Chapter 6 #2
Brooklyn is very talented. But she’s also scared . She’s afraid to truly let go, and it’s holding her back.
Part of me starts to say “The Imperiya will never let her in with that sort of mindset,” but then I catch myself.
She won’t get in at all .
Because of me.
The Aston Martin is hardly a subtle car. But it sticks out even more in East Harlem, up by the Willis Avenue Bridge.
I pull to a stop in front of a shitty-looking graffiti-sprayed building and a burned-out dumpster half blocking the alley next to it.
I’m still looking up at the building with a scowl on my face when a young guy in a baggy hoodie walks over and raps his knuckles on my window.
“What up,” he grunts as I roll the window partway down. “What’re you lookin’ for?”
“Nothing, thanks,” I growl.
A scowl etches over his brow. “Then move the fuck off, man. This is a prime shopping district.”
Prime for crack, fentanyl, or whatever the fuck else he’s hawking.
“I’m going to be here a minute,” I say evenly.
His eyes narrow. “Listen, motherfucker. You either buy, or you fuck off?—”
“I said I’m good, thanks.” I open my jacket slightly, flashing the grip of my gun. It doesn’t scare him—I don’t expect it to. But it does send a message that I’m not some douchebag tourist looking to score. I play in the big leagues.
“All right, all right, man,” he mutters, eyeing me.
“Here.” I pull four hundreds out of my clip and hand them to him. “I’m not buying whatever you’re selling. But I appreciate that I’m hampering your foot traffic. We good?”
He grins, pocketing the cash. “ Shit . Stay as long as you like, buddy.”
“Appreciate it.” I open the door and step out, then hand him another hundred. “No one fucks with the car, either.”
He chuckles and nods his chin. “ Mi casa es su casa , my man.”
Wonderful.
It turns out Brooklyn’s address is diagonally across the street from the building I parked in front of. So I head over and start scanning the buzzers for her name.
“Can I help you?”
I turn to see a pretty Latina woman in cutoff jean shorts and a hoodie eyeing me, a bag of groceries cradled in one arm, a keychain in the other hand, and a suspicious look on her face.
“Perhaps,” I say slowly. “Do you live here?”
Her suspicion level dials up to eleven.
“I’m looking for someone I believe also lives here,” I add. “Brooklyn Ellis?”
Her shoulders instantly relax a little. “Oh, sorry. Are you from the lawyer’s office?”
“I…yes,” I smile. “I am.”
Fuck .
I wasn’t quick enough on the draw with that, and this girl caught it instantly .
“She’s not here right now,” she says, her hackles back up as she eyes me.
“I see. Well, maybe I’ll check back another time.”
“She’ll be out then, too,” she says promptly.
I hold back a grin. I like this girl.
“Thanks for your time, Miss…?”
“I don’t think so.”
This time, I allow the smile to reach my lips. “Fair enough.”
It would be so much easier if I just told her that I’m here on Zakharova Ballet business. But that’s not true, and I don’t want Brooklyn knowing that I’m snooping around where she lives.
Fuck, I don’t even really know why I’m doing it in the first place.
I walk back across the street to my car, pretending to check my phone as I watch the girl in the reflection of my passenger window. She looks at my back for another few seconds before she unlocks the door and slips inside.
It’s not lost on me that she tugs the front door shut behind her, hard.
My drug-dealing new friend grins when I walk over to where he’s sitting on another stoop with a few buddies.
“Need me to walk your dog or get you a taxi?” he snickers. “That’ll be another hundo.”
I peel off five more and hold them up between two fingers.
The chuckles fade.
“I’m looking for someone, and I think she lives over there.” I turn and nod my chin at the building. Then I dig out my phone, go to the Zakharova website, and zoom in on Brooklyn’s artist headshot. I hold the phone up for them to see. “Her.”
A couple of the guys shrug and shake their heads. But the leader, my new best buddy, slowly grins and nods.
“Oh, shit, yeah. Blondie?” He whistles. “Girl’s hot .”
My jaw tightens.
Careful , I want to snarl at him for reasons I don’t quite understand.
“She lives there?”
“If you don’t like the answer, you still gonna pay me?”
“Sure, if it’s the truth.”
He nods. “Fair. No, man. I don’t think she lives there.”
Shit .
“But she does come around pretty often. Her friend—that Latina chick you were talking to? She lives there. I think Blondie just gets her mail delivered here. She shows up and leaves with envelopes, sometimes packages.”
Interesting.
Very interesting.
I thank him, pay him, and get back in the car with more questions rattling around my head than when I got here.
I know she doesn’t live where I dropped her off. On a hunch, I glanced at the files of her friends when I was still up in Magda’s office, and it was Val’s apartment that she directed me to the other night.
She doesn’t live there. She doesn’t live here.
So where does she live? Why the fuck is it some big state secret? Why do I care ?
My jaw tightens.
I know why. It’s the same reason I can’t stop fixating on her, or her bruises.
…Or, rather, who gives her those bruises, and how I can fucking destroy them.
Somehow, Brooklyn Ellis has managed to slip her way under my skin and is now the object of my full and undivided attention.
God help her.