drink, and as he waited for it, he studied her from across the table. For most of the dinner, he’d ignored her, but now Viola felt the full weight of his perceptiveness. She could see exactly why Paul had selected Torrio and why Paul was also stupid for trusting him. It didn’t matter that fancy ladies uptown prized the soft fur of the fox—Viola knew well enough that foxes were just overgrown rats.
“It must sting,” Torrio said, leaning back in his chair.
Viola didn’t take the bait his comment was intended to be.
“Being back under your brother’s thumb, I mean.”
“I know what you meant,” she said, leveling her gaze at him so he would know she didn’t care.
Amusement flickered across his expression, but on Torrio it only made him look like he was up to something. “What was it like working for the zoppo?”
Viola’s skin felt hot, and she was struggling to keep her temper from erupting. But Torrio kept pushing.
“I hear Dolph let you lead him around like a dog on a chain.”
“You mean like Paul leads you?” she retorted, keeping her voice flat, bored.
Her words hit their mark. Torrio’s mouth twisted with a look of utter disgust.
“At least I wouldn’t let a boy get the best of me.”
“What boy?” Viola said.
“You didn’t know?” Torrio laughed. “The one with the occhiali.”
“Nibsy?” she said, and the moment the boy’s name was past her lips, it felt like the first time she’d cut herself on Libitina’s blade. At first she’d felt nothing at all, and then the bite of pain began to throb and ache. It was like that now. Numbness followed by a sharp, cutting pain.
But it made sense—the way Nibsy had taken over the Strega when the rest of them had been too shocked, too broken, to do more than make it through the next day. The way he’d attacked Esta on the bridge. Of course it had been Nibsy.
Dolph couldn’t have known, and yet Viola didn’t doubt that he had suspected. He’d been even more guarded in the weeks before the Khafre Hall job. He’d pulled away from her, but she hadn’t been the one to betray him. If Torrio spoke the truth, it had been Nibsy.
“Face it, Viola. You chose the wrong man to follow. Dolph was as weak as his leg. Or maybe it wasn’t only his leg that was weak, eh?” He leaned toward her as he laughed.
Her temper snapping, Viola reached for her steak knife, but Torrio didn’t notice. His attention had been drawn by something else, and he jerked his chin, signaling her to look. “She’s leaving.”
The girl in the blush-colored gown had just exited the booth. “Where’s she going?” Viola asked, balling her hand into a fist so she wouldn’t take the knife and teach him the lesson he deserved.
“How should I know? But this is your chance,” Torrio told her.
“My chance for what? Reynolds is still behind the curtains,” she told him.
“Then you should get your pretty little ass behind the curtains too,” he said, the impatience clear in his voice.
“You think nobody’s gonna notice if I just walk into a private booth and leave a dead man when I walk out? You’re pazzo, Johnny. Stupid and crazy.”
Torrio ignored her use of the nickname. “I’ve been called worse, cara. Too bad I’m also the one in charge right now. I’ll create a diversion,” he told her. “I’ll make sure nobody in this room is looking at you when you get close to Reynolds’ booth.”
“That is a terrible idea,” Viola said through clenched teeth.
“It’s not an idea. It’s an order.” John Torrio leaned over the table again. “Unless you want me to tell Paul that you aren’t going to work out, you don’t really have a choice in the matter. Now go.”
Viola wanted nothing more than to spit at him. But she was dressed as a lady, so she decided to act the part. Letting her affinity unfurl, she found the slow beating of his heart, and she tugged—just a little. Torrio gasped, and Viola answered his strangled breath with a sharp-toothed smile.
“We need to get something clear, Johnny.” She lowered her voice until it was the throaty purr that she knew men liked. “I always have a choice. For instance, I could choose to take your life right now, you miserable excuse for a man, but I won’t because I promised my brother, and I’ve chosen my family. Now, I’m gonna do what you say, but not because I have to. Not because you talk to me like I’m no better than some dog. I’m gonna go take care of Reynolds because right now I don’t want to look at your ugly face no more. And once I’m done, I’m gonna tell my brother to keep you the hell away from me.”
With a swish of her silken skirts, she released her hold on Torrio’s life and started to walk toward the booth. It was a risk, she knew, turning her back on a rat like Torrio, especially after she’d embarrassed him. She wasn’t so stupid as to think that he wasn’t carrying a gun or to believe that he wasn’t crazy enough to shoot her here, in front of the entire world and the reporter they were supposed to kill, just to prove what a man he was. But even if she had to lower herself to wallow in the muck of her brother’s dealings, she wasn’t ever going to crawl. Not for someone as pathetic as Johnny the Fox.
She took her time making her way past the white-topped tables glowing with candlelight and filled with the stomach-turning scents of roasted meat. But the sight of the rare beefsteaks only reminded her of flesh and of the life she was about to take. Of the promise to herself she was about to break.
REASONABLE
1904—St. Louis
Esta clawed her way back to consciousness, scrabbling up through the murky darkness that had pulled her under. Slowly, she became aware of the rattling movement of her seat. Vaguely, she realized that she wasn’t alone. Her head was cushioned by a warm lap, and someone’s fingers were gently stroking the hair at her temples. Harte.
Not again . . .
Swatting away his hand, she struggled to sit up.
“Careful,” Harte said when she bobbled. His hands caught her before she could tumble over onto him, but she pulled away. She could damn well sit up on her own.
“What happened?” she asked as she rubbed at her eyes, blinking away the last of the darkness as she willed her vision to clear. She remembered the strange events in the ballroom and escaping the hotel, but the last thing she recalled was her vision fading behind a heavy fog of inky black and a sense that the world itself was flying apart. And then . . . nothing.
“You fainted,” he told her. “Again. Don’t worry, though. I managed to get us away safely while you took your little nap.” But the lightness of his words didn’t mask the worry in his voice. “You can show your appreciation later.”