6. Tiia
“Mushroom gnocchi for you…” Our server sets a heaped dish down on the table in front of me, then a second plate in front of Jazzy, “and boscaiola for you, madam.” Then he steps back and clasps his hands. “Is there anything else I can get you ladies right now?”
“Uh… no thanks.” Unwrapping my silverware from my napkin and setting the crisp white linen on my lap, I look to our third chair—empty—and glance toward the door. “Our friend is coming soon, so maybe come back and take his order when he arrives?”
“Of course.” The server bends in a mini bow of sorts before spinning on his heels and flitting away to wait on someone else.
“He’s got that Luigi thing going, huh?” I take my fork in one hand, and my wine in the other. “I think he considers you his Princess Peach, Jazzy.”
“Pfft. He can’t handle all this.” She gestures along her leather-clad body, smirking when most men within a thirty-foot radius—even those on a date with someone else—check out what she’s got. “Not even Mario could handle this.” Picking up her fork, she pokes at a chunk of chicken breast and ignores our obviously missing third. “What happened after I left? Did you sell that desk and make bank?”
I spear a gnocchi from my plate, while the dull roar of the full restaurant creates a buzz in the back of my mind. “Yeah. And the customer paid above asking price, which was a cool bonus. It shut Jakeline up when she wanted to bitch about my friends visiting the shop too often.”
Giggling, Jaz tosses the chunk of chicken between her bright red lips. “She’s just jealous because she’s wished her entire life for friends like me.”
“Are you sure about that?” Taking the gnocchi onto my tongue, I barely stop myself from groaning out loud. “Damn, I’ve missed this.”
“Right?”
We’re like a couple of cows out to pasture, shoveling food into our mouths, completely undignified, unlike everyone else here.
“And yes, I’m sure,” Jazzy adds. “You like to act like my friendship is a bother to you, Tiia Ailani, but deep down, beneath your Kevlar exterior and too-cool-to-be-affected armor, I know you would sob at my graveside if I ever left you.”
“I wouldn’t miss the once-a-month bathroom dates, when we dye your hair and get red everywhere.”
She snorts, gulping pasta and following it with a sip of wine. “It’s called a team-building exercise. Can I try some of your gnocchi?” She doesn’t wait for my answer, merely leans across and stabs her fork into my dinner.
“Uh… sure.” I roll my eyes.
On a laugh, she explains, “I always like the things you pick off the menu, but not so much that I want it to be my entire meal.”
“Whatever. How was your day?”
“You mean besides my trip to Jakeline Colby’s snobby shop?” She makes a face. “It was fine. Roger wants me to try my chops on the local crime beat. Small-time stuff: petty theft, nonviolent robbery.” She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “He knows I want bigger stories, but he’s starting me small and at least clearing the way.”
“Gets you off the obituaries,” I tease. “And the how-to columns. ‘How to pluck your eyebrows like a pro, without a pair of tweezers.’”
“‘How to get hairless legs,’” she plays along, “‘without a razor, wax, or expensive laser treatments.’”
“‘How to kill your boyfriend and make it look like an accident.’”
“Ladies?”
I swallow my words and shoot a look to the waiter who stands over us, his crisp white shirt a stark contrast to the midnight-black apron tied around his hips. He carries an icy bottle of wine, and presents it the way the monkey presented Simba to the Pride Lands.
Well, not exactly.But now that I’ve thought it, I can’t unsee it.
“Another bottle of?—”
“No thanks.” I give him a gentle smile and hold my hand up to stop him from setting down the three-hundred-dollar bottle, since the moment it touches our table, it’ll get added to our bill. “I’m good with what I have.” I lift my wine, then look to Jaz. “Right? I don’t think we need another bottle.”
“It’s a gift, madam.” Luigi—though his nametag clearly says Salvatore—steps to the side and gestures across the restaurant.
I allow my eyes to follow. My focus, to zoom past the hundreds of diners, and into the heated stare of a man who makes me uneasy.
As soon as our eyes meet, mine narrow.
“A gift,” the server repeats.
Micah Malone reclines in a dark corner on the opposite side of the restaurant, wearing a suit nothing like the shorts and tank he wore the last time we were in the same place. His hair is similar to how I remember it: a little long on the top, so the ends dangle over his brows.
He sits alone with a bottle of red wine and a still-full glass, seemingly untouched. But I would be blind not to notice the guards nearby. The one, two, three of his men who position themselves throughout the dining room.
Micah Malone is, reportedly, his brother’s protection. But when Micah is out and about, and Felix is nowhere to be seen, Micah himself has guards.
I may only be an antiques dealer with a crime-beat-wannabe-reporter best friend, but I understand the hierarchy in my city.
Felix is the new boss, now that their dad is dead. And Micah is second in charge; the underboss, I suppose he’s called. The consigliere. So although he’s someone else’s security, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t command his own army when he’s away from home.
“Madam?” Luigi clears his throat. “Will you accept his gift?”
“Yes,” Jaz announces, seizing the bottle and grinning foolishly in my peripherals. “She certainly will. Thank you, good sir. Tiia?” She kicks my leg under the table, but my attention remains on a staring Micah. My heart, thundering in my chest, and anxiety fluttering throughout my stomach. “Tiia! What the hell?”
I break our staring match and drag my focus around to my best friend. But my appetite has vanished, now that I know who watches us. My ravenous hunger, gone in an instant, because I had one run-in with a dude who everyone knows is mafia… and now, no matter how loud I protest, I can’t seem to escape him.
He’s in the paper. In my friend’s every thought.
Sending wine to my table.
“Have you talked to him since the club?” Jaz leans closer and reads the label on the bottle. “Do you have something going on and you didn’t even tell me?”
“No.” I set my wineglass down, pushing aside the alcohol, since clearly, a sharp mind is a necessity tonight. “We only spoke that one time.” Frowning, I snatch up the expensive bottle and study the label for myself. “One time, for no more than two minutes. Now he’s here, giving us the stink-eye?”
“Maybe it’s a coincidence.”
“No.” I shove up from the table, my chair dragging loudly across the floor, then I turn and start across the restaurant.
Nerves batter in my stomach, on violent wings surely made of razor blades, the way they cut me up inside. But I was raised in a rough neighborhood that required me to stand up for myself. And some guy I don’t even know messing with my dinner and shooting daggers at my back simply for existing isn’t something I’ll tolerate.
“Madam?” Luigi catches sight of me from near the kitchen. His dark eyes flare wide when he clocks my trajectory and the iron grip I have on the bottle that maybe, just maybe, I hold the same way a baseballer holds his bat. “Madam!”
“You can’t come in here.” One of Malone’s soldiers steps in my way and gently presses his knuckles to my stomach. I’m still fifteen feet from Micah, but he burns me with his gaze. His stare, a fiery, commanding summons that contradicts his guard’s words. “This is a private party, miss. You’re not invited.”
“I am invited.” I lift my bat—well, bottle—and show it to him, my smile not even fractionally genuine. “Your boss sent a gift to my table. Now he can be a man about it and speak to me directly.”
Micah’s lips move, words emanating from them loud enough the guard hears. But there’s too much noise for me to make them out. There’s too much going on, and I’m simply not close enough.
But whatever Micah says, his man listens, because he drops his hand from my stomach and steps to the side to allow me passage.
“Exactly.” I flatten my lips and broaden my shoulders as I move forward.
I wore jeans tonight, the tight denim wrapped around my legs, all the way down to my ankles. But my top is loose against my skin, floating, and soft enough to not feel constricting. I prefer cut-offs and loose tanks, but have to wear sundresses to sell antiques to rich people. Somewhere in the middle, when I choose comfort and appearance, this is where I land.
Crossing the gap between where Micah’s guard stands and where Micah himself sits, I set the bottle down on the table with enough force to elicit a thud most others wouldn’t be brave enough to create in these circumstances.
“No thanks, Mr. Malone.” I step back and set my hands on my hips. “I don’t accept drinks from strangers.”
He looks down at the bottle, his eyes narrowing at the still-sealed lid. “It was a gift.”
“And now it’s been returned. I don’t accept offerings from men who look at me like I killed their dog. I don’t know what your problem is, Mr. Malone, but I’m quite certain you have me mixed up with someone else.”
“Do I?” He sits back, crossing one leg over the other, and considers me. “You’re young and beautiful. Your face is exceptionally difficult to mistake for anyone else’s, considering your mixed heritage. Your eyes are… uniquely angry. And your bravery contradicts the damsel act you put on outside CeCe’s last month.”
“My damsel act? What act?”
“The walking alone at night thing. The someone is catcalling me and I’m afraid shtick.” He picks up his wineglass and takes a slow, testing sip. “Surely you realize you’re not the first beautiful person who got in our way, hoping for an invitation into our world.”
“You got in my way!” I draw attention when I raise my voice, sparking whispers that have the mobster’s dark green eyes scanning the crowd outside of his private space. But I’m not done. “I was walking to a club to meet my friends for drinks after work. You got in my way, and now you think you can plop a three-hundred-dollar bottle of wine down on my table, and buy my time and an opportunity to insult me?”
“Seven hundred, actually.”
I scoff so loud, the vibration in my throat physically hurts. “Whatever, dude. Keep your wine, and I’ll keep my distance. That ought to assuage your cynicism and sense of self-grandeur.”
I turn on my heels, locking focus with a stunned and yet wildly entertained Jaz. Beside her, having finally arrived, is Roscoe, whose deep brown glare is both concerned and…
Nope, just concerned.
I lift my hand in goodbye for the intimidating man behind me. “I’m going back to my dinner. Have a nice life. We never again have to be in the same?—”
“Ma’am.” The guard steps in my way again, pressing his palm to my stomach and nudging me back until I peek over my shoulder and find Micah’s lips moving.
He speaks, but I still can’t hear him. Because my ears are shot to shit, and the noise throughout the restaurant is just loud enough to dull specific voices.
“What?” I turn back and stalk closer until his moving lips transfer to actual sound loud enough to reach my ears. “What did you say?”
“You can’t hear me?” He reclines again, frowning and impatient, bouncing his foot on his knee. “You still have that ear infection?”
“What I have, Mr. Malone, is a blanket rule for my life.” I stop when my thighs touch the table and I can’t possibly come any closer. “A wild belief that I should not discuss my private medical history with strangers. I especially shouldn’t discuss it with cranky mafia boys who accuse me of lying… though, I’m not entirely sure what you think I’ve lied about.”
“Mafia?” He brings his right hand up, leaving the other hidden in his lap, and rolls his bottom lip between his fingers. “I told you my first name only, Ms. Hale. Yet you mention Malone and mafia. Seems you know more about me than I’ve shared—worse, you make assumptions. And yet, you wonder why I remain guarded?”
“It’s hardly ‘making assumptions,’ when your face was on the front page of today’s paper, alongside your brother’s.” I spare a glance for the hardened guard on my left. “Perhaps it’s not proper to mention the m word, huh? Maybe it’s not the polite thing to do. But insinuating I’m some kind of sneak or liar, purely because of your own misguided need to control the narrative, isn’t polite either. I don’t know you, Micah, and I never once asked to meet you.”
“How long have you known Joseph Wilkes?”
His question is like an arrow to my gut. A stunning attack that leaves me twitching. “What?”
His lips curl upward, lending a cruel twist to his face that steals his handsomeness and replaces it with a savage intensity. “That got your attention. Sit.” He gestures toward the chair on his right. “We can discuss these matters like civilized human beings. No need for back-alley murder, when we can conduct ourselves like the professionals we are.”
“Back-alley—” I look down at the vacant chair he offers, then over to my friends, who are still glued to tonight’s episode of ‘What stupid shit can we get up to?’
“Ms. Hale?”
“I don’t wish to eat with you.”
“So, straight to the alleys, then?”
“No!” I slap away his extended hand and earn a growl from the man standing at my back. “I’m not interested in being wined, dined, or destroyed by you. I don’t know who Justin Wilkes is.”
“Joseph,” he snaps. Then he reaches out with lightning-fast reflexes and grasps my wrist, yanking me down until the corner of the chair scrapes my hip, but the padding catches my ass before I sprawl to the floor.
Silverware and crystal glasses clatter when I bump the table with my knees, but soldiers circle in to shield us from onlookers, their broad bodies creating a wall, so to the casual observer, it might appear that I’ve been completely and totally swallowed up by this man and his crew.
“Tell me how much he paid to send you our way,” Micah slowly releases my wrist, “and what information he asked you to get from us, and then I may let you go. You can return to your life of selling antiques, and I’ll make sure you never see me or my people again.”
I rub my aching wrist and narrow my eyes at the man who obviously considers himself untouchable. “Are you following me?” I study his angular jaw, and the unshaven growth he keeps instead of smooth skin. I take note of the sunspots on his cheekbones, and the lines fanning across his temples; the signs of age that come when someone surpasses thirty years. “You confronted me outside CeCe’s. And now you’re inside this restaurant tonight, though I’m quite certain Biano’s has no affiliation with your family.”
“I’m not?—”
“I didn’t tell you where I work.” I drop my gaze to the bottle of wine I wouldn’t mind sampling now. Something to wash the bitter taste of dread from the back of my throat. “And yet, you know what I do for a living. Should I start panicking?”
“Joseph Wilkes.”
“I don’t know who that is!” I slam my palm to the table, rattling the silverware once more. “I don’t know why you think I know who that is. I’m not entirely certain I know who you think I am. Surely, you have me confused with someone else.”
“Then why wouldn’t you tell me your job when I asked inside CeCe’s?”
“Uh, because you’re a stranger!”
I startle in my seat when Luigi brings my half-consumed plate of gnocchi to our table and sets it down by my hand.
I balk at him. “What are you?—”
“Your dinner, madam.” He dips his chin and refuses eye contact with the man who has definitely killed others. “I did not wish for it to get cold.”
“Eat.” Micah sits back and rubs his thumb against the palm of his opposite hand. “Let’s get to know each other.”
“Let’s not.” I push my plate away and attempt to stand up, but the guard at my back sets his beefy hand on my chair and refuses me room to rise. “What the hell?—”
“I said eat.” Micah purses his thick lips behind coarse, short stubble. “There’s no need to waste the meal you’ve waited all day to enjoy, all because of a temper tantrum.”
“A temper tantrum?!” I don’t get this guy. “I assure you, Malone, this is not a temper tantrum. And just so you know, my friend Roscoe,” I poke a thumb back toward my original table, though it’s obscured by his guard, “His cousin is a cop. So I suggest you back the hell up and let me get on with my life. You stay out of mine, and I’ll stay out of yours.”
“Not yet.” He abandons his aching hand and picks up his glass. “Let’s set Wilkes aside for a little while, and merely…” he swirls the wine, “get to know each other.”
“No thank?—”
“I already know you deal in antiques. And your dinner implies that you like mushrooms.”
“I hate mushrooms, actually. But I order fancy meals that contain them, since they’re good for me, and I can safely assume that, prepared at such an upscale restaurant, they’ll taste as good as they’re gonna get. And again, I never told you about my work, so the fact you know what I do fills me with confidence.”
His lips curl into a grin friendlier than the last. “I’m certain you understand my interest in you, Ms. Hale. Or, more accurately, your interest in my family. And since we’re talking specifics, you should know that I know Roscoe’s cousin isn’t a cop at all. Roscoe has seven cousins, including two step-cousins. Three work in manufacturing, one in retail, one in hotel management, and the last, mall security.” He stops, entirely too pleased with himself. “I make a point to know about those who come knocking on my door. Perhaps that sufficiently explains how I know of your job, as well?”
“Do you run background checks on every single person you meet inside your club?” I sit back in my chair and fold my arms, refusing to eat. To obey Micah’s order to do so would be to accept defeat. “Andthose you don’t meet,” I amend, thinking of Roscoe. “You literally didn’t even cross paths with him, and yet, you’ve familiarized yourself with his extended family.”
“I take pride in protecting my own family from those who intend to horn in and cause disruption. Maybe I’m wrong about you. Maybe you really were just a clueless woman, stupidly wandering alone at night last month?—”
Offended, I narrow my eyes.
“But then again, maybe you’re a Wilkes soldier. It would be foolish of me to accept your explanation at face value. We’ve dealt with beautiful women all our lives, Tiia. Pretty quickly, a man learns to look past the packaging.”
“Do you realize how insane you sound?” I lick my dry lips and wish for a glass of water. Or juice. Anything except the wine, since I wouldn’t feel right sipping on something I don’t plan to pay for. “I’m just a woman who was walking on a street, amongst hundreds of others who were doing the same that night. We talked for two minutes, and now you’re foisting all your family drama into my lap and messing with my gnocchi. That sounds like unresolved trauma to me, and something you should discuss with your therapist. In the meantime, probably stay away from innocent women. Save them from becoming your rehabilitation coach.”
“Think you’re pretty fuckin’ smart, don’t you?” He grabs a glass of water from his side of the table and slams it down by my plate. “You think humor and a pretty face will deter me? I’m trying to help you understand you are not the first to try this shtick with us, Tiia Hale. And I doubt you’ll be the last. So why don’t we save ourselves time and energy? Tell me everything I want to know about Wilkes’ intentions, and I’ll let you leave.” He lifts his left hand, flicking it away. “Don’t, and I’ll have to slit your fuckin’ throat on your way out the door.”
“M-my throat?” My palms break out in a nervous sweat. My stomach flip-flopping when my consciousness catches up to the fact I might not survive this dinner I never consented to attending.
He’s the fricken mafia!
And for whatever reason, he’s latched on and labeled me the enemy.
“How much is he paying you?” Micah demands.
“I don’t know who Joseph Wilkes is. I’ve never in my life spoken to someone with that name.”
“What’s your role in his plans?” he presses. “When you got close enough to us, what’s your mission?”
I firm my lips and swallow the lump of dread settled in my throat. “I don’t know who Joseph Wilkes is. I’ve never in my life spoken to someone with that name.”
“How did he find you?” Micah snarls, his tone biting enough to make me jump. “What has he offered you that’s valuable enough to entice you to step into danger?”
“I don’t know who?—”
“Tiia!” He shuts me down with a single, venomous word. “I don’t want to hurt you. Believe it or not, I don’t get off on terrorizing random women I encounter in the street.”
“And yet,” I huff, “here you are, threatening a woman you literally don’t know. You intercepted me, Micah. You dragged me into your club, and decided to question me. Personally, I’d just like to get back to my life and forget we ever met.”
He points in my direction, his stare burning with murder and impatience. “If you don’t?—”
“What happened to your hand?” I soften my voice, but stare intently at the mutilation he works hard to shield from the world.
Micah Malone makes a habit of keeping it concealed. His image in newspapers is always the same: if he’s walking, his hands are in his pockets. Sitting at the table, hands in his lap.
Harassing a woman in a club? Hands by his side, shrouded in darkness.
But I see the wound now. The ugly stitching left behind, and the still-pink flesh, tender after what can only be described as surgery under fire. His middle finger is gone—as in completely and utterly amputated. But the resulting scars prove this wasn’t something done inside a reputable hospital by a skilled surgeon.
“Who hurt you?” My voice trembles as he lowers his hand and places it in his lap. “It looks really sore. And kind of fresh.”
“Stovic?” Micah’s entire body seems to deflate. His chest shrinks and his chin drops, almost touching the point between his collarbones. “Escort her back to her table, please.”
“Let’s go, ma’am.” My guard wraps his meaty palm around my bicep and pulls me up, my thighs hitting the table and causing the silverware to rattle once more. “It’s time to leave.”
“No.” I twist in his hold and attempt to find Micah’s eyes again. It’s dumb, really, considering I wanted nothing but escape mere minutes ago. “I’m not ready to?—”
Stovic grabs the expensive bottle of wine and tucks it under his arm, then he takes my plate and comes around to lead me away from his master’s table.
“Micah Malone!” I trip on my feet and try to peel Stovic’s fingers from my arm. “Hey! You demand answers, but won’t give me any?”
“I suggest you shut your mouth, ma’am.” Stovic half-drags me through the restaurant, past diners who watch the spectacle I make, and toward my original table, where Jazzy and Roscoe still sit, their mouths agape. “Sit down.” He shoves me to my chair, the legs scraping along the floor. “Eat your dinner.” He slaps my plate down. “And enjoy the wine. Consider it a gift from Mr. Malone.”
“I wasn’t done talking to him!”
He plants his palm on my shoulder and forces me down again when my legs would have me springing back up. “He’s done talking to you. Stay on this side of the restaurant. And if you see Mr. Malone elsewhere, I suggest you give a wide berth.” He looks down into my eyes and smiles the smile of a terrifying man. “Perhaps consider moving to Philly. I hear it’s nice there.”
With that parting wish, he sets down the wine and turns on his heels, the rigidity of his movement military-like. He crosses the restaurant without a backward glance, the man significantly larger than most of the others sin here, which means everyone watches him go.
Everyone notices him.
“What. The.” Jazzy smacks the table and draws me around with a jumping start. “Hell! Tiia?! Micah Malone just invited you to dinner?”
I swallow, my throat desert dry and my heart thundering until it aches. “Um…” I drag my gaze around in search of the man in the shadows. The stare that warms my skin, even when I’d prefer it didn’t. But the table I sat at mere moments ago is already cleared. Its occupant, gone, and the glassware that was being used, vanished, as servers reset the table and prepare it for its next diners.
“Tiia!”
“He threatened me.” Trembling, though I don’t mean to allow such a weakness, I slowly turn back to my friends. The bright ray of sunshine that is Jaz, and the not nearly as loud, not even half as colorful Roscoe. “He said something about slitting throats,” I rasp, as though Micah’s blade is already perched there. “And he asked about my relationship with this other guy. Jackson… Justin… Jasper…” I wrack my brain, my voice quivering. “Wilkes.”
“Joseph Wilkes!” Jazzy grabs my hand and forces my attention around. “Your relationship with Joseph Wilkes? What!”
“I don’t…” I shake my head and peek across at the movement just over my shoulder.
Four equally large men exit the restaurant through the front door; three guards, and a well-protected Micah. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t look into my eyes. He goes, like he didn’t just change the very fabric of my existence and leave me with lasting memories I’m not sure will wash away even fifty years from now, when I’m a little old lady with nothing to occupy my time.
“I don’t have a relationship with Wilkes,” I whimper. “Literally have never even met him.”
“Joseph Wilkes is a bad dude, Tiia.” Jaz’s iron grip gives way to something gentler. A stroking finger, which only highlights how much my hands shake in comparison. “He’s been all over the front pages for months.”
“Extortion,” Roscoe pipes up, his deep voice matching his six feet, two-inch stature. “Drug distribution. Guns.”
“He’s not someone you wanna mess with,” Jaz continues. “If you’re running in circles with Wilkes, then it’s no wonder Malone isn’t happy with you.”
“I’m not running in circles with Wilkes!” I push her hand off and shove up from my chair. “And I have no affiliation with Malone either.”
I spin from my table and leave behind my dinner and wine, and willingly tossing myself toward danger, I charge out of the restaurant and look left, then right, in search of the four-man security detail.
“Hey!” I catch sight of Micah sliding into the back seat of a shimmering black town car. But my shout alerts his men, and as I take off from the restaurant door and stalk toward the car, they form a protective line that leaves me no choice but to mow them all down if I wish to get to their boss.
“Hey, jerkoff!” I can’t throw weapons or hands at the man in the car, but I know he’ll hear me. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, or why, of all four million women in New York, I’m the one you’ve decided to mess with, but screw you, Malone!”
“Ma’am,” Stovic breaks formation and steps forward, his hand extended in my direction. “You need to go inside, right now.”
“Step aside,” Micah rumbles.
I barely hear him. I hardly decipher the words spoken on a street bustling with cars and people. But Micah’s soldiers fan out instantly, creating a passageway for their boss.
Unlike when he’s sitting, I have to look up into those threatening green eyes. And when Stovic moves and Micah takes his place, it’s the warmth radiating off his broad chest and the tang of wine on his breath hitting my lips that makes it so obvious to me how close he stands.
I came out here with such rage. With a need for validation and retribution. I’ve been tangled up in whatever drama Micah wishes to create, and the only crime I committed was being outside at night, heading to a club just as innocently as countless other women did on the same evening.
But now, he stands over me, staring down into my eyes with absolutely no patience shimmering in his. No friendliness. No kindness. No tolerance for a woman whose temper often burns hotter than her common sense.
There’s just a killer’s gaze, above nostrils flaring with anger.
“What?” he bites out, the single syllable startling enough to make me flinch. “What do you want?”
“An apology.”
Isthat what I want? Is that what I came out here looking for?
I don’t know. But I’m brutally aware that I’m wading into the deep end of a world I would never willfully join.
“You have been rude to me. Unprovoked. You have manhandled me, threatened me, shouted at me… and you ruined my dinner.” I firm my jaw, lifting it in his direction as pride washes through my veins. “You have been a jerk, and it seems you feel entitled to treat people however you wish. Why? Because you’re rich? Because your family is powerful?”
His jaw clenches, the muscles flexing visibly.
“I could understand your irritation if I was, in fact, the annoying, evil woman you portray me to be. But I’m not. I’ve done nothing except exist, and as such, I do not accept this. Until it’s deserved, you have no right to treat me the way you did tonight.”
He slips his hand into his pocket, fast as a rattlesnake, and whips it out again holding a shimmering blade—the edge of which he presses to my throat, until the oxygen passing through me simply ceases to exist.
Immediately, tears burn the backs of my eyes, threatening to spill over.
Behind Micah, his trio of men bristle with nervous energy, as their boss tiptoes the line of committing murder right here on a busy New York City street.
“Do you know Joseph Wilkes?” he grits out, his left hand dropping to my hip to hold me close, while his right hand remains impossibly steady. “Have you ever had dealings with him, his family, or anyone else whose plan is to hurt me or mine?”
“No.” I jut my chin forward, tempting the man with a target other than my jugular. “And for you to assume otherwise is bullshit. I’ve done nothing to you, and yet you hold a knife to my throat. We’re not playing by the same rules.”
“Do you intend to hurt anyone I care about?” He skips over my words and demands more. More. More. “Are your motivations toward my family harmful?”
“No.” I bare my teeth, and sneer when his eyes flicker down. “Only to you.” I reach up and place my hand around his wrist, pushing it away until the cold steel of the blade leaves my skin. “If the opportunity should present itself, I intend to return the favor and place a knife at your throat. Equality, and all that.”
“You threaten me? You declare innocence with one breath, and war with the other?”
“I merely hope to level the playing field. You hurt me, unprovoked. Surely that earns me at least one shot at your throat.”
“Tiia!” Jazzy’s panicked voice echoes along the street, followed by her gasp of stunned surprise, then finally, her whimper of fear when she, no doubt, figures out the scene laid out in front of her. “Help! Someone!” she flails her arms, her voice rising an octave or twenty. “Someone help us!”
“Jazzy.” I tighten my grip on Micah’s wrist. Because if I release him, his knife might accidentally slice through my artery. “Quit it.” Then I hold his stare and snarl, “An apology, Mr. Malone. Your poor behavior warrants one. And my innocence,” my nose flares with rage, “deserves to hear you say the words.”
“Boss?” Stovic steps up on Micah’s right and murmurs, “Feds are on their way. We’ve been on the street too long.”
Quick as a flash, Micah tucks his knife away and releases my hip, forcing me to stumble back a step and catch my balance, or risk dropping to my ass. Then he turns on his shiny shoes and slides into his car, leaving me standing on the street, mentally spinning out but unable to look anywhere than at the glimmer of a streetlight reflecting off the back of his hundred-thousand-dollar car.
“Malone!” I step forward as the three men file in after him. “You coward! You owe me an apology.”
“Tiia!” Jazzy clip-clops behind me, the approaching sound of her shoes on the concrete the only warning I get before she crashes into my back. “Let him go.”
“Another day.” Micah glances out at me, his hand on the door as he slowly closes it. His eyes glitter and burn into mine. But a mere couple of blocks away, police sirens whoop in the night. “I’ll come find you, Ms. Hale. We can talk then.”
“Apologize now,” I growl. “Then we can be done with all this.”
But my request goes unheard by the man who shuts his door, and then his car disappears into traffic; just another rich man’s ride in a sea of yellow and black that fills the street.
“Oh my god!” Jazzy bursts out now that we’re alone.
Well, we’re not really alone. Dozens of onlookers become apparent, now that I take a breath and look around. Diners who followed me out of Biano’s. Passersby who stopped to watch the spectacle.
Even Luigi, the server who brought me my gnocchi.
“Did that really just happen?” Jaz slides the pads of her thumbs beneath my eyes, swiping up tears I had no clue had spilled over. Her hands tremor, just like I know mine do. “Did you seriously just go toe to toe with that guy? Tiia! Are you crazy?”
“He was rude.” My voice crackles, the words like razor blades inside my throat. And now that he’s gone—and with him, the very real blade he held against my skin—my chest caves in, and the oxygen in my lungs races out to explode against my best friend’s face. “He said I was on that other guy’s payroll! Like my job was to hurt him and his family.”
“He was mistaken,” she croons, soothing me the way a mother shushes a fussing baby. “He was wrong, and uncivilized at best. He made assumptions about you.”
“He was an asshole!” I toss her hands off and spin away, only to meet Roscoe’s eyes.
His expression of horror, the final key that unlocks my freakout.
My breath catches, strangling me until my chest shudders. Then fresh tears burst from my eyes and stream along my cheeks. “Oh my god.” I reach up and press my palm to where Micah’s blade would have cut, if given half the chance. “Oh my god! He would have killed me.”
“You’re okay.” Roscoe darts from the crowd and slides into our small huddle, wrapping me in his arms and crushing the side of my face to his thundering chest. He rests his lips on my forehead, and hums, “You’re fine, Ipo. Everything’s fine.”
“He was going to slice me open.”
“He was sending you a warning. No way he was gonna gut you with an audience.”
“Real helpful, Roscoe.” Jazzy yanks me from his arms, pulling me against her much softer chest, and strokes my arm. “He was huffing and puffing, babe. He wanted to make sure you weren’t who he thought you were. But you’re okay.”
“I could have died!” My hands tremble uncontrollably, creating movement in my arms that extends into my ribs. My stomach. My bowels. My knees. “He’s so angry, he would have killed me, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Babe.” Roscoe’s molten eyes are like liquid in the waning daylight. “You followed him out here. He was setting you free, and you came up on his blindside. Even a regular guy would take issue with that.”
“But he started all this!” I shove away from my friends and stumble along the sidewalk, no clue where I’m going. No idea what I’ll do when I get there. “He started this, Roscoe! He got in my way, and now he’s acting like I’m the bad guy.”