“The one with the fake Rolex?”
“It’s fake?”
“The gold is faded on the sides. Only gold-plated or fourteen carats does that, and Rolex doesn’t make either. Stainless steel, eighteen carat or platinum.”
“You can see that?”
“Honey, please. I’m a Carelli and I live in New York. I can spot a knockoff from fifty feet away. This asshole is either an idiot and got swindled or he’s broke and wants everyone to think he’s not.”
“He probably snorted or smoked all his money.”
Reynolds turned when Curtis approached, refilling everyone’s mugs and his attention moved behind the waiter and toward us.
I couldn’t tell if he saw me, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Antonia and I both jerked out of the hallway and back into the breakroom.
She shut the door, leaning against it, folding her arms across her chest. “So, Mr. Wannabe?”
“Worked with my ex…Mateo’s father.”
Antonia dropped her arms and stepped away from the door to stand in front of me. “You’ve never mentioned him before. We all thought he…well, we have theories.”
“I bet you do.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know, but that guy out there worked with him. He knew that Alejandro, my ex-husband, was an addict. I’m…just worried if he sees me here…”
“You think he’ll tell your ex?”
I don’t know what happened to me or why I let myself get so worked up right then. Maybe it was the fear of someone from my past slipping into the present that broke apart something inside me. Maybe it was the worry that I was getting too comfortable here. I knew all this comfort me and my son lived in was temporary and seeing that asshole just reminded me of that fact.
For whatever reason, I stood in front of Antonia scared and shaking, unable to keep the tears from welling up behind my lashes. They brimmed over and spilled down my cheeks before I realized what was happening.
Antonia pulled me close, curling her arms around my shoulders. “It’s okay,” she said, shushing me when one of my cries got too loud. “It’s going to be okay. I promise you.”
“You…you can’t promise that,” I told her, because it was true.
“I can and you wanna know why?”
I shook my head, irritated that I was crying like a kid and grateful to my friend.
She grabbed a paper towel from the rack and patted my face dry. “Because, we have you. Not just my stupid big brother who’s a bully and an asshole but mainly really does care. But all of us. This family. This whole town. You and that little man of yours, you’re ours now and we take care of ours.”
I wanted to cry even harder.
Making people feel safe was a Carelli trait I discovered was written into their DNA.
I loved and feared that most about all of them.
“Listen, you take off.”
I opened my mouth, ready to argue, but the woman waved her hand, ignoring any excuse I had before I could make them.
“Don’t worry about anything…my ma or that bitchy little server… or anything. I’ll handle everything and I’ll distract the wannabe. You dip out to the back alley and head to see my brother.”
“I…can’t tell him about this. He’ll be over here threatening that asshole inside of two seconds.”
“Then distract him or do…” she waved her hand again, flaring her nostrils like whatever scenario she thought of involving me and her brother was the most disgusting visual she could ever imagine, “whatever it is you somehow think is in anyway pleasing with him…and by the time you’re finished, the wannabe will be gone and you can go home.”
She used the driest side of the paper towel to clean up my face, smoothing it under my eyes and over my mouth before she nodded.
I held her hand, stopping her before she could walk away. “Thank you. Really.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said, squeezing my fingers. “Just remember that we only want to help you.”
“Thanks again,” I told her, moving to the back entrance of the room and down toward the loading dock as Antonia left from the front.
The alleyway along the back of the building was dim and narrow but clear. I hurried around the dumpsters and several boxes and crates, not looking back as I headed forward toward the largest building on the block. Antonia would offer the distraction I needed to keep Reynolds and my past behind me, long enough for me to make it to Smoke.
There, I’d find the distraction I’d need for one more night, and this time, I wouldn’t pretend his bed was the last place I should be.
7
Smoke
“That’s not what I want to hear.”
Dario’s voice was strained. That much I could make out from the low moaning grunt I caught on the other end of the phone. “What do you want me to do? I looked. The woman’s a ghost.”
“No one’s a ghost. Not unless they’re in the ground and Benny told you last week the redhead was spotted in L.A.” When my kid brother didn’t respond, when I got nothing more from him but grunts and sighs, I leaned back in my chair, grip tight on the phone, silently reminding myself that I couldn’t scream at him. Screaming wouldn’t do shit to get what I needed from him.
But man was it tempting.
“You wanna yell.”
At least he hadn’t lost his instinct.
“I’m not gonna yell.” Stretching my neck, I held the phone away from my ear, dipping my head down before I spoke into the cell again. “Not yet anyway.”
“Dimitri, I’m trying.”
“Little brother, you’re here. In our hometown. You haven’t left New York. You aren’t trying hard enough.”
“I know you don’t want to hear it.”
“Probably not,” I told him, waiting for the excuse I knew would be heading my way.
“But you gotta give me some time to adjust…”
“Fuck, Dario…you wanted more responsibility. You begged me. Besides, shit…” I stood, pushing back the chair. “It’s been six months.”
“I was in for five years!” There was yelling now, but it still wasn’t me doing it and when I cleared my throat and waited for the man to check his temper, my brother blew out a breath, taking a minute to mutter something low, something that sounded a lot like the cursing our old man did when Ma pissed him off and he knew better than to tell her just how mad she’d made him, before he spoke again. “I’m not on my game yet. It’s gonna take me more than a few months to get my head on right. I just can’t tell you—”
Three sharp knocks sounded on my door, the knob turned and whatever my kid brother couldn’t tell me got silenced when Maggie stepped over the threshold. The second I saw her, my mind went stupid.
Lust and need rattled inside my chest as she shut the door then disappeared up when I noticed how her hands trembled. Maggie’s beautiful brown skin had gone pale and her eyes were glinted with worry.
I interrupted my brother mid-excuse. “I gotta go,” I told him and ended the call, throwing the cell on my desk, clearing it in two strides to get to her. “What is it? Mateo? What happened?”