11. Run Away
Chapter eleven
Run Away
Kira
C osa looked at me from behind the rim of her wine glass.
Her family restaurant wasn’t a Mom and Pop. It had high ceilings and plush, leather seats. The food was decadent and rich. The lines were long, and the reservations impossible to get unless you had a contact.
A platter of oysters sat in front of her, and she delicately picked up a shell and swallowed the morsel between her thin, pink lips.
“Eoghan Green isn’t a good man,” she said again, for the third time today.
“So you’ve said.” I rolled my eyes. “He’s just an artist, Cosa. You still haven’t told me what he’s done.”
I know, but I want to know what you know.
“They say that he bled one of his enemies and used it to make his paint,” she whispered.
I laughed so hard the other restaurant patrons glared in our direction. I hadn’t been expecting that. We’d have to add that to the list of rumors we had.
“I’m not kidding,” Cosa whispered, reaching a hand out to grab mine. “I heard that he took someone’s blood and turned it into red paint. They say he hides evidence of his crime in his paintings, then sells them at your gallery!”
She looked around, as if worried that someone had heard this insane tale.
“Oh, come on. That’s from a movie!” I rolled my eyes. “The Red Violin. The original violin maker’s wife died in childbirth, and he used her blood and hair to make his final violin, and it’s told from the literal story of the instrument as it passes through time.”
Paint made from blood… what complete nonsense. Some things were just too salacious to possibly be true.
“So?” She took her hand back, straightening in her seat, obviously annoyed that I didn’t believe her.
I’m sure that wasn’t a common occurrence in her world. Cosima wasn’t just a Mafia heiress - a fact we never talked about - but she was a graduate of Yale Law School. She was a partner at her godfather’s firm, and they were known as ruthless negotiators.
There was nothing soft about this princess - a fact that I greatly admired, but also resented.
She knew more about what was happening in her family business, and I hadn’t been able to pry the information out of her.
“So?” I wiped my face, taking my own wine glass in hand. “These stories are totally made up!”
I took a deep pull, amused that the dark red wine matched my lipstick. No wine-lips for me!
“I don’t think so.” Her nostrils flared with her irritation. “He and his father are psychopaths. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.”
I felt the opening - the small crack I could exploit.
“And what do they want?” I asked, my eyes wide with curiosity.
I was a damn fine actress, if I do say so myself.
But, just like that, Cosima plastered over the small crack, repairing it before I could get a foothold.
“What all businessmen want…” Her eyes glanced to the ground. She was obviously lying. It fascinated me that, despite being a lawyer, she wasn’t actually a good liar. “More money, I guess.”
She took a quick drink, and then changed the subject.
“How did you guys meet?” Her eyes flicked back to me.
Was she turning the tables and trying to interrogate me on her enemy? I smirked at that… spy games were fun, when your life wasn’t on the line.
“At the gallery, of course.” I put my glass down on the table, twisting the stem. “How did you meet him?”
Uno reverse!
“Well, we haven’t met exactly…” She flushed at her confession.
“You’ve never met him, and you hate him this much?” Come on, Cosima… give me something. “What did he do? Piss in your wheaties?”
The waiter came by and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, miss, but we don’t have any of the Rosé you ordered–”
“Then you better get in a cab and get a bottle of what I ordered,” Cosima said with narrowed eyes.
“Ma’am, I can't just leave—”
“Yes you can.” Cosima leaned forward, placing her sharp elbow on the white linen sheet. “I’m Cosima Durante. I want what I want.”
The man visibly trembled in fear. “Y-Yes, ma’am.”
Ah, the absolute power these people had over us little folk. Their name alone was a fucking threat.
Cosima was nice to me because of my place in the art world. I was like a collector’s item. If I was in their back pocket, they could always say “oh, my friend Kira Kekoa, the one who works at Gallery Four…” and instantly look like they knew a thing or two about art.
If she ever met me - the real me - she wouldn’t give me the time of day. These people were great at hiding their true colors.
I was a little buzzed, and a whole lot bitter. So I softened my annoyance by drinking even more.
That’s what happens when your Italian friend decides that she's going to treat you to her family’s restaurant. Their farm-to table - or is it vineyard-to-table? - wine was so good, I couldn’t resist imbibing a little bit. A-lot-a-bit. Whatever.
“Look, Gionvanni Morelli is my father’s closest friend and advisor,” Cosima said, still whispering like she was telling me the secret of the universe, and didn’t want it to get out to the rest of the world. “He has always warned me about going near the Greens because they… they…”
She stopped, mer mouth clamping shut.
Come on, woman! Spill the beans!
“They… what?” I whispered, matching her tone.
“The old families had some… drama… a few years back. The last generation. Eoghan Green’s mother was a casualty of it. She… she suffered.” Cosima’s eyes looked so weary, as if telling me this was exhausting her beyond what she was able to handle. “And the rumor is that Eoghan Green’s father wants to make other women suffer the way she did.”
“Suffer… how?” I asked, completely enthralled. This was it. She was opening up. She was going to be a good source of intelligence, after all. “What women?”
“Don’t ask me, please.” Cosa’s eyes were pleading for me to understand. “But we all live in fear that he’ll come after us… old man Green, I mean.”
Come after “us”? Did that mean the Mafia wives and daughters? Alastair Green had kidnapped Yuliya Vasilieva, and beaten her to within an inch of her life, then strung her up on the docks as an example. If she confessed something that specific to me - something I knew to be true, because I had it from the most reliable source - then it would only be a matter of time before I heard everything else.
“This seems like a lot of speculation and rumors,” I said, as if I was trying to just hear some gossip. I couldn’t let on that I wanted anything more than that.
Cosa looked down at her hands that played with the stem of her wine glass. “It’s complicated. Uncle Gio, my godfather, has never steered me wrong, and I just want you to know…”
Her voice trailed off, and I had a choice to make. I could push, or I could retreat and try again later.
I wasn’t like Blink, who could get information from a stone. I had to think about it, and read the situation right. Manipulating people didn’t come naturally to me. I was hired as a forger, and the spying… well, that had to be something I learned over time.
So I gave it a shot. I threw my Hail Mary.
“Are you in the mafia?” I finally asked out right, looking around us at the swanky restaurant. “Is that… your family business?”
I couldn’t believe that I was asking the question so casually. It was ridiculous.
Hey, are you related to Al Capone?
But that’s what I was dealing with. That was the truth.
“I…” Cosima’s eyes looked pained.
There was a squeezing in my heart that felt a whole lot like guilt. Was it possible that I liked her as more than just a mark? Between her and Eoghan, what the fuck was I thinking?
Maybe Blink was right, and I was meddling too close to something I didn’t understand.
“Sweetheart!” A gray haired man appeared, his face weathered and white.
I knew who he was, even before Cosima stood up, and greeted him with a kiss on both cheeks. “Uncle Gio!”
He held her shoulders, and held her at arm’s length, staring intently at her face.
“You look upset, piccolo.” His low, rough voice was deeper than I imagined. Age certainly hadn’t taken the manliness out of his deep baritone. “What’s happened?”
His face was laced with concern as he looked at his beloved… goddaughter? Niece?
‘ No, ’ my mind cried out, ‘ They’re lovers! ’
They were trying to hide it, but it was obvious in the way she leaned into his touch, and how he was able to read her expression with an attentiveness that could only come from someone who spent a lot of time together. A lot of intimate time together.
“I was just talking about you.” Cosima gestured for Giovanni to take the empty seat at the table. “This is my friend from the art gallery, Kira Kekoa.”
As she started taking her seat, he pulled out her chair, then pushed it in under her as she lowered into it. Before unbuttoning his blazer to take the empty chair, he squeezed her bare shoulder, and she blushed. I suppose that movement could have looked paternal, but my skin crawled.
He was old enough to be her father! He had known her since she was born! I was horrified.
“Kekoa?” Uncle Gio asked. “What a memorable name.”
“I get that a lot,” I said with an uneasy smile as I felt his eyes roam my body. “It’s the alliteration.”
“Hmm, a family tradition?”
“Yes, my father’s idea of a joke. He was Kent. I’m Kira.”
His eyes roamed my body again, and goosebumps spread over my skin. His brows pinched together, then his expression closed off again.
“We were talking about the Greens,” Cosima said, her lips slightly parted.
Giovanni Morelli’s eyes immediately narrowed as he stared me down.
“Why would you be talking about them?”
My skin immediately broke out into goosebumps, aware of the air’s drop in temperature.
“Stay away from them, Cosa.” Morelli turned to his goddaughter, his tone admonishing. “I mean it, sweetheart, they’re no good. They’re more dangerous than they let on.”
He was really scared for her. I could tell in the way his fists clenched, and he looked at her with adoration.
“I know, that’s what I was just telling Kira.” Cosima batted her eyelashes as if this man hung the moon, and she didn’t want to disappoint him.
At the mention of my name his eyes turned back to me.
His gray eyes matched the color of his graying hair. “What do you know about the Greens?”
I bristled. “Eoghan Green owns the gallery I work at…”
“Yes, I know about that money laundering scheme. Very smart of that young man.” He chewed on the thought, begrudgingly. “Fucking useless paintings…”
“Hey!” My hand slammed on the table.
Maybe I was inflating prices for paintings. Maybe I embellished stories to sell to the masses of useless patrons with more money than taste. And, okay, sure, I was a government agent, using this as a cover to fund clandestine operations.
But art was not useless. It was the highest form of humanity, the likes of which the man before me would never understand.
“Art is one of the greatest things that most people will never understand,” I asserted, my voice coming out more aggressive than I intended. “When we are ash, and dirt, our society won’t be judged on its dollars and the DOW Jones. It’ll be judged on art.”
Morelli snorted as he lifted his hand at a passing waiter that was overburdened with trays. After he was acknowledged, he dropped his hand, and turned as his eyes snapped to me.
“I don’t pretend to know about the arts, Miss Kekoa.” Him saying my name that way sent a shiver down my spine.
Not the way Eoghan did. When he called me Miss Kekoa he sounded traditional and gallant - like he belonged in a different time, and was trying to bring chivalry back into fashion.
“But I do know the Greens.” He wagged a finger, as if he was lecturing a child. “I know young Eoghan well. I know his father even better. They are vicious men, who will stop at nothing to get what they want. They are men of violence, and cruelty. You are best staying far, far away from them.”
Cosima’s chest inflated, smug at the fact that her hero had supported her previous statement.
“If you have Eoghan Green’s attention, then you need to make yourself scarce.” Giovanni’s voice lowered, his eyes narrowing as his next words made me shiver with unease. “Run away, Miss Kekoa. Run far, far away.”
His warning sounded… prophetic . It felt heavy, and important. The world beyond the restaurant’s windows darkened, as storm clouds blossomed in the distance. The patter of rain came down, sudden and fast.
“If you have his focus,” Giovanni continued, his voice quieter than before. “Then you need to run for your life.”