Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Luca
S unday nights at The Dollhouse were slow, at least the front of the house. Trixie thrust her breasts forward and pressed her backside against the pole, gripping it over her head. She slinked down its length until she squatted at its base, knees spread wide. The handful of regulars around the stage chatted, drank, and smoked cigars, only half tuned in to the mostly naked woman writhing in front of them under the stage lights. A few patrons watched the Sox play Tampa—what a shitty game. The rest of the club was empty beneath the dim lights and thin layer of cigar smoke.
I walked past the bar and lifted my chin to Joe the bartender, a grizzled, tight-lipped blood demon as old as Boston itself. It was a common misconception that blood demons didn’t age. We did, although not in the same way as humans and not at the same rate. Somewhere between forty-five and sixty, blood demons reached maturity, and with each passing year, the rate at which we aged decreased logarithmically until it appeared as though we weren’t aging at all. That’s why you had so many blood demons walking around looking like they were fifty, fifty-five years old.
But no amount of immortality could erase the signs of a hard life or hard living. Years wore you down, immortal or not. You could see it in their eyes, the way they drilled right through you. Or in the set of their faces. It took a lot to ruffle the feathers of an old bird. They’d lived too long and seen too much.
Vito was like that—the way he looked at you, the way he held himself, his patience. And he was only a hundred and forty, give or take. Not even middle-aged by blood demon standards.
Through the double doors, the back of the house was as big as the front and where we made our real money on Sunday nights. Written off as offices for the Valenzano Trading Company, the rooms off the main hallway provided spaces for private dances and appointments with Sources. They were locked now, but in an hour, blood demons would start arriving for their meals, and I’d have four revolving doors to monitor.
Down the hall and through another set of doors, my office and the girls’ dressing room occupied the rest of the property. I poked my head into the dressing room, ready to take out my pent-up frustration on the girls if the place still looked like a shithole. Luckily for them and for my sanity, they’d created a semblance of order. The floor and countertops were visible, and I didn’t spot a single empty pizza box.
Laura, Dani, Mia, and Jenny were dressed and ready for the night. They lounged on the couches and flipped through magazines. Dani and Mia sipped Kool-Aid.
“Jenny.” She looked at me with doe eyes, and I groaned inwardly. I didn’t want to deal with her tonight, but I needed to feed. Probably needed a blowjob too. Take the fucking edge off. “Room three. Twenty minutes.”
She smiled like she’d won the lottery. “Okay, Luca.”
I pointed a finger at her. “No blow before I feed, capisce?”
“Fine,” she said, irritated.
I hated that shit. I could taste the coke in her blood. It was bitter and foul and made me even more neurotic. And twitchy. It was getting really fucking old.
Across the hall, the main office was as big if not bigger than the dressing room, complete with a fridge and small bar, lounge chairs, and a window, a nice feature when your boss has a cigar permanently wedged between his lips. Speaking of the demon, Vinnie Valenzano sat at the card table across from Gio playing poker. I walked around them to my desk.
“Nice of you to show up for work,” Vinnie said, not bothering to look up from his cards or remove the cigar from between his teeth.
I took off my suit jacket, slung it over the back of the chair, and leaned against my desk. “I was here earlier. Made sure everything was in order.”
He puffed on his cigar. “Everyone around here’s on their own fucking schedule,” he grumbled and tossed a couple of chips into the pot. “Taking their damn time.”
Gio grunted. “Sì, sì.”
“Top earners aren’t kicking up what they used to,” he continued. I opened my mouth, but before I could comment, Vinnie shot me a look. “I don’t want to hear a single fucking word about the goddamned economy.”
I clamped my mouth shut. He refocused on his hand and threw down a card.
“This business doesn’t run on the economy. I want my capi to do their fucking jobs. I want earners .” He slammed his fist on the table, and the chips rattled.
Gio threw down a card.
Vinnie eyed it, lips tight and nostrils flaring.
Gio leaned back in his chair and watched him.
“Eh, cazzo,” Vinnie said and tossed his cards onto the table—“Porca puttana”—and grabbed his drink.
“I met with Richie and Matteo yesterday,” I said. “The Source funnel to Terme is in place. We’re ready for traffic, but we need to move slow. The feds have been coming around more than usual. Even Vito’s twitchy. But we should see profits start to climb over the next couple months.”
“Couple of months…” Vinnie swiped his hand down his face. “I want this shit turned around.” He jammed a thick finger into the card table. “Now.”
Gio leaned forward. “As your consigliere, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out—not all your capi are underperforming. Richie and Johnny Lam are doing fine.” He turned to me and cocked an eyebrow. “You could be doing more.”
I folded my arms. “In the month I’ve been in this crew, I learned this place, figured out how to run it more efficiently, and set up the bridge between us and the DeVitas.” I showed Gio a thin smile. “In a month.”
“Giusto,” Gio said and nodded.
“But yeah. Now that’s done, I can do more.”
“See,” Vinnie said and pointed a finger at me. “That’s the attitude I need. From my capi and their earners.” He focused his sharp attention on me and struck the card table again with that same finger. “I need you here on time, milking this place for every penny, and I need you running jobs. I need you earning.” He drained the whiskey from his glass. “The Playground is next. I’m done with this shit.”
He pushed his big frame out of the chair and buttoned his suit jacket. I was tall, but Vinnie had bulk. We were around the same height, but he had about fifty pounds on me, give or take, and I wasn’t exactly a small guy.
He clasped my shoulder with his meaty paw. “Marco never used you to your full potential. I’m not making that mistake.” He flashed his wolfish smile. “You’ve got that ruthless streak in you. Same as your father. Isn’t that right, Gio?”
Gio leaned back and gave me a knowing smile. “I’d call that shit he pulled on Marco pretty ruthless.”
My stomach lurched.
“Time to use it.” Vinnie squeezed my shoulder. “I gotta call from my guys down at the docks. There’s a warehouse full of those—come si chiamano? Video games systems…” He waved a beefy hand through the air and glanced at Gio, who shrugged.
“The new Playstation?” I asked.
“Sì. Playstations. Five hundred units. Get a crew together and make the lift.”
Anticipation flew through my body. A job. And not just any job, a half-million-dollar haul. Finally.
The jobs I ran under Marco were safe—shakedowns, fixing books. Easy stuff. One of the ways he held me back. But this? This was a chance to make a name for myself separate from Marco and separate from my father. A chance to be a top earner in my own right. I was hungry for it. Hungry to prove I deserved to be a capo in the Mafia. Hungry to make the Moretti name mean something again. Hungry for my turn.
“Ho capito,” I said, determined and eager. “Quando?”
“Tomorrow night. The truck leaves the warehouse at the start of second shift—around eleven.” He released my shoulder and headed for the door. “Do it on the turnpike outside the city. Pick your crew. Two, three men tops. All soldati demoni del sangue. I don’t need anyone breaking omertà over stupid shit, capisce?”
“Capisce.”
Vinnie grabbed his fedora off the coat rack and set it on his head. He pulled the brim low. “Don’t fuck this up, Luca. I want that cargo, and I want you earning. You do this right, there’s more where that came from.”
“I’m a Moretti. It’ll be done, and it’ll be done right.”
He opened the door and leveled me with a no-nonsense stare. “It better,” he said and walked out the door.
* * *
The private rooms at the back of The Dollhouse were all laid out the same. Dimmable lamps lit the ten-by-ten-foot spaces and cast an amber glow across a single wooden end table and a couch. A dial mounted on the wall next to the door allowed occupants to set the volume of the music piped in from the main bar. Hardwood floors and leather upholstery made for easy cleanup of bodily fluids. Simple and utilitarian, the rooms got the job done.
Jenny had the lights lowered, and the sensual music was loud enough that I noticed. She lay on her side, head propped up in one hand. She wore the clear platform heels she preferred due to her height, or lack thereof, and a skin-tight black-lace teddy. It barely covered her fake breasts and was so short that the clasps of the garter belt holding up her sheer stockings were visible. She parted her hot pink lips and ran her hand down her waist to where the teddy ended at the apex of her thighs. She tugged at the hem in a move meant to entice.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. I didn’t want to snap at her and her ridiculous seduction game. It made her pouty and put me in a foul mood.
“What’s wrong, Luca?” Her high, squeaky voice was nails on a chalkboard.
“Nothing.” I rolled up my shirtsleeves. “Sit up.”
She obeyed, always eager to appease me.
I stepped forward until I stood in front of her and unbuckled my belt. She’d be too drained after I fed to suck me off. I unzipped my pants, reached inside my boxers, and pulled out my dick. Not a single drop of blood rushed to where I needed it to go.
Goddammit.
I made a fist around my dick and started working myself. Jenny licked her lips. They were too full, and the hot pink was the wrong shade.
I squeezed harder and picked up the pace. The blonde was off too, her hair all large and unmoving.
I grabbed one of her tits with my free hand. It didn’t feel right. Too big.
“Fuck this,” I said and tucked my limp dick back into my shorts and zipped my pants. “Get up.” I buckled my belt.
Her disappointed expression irritated the hell out of me. I spun her around so her back faced my front. I rested my forearm across her chest to hold her in place and shoved aside the big plume of stiff hair that smelled of chemicals. She tilted her head, presenting her neck.
My fangs descended, and my eyes glowed to match the dim lights. I bit her neck and started to feed.
Her body relaxed. I closed my eyes and cleared my head, trying to focus on nourishment instead of Jenny’s mewls and squirming. My plan backfired.
Siobhán knelt between my legs at Vesuvio. Her red lips wrapped around my dick. Her blue eyes locked with mine. Her head bobbed along my hard, swollen length.
My dick twitched. I bit down and pulled in a mouthful of blood.
Jenny groaned from the surge of venom. She stuck her ass out and rubbed it against my jutting length. I shifted my hips back and took another deep drink, ready to be done with this entire unpleasant affair. She reached around my back, grabbed my ass, and pulled me into her. I released her from my bite and pushed her away.
She stumbled, unsteady from the venom and those ridiculous heels. But I was done. Done with my meal and done with her.
I licked a drop of blood from my lips and rolled down my shirtsleeves.
Jenny regained her footing and held her fingers to her neck, mouth agape. I grabbed her hair, swatted her hand away, and swiped my tongue across the wound. It quickly closed.
She stared at me in wide-eyed shock.
“Log your time for a feeding,” I said and reached for the door. I paused and glanced over my shoulder. “I’ll be using a different Source from now on.”
She lifted her chin, defiant, but there was no mistaking the disappointment in her eyes or the anger in her taut mouth.
I closed the door behind me and buttoned my cuffs as I walked back down the hall to my office. I’d fed enough to get me through the next week if needed and, more importantly, avoid the temptation waiting for me at home. Besides, I had bigger problems than a feeding cut short by a gold-digging Source. I had a twenty-five-year-old crime to avenge and a hijacking to plan.
* * *
Vinnie’s cybersecurity officer was as competent as Marco’s, and within an hour of my request, an email popped into my inbox telling me everything I needed to know. I’d sent him a message outlining the information I needed after a few quick Google searches. Like most cyber guys, he preferred communicating via email, but unlike others, he never used phones. Ever. But for all his paranoia, Vinnie’s guy was good, and two hours after receiving his email, Leo and I pulled to a stop a block past a two-family, detached row house in one of Dorchester’s Irish neighborhoods.
Leo parked the unmarked sedan but didn’t turn off the engine.
“In and out,” I said. “Ten minutes. Leave after fifteen.”
He nodded, and I exited onto the dark city sidewalk.
Ronan O’Doyle lived on the bottom floor of one of the countless cookie-cutter homes lining the densely populated city streets. It hadn’t been difficult to get an address once I found out he was still alive. Hell, it hadn’t been difficult finding the name of the gang who attacked the Shaughnessys. Not when a teenage girl had been caught in the crossfire.
A TV backlit the curtains on the lower level and announced the highlights of the night’s Sox game, loud enough to wake the upstairs neighbors. But no lights were on behind the upstairs windows. Good.
I walked up the wooden porch steps and knocked on the door.
A chair creaked, boots hit the floor, and my supernatural hearing picked up each footfall over the obnoxiously loud TV. The deadbolt clicked and the door swung open.
A middle-aged man of average build, average height, and average features, Ronan O’Doyle had thinning hair and bushy, unkempt eyebrows. He narrowed his hazy blue eyes, and the creases lining his forehead deepened. “What d’ye want?” His voice had an unmistakably Irish lilt, but the words sounded as if he’d dragged them through gravel.
“That’s no way to welcome a guest, is it? Ronan O’Doyle?”
“What’s it to ye?” he asked and lifted a Sam Adams to his lips with his left hand—a left hand missing its index, middle, and ring fingers. Irish mob handiwork at its best. The only confirmation I needed, and the confirmation that had just ended his life.
I pulled out my piece from the inside of my suit jacket and aimed it at his heart.
He looked at the gun, then looked at me. He swigged his beer.
“Inside,” I said.
He backed into the living room, and I shut the door behind me.
Sparse. A bachelor pad free of decoration except for a framed poster of the 2004 World Series Champion Red Sox hanging above an empty fireplace, a big screen TV loud enough to deafen the hard of hearing, and a well-worn leather recliner. A side table topped with two empty beer bottles and a remote stood between the armrest and the fireplace. No evidence of a landline.
“Have a seat.” I gestured to the recliner with my gun.
O’Doyle moved toward the recliner as if a stranger holding him at gunpoint wasn’t out of the ordinary, and sank into his chair, making it creak.
I held out my hand. “Your phone.”
He twisted in his seat and reached into his pocket. “This some kinda shakedown?” he rumbled. “Cause I already told Johnny I don’t got his money. I’m good for it next month.” He pulled out a cell and handed it to me.
I dropped the phone in my pocket and lowered my gun. “How’d you lose those fingers, Ronan?”
He glanced down to where his thumb and pinky finger held the beer bottle on top of the recliner’s armrest.
“Dog got ’em,” he said to his missing fingers. “Real nasty mutt.”
I snorted. “That’s not the story I heard.”
I hadn’t expected anyone from the O’Doyle crew to have made it out of Southie alive, much less their ringleader. Leave it to the cyber guy to dig up an address and the dirty details.
He shrugged. “Don’t really give a fig what you heard.”
“You should.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cause what I heard”—I stepped forward—“was that instead of putting you in the dirt for shooting his niece, Paddy Shaughnessy cut them off.” Another step. “One for each bullet you put in her stomach.”
His face went flat. “Not sure where ye heard that tripe.”
“What I want to know is how you’re still alive. That’s the mystery I can’t figure out. Everyone in the O’Doyle crew is in the ground. Southie cops found them in a dumpster, each with a hole in his chest. Execution style at point-blank range. But not their leader. Not Ronan O’Doyle. Why’s that, Ronan?”
“Ye seem to know a lot about it. Why don’t ye tell me?”
“I can make this easy on you or hard. Your choice. You’re going to die anyway. Might as well make it easy.”
He shifted in his seat like he was settling into the idea, then lifted his beer, examined it, and drained the bottle.
“I knew an arms dealer from Dublin workin’ for the IRA.” He shrugged again. “Paddy decided I was more use to him alive than dead.”
I ground my teeth, trying to tamp down my rising fury. Guns. I knew those Irish fucks had no code, but to trade Siobhán’s honor—her worth—for fucking guns?
Heat clawed up my neck. There was no fucking way Ciarán didn’t know about this, and the need to prove his connection to the feds and end his sorry ass took on new urgency.
“That’s the difference.” I spit the words out, disgusted. “Between Cosa Nostra and a lawless mob. We live by a code. We have honor.”
The words stung as they passed my lips; the guilt over what I did to Marco was a bitter poison I could still taste even if he had left my father’s murder unavenged. It made me sick.
“We’d never sell out family for fucking guns. Especially one of our women.” The heat climbing up my neck reached my eyes, and I let them burn as surely as Ronan O’Doyle would burn in hell. “It’s time you paid for your sins. Blood for blood. And unlike your boss, the only gun I care about is the one you used to hurt her.”
He paled and swallowed hard, making his throat bob, but he knew better than to fight. He’d met his end, and at least he was facing it like a fucking man.
I lifted my gun. “This is for Siobhán Connelly.”
Crack!
He grunted, and his hands went to his stomach just to the right of where his beer gut sat above his belt.
“One.”
Crack!
His mouth hung open, and he stared down at his blood-covered hands over the new bullet hole in the center of his gut.
“Two.”
He closed his eyes.
Crack!
His body jerked with the impact of the third bullet, and he slumped in the chair.
“Three.”
He’d bleed out before anyone got to him, but I wasn’t about to take the chance that this fucker might survive to live one more day after what he did to Siobhán. He shouldn’t have lived this long.
“E questo è per me,” I said and put a bullet between his eyes.