Chapter 21 Kitty
TWENTY-ONE
KITTY
Beach resort? Ha. I didn’t think so.
Eva Martinez spoke nothing less than the truth—this was a suite and our shitty eighty-bucks-a-night hotel room could never hold a candle to the impressiveness of this palatial estate.
But give me the bed bugs any day of the week because this was the kind of risk that a hose down and a pest bomb wouldn’t fix.
My gut told me we were in deep shit.
My brain told me that Martinez, for all that he came across as an altruistic overlord of the manor, screamed dangerous. In the same way that I knew my brothers were. Like I knew my da had been.
Men could smile and joke and tease. They could hug their loved ones, kiss them on the forehead, go home to them at night, but their actions outside the house were never spoken of.
Ma had told me once that Da had never shared any details of a single job he’d undertaken in his years of service to the Five Points, but that hadn’t meant she’d been unaware.
Blood on a shirt.
Perfume on a collar.
Acid splashes on a pair of pants.
A million hints that meant a woman who wedded into our world could never be totally blind to the truth.
It was why I’d vowed to marry the lesser evil of a finance bro since Millie had snatched George.
God, a life with George looked so simple by comparison.
I should have snapped him up the second he came onto me over a steaming dishwasher in the back of the coffee shop where we worked.
Anxiety had me standing out on the balcony at four AM, fiddling with my newly-returned cell phone.
Questioning the life choices that had brought me to this moment, right here, right now, I found I had no desire to call my brothers for a lecture.
Texting my friends was pointless unless they could give the Mayday signal to the State Department if this situation deteriorated further. But… I didn’t want that.
Not yet.
So, hands tucked over my elbows in a self-hug, eyes locked on the charming coastal view ahead of me, I took in the beauty of a cerulean-blue swimming pool that glittered with golden lights.
Bushy palm trees lined a massive terrace, wooden sunbeds perfectly displayed as they tilted toward the water, where the surface rippled thanks to the fountain at the deep end that sent torrents into the air, providing a gentle soundtrack to the night that the cicadas only augmented.
With more lights sparkling in the distance, the city still awake even at this time, the scene belonged at a five-star hotel. One of those shots they captured on film for an ad.
And still, give me the grody, bedbug-riddled mattress I should have been sleeping on—
“Kitty?”
The voice, dark and deep, had my head whipping to the side.
I’d noticed that the guest suites shared a long terrace, but only I had stepped out here until now.
Raisin was probably shivering under her duvet because I’d knocked on her door then tried the handle, but had realized it was firmly locked.
Neev, I’d heard snoring from the outside.
And she only snored that loudly when she was hammered.
As for Stan, I’d known what he was when I’d stepped over to him in the airport lounge.
Somehow, in the whirlwind of talking to him, I’d forgotten the vow I’d made to myself about men who believed in the sanctity of hedge funds and not AK47s.
Being locked in this pristine palace had reminded me like little else could.
This kind of wealth never came without a cost.
“I thought you’d be asleep.” I shifted my attention onto the pool. “Or are you waiting for foot soldiers to burst in through your door like I am?”
“They won’t hurt us.”
“Then why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Because I wanted to talk to you.”
I felt him step closer to me, and worse yet, I smelled him. There was a warm, musky scent that filled the air, but it was fresh and it told me he’d showered.
Some of the tension in my shoulders abated because I didn’t think he’d have done that if he were lying about our safety.
When I turned to look at him again, I found him staring straight at me. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
“I’m sorry.”
His words were simple.
Heartfelt.
I swallowed.
Not even Lucas and Cade apologized that often…
“You didn’t bring us here.” I rubbed my hands over my upper arms. “W-We lied to our brothers about our vacation. Our eldest… Lucas, he’s always so controlling about where we go. Cade’s just as bad. Neev’s overcome so much… We really just wanted to let our hair down. The websites said it was safe!”
“Maybe for ordinary people, but you’re not ordinary.”
“I’ve always considered myself adjacent to my brothers’ world. Not a part of it.”
“A Lucas and a Cade drove me away from Irish territory yesterday. I assume they’re related to you?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my arms again. “This whole thing proves I’m kidding myself.”
“About?”
“I can be a nurse, I can dedicate myself to my patients, I could move away—” He tensed. “—but I’ll always be the brat of an Irish mobster.”
“We take our heritage with us wherever we go. There’s no running from it. It will always catch up to us in the end.”
That was the voice of experience talking—a weary, wistful, woebegone one.
“Who?” I asked simply.
“My father. Currau… Do you know his history?”
“He went to jail for killing his family.” I winced. “Your family.”
“It wasn’t true. The Famiglia made him the fall guy. My grandmother managed to escape the culling and fled to Sicily. The leader of the Camorra helped her. Until recently, we thought he’d abandoned the Valentinis to their fate, but he had a hand in keeping us safe.
“My father was raised on the island and became an accountant.” He barked out a laugh. “But it’ll always find you. This fucking poison that is our world.”
“What happened?”
“It was my fault.”
From the sheer absence of nuance in his tone, I could sense how badly this hurt him. How this admission tore at his insides and raked them raw.
Despite my own weariness, I rested my hand on top of his because he was being truthful and I knew how rare and precious that made his confession.
“I got involved with drugs.” His knuckles, scored with ‘OVER,’ rapped against his temple. “Too clever for my own good sometimes.
“I know I don’t look like it. ‘Stan’s a brick wall. The fists. You want someone fucked up, send Stan in.’ That’s what I do. But my brain’s always gotten me into trouble.
“You ever just need silence?”
“I was raised with three brothers and two sisters. What do you think?”
“Different kind of silence,” he corrected, his lips curved.
“Where your brain never stops racing?”
“Yes.”
I hummed. “I get it. You used drugs to cope?”
“I did.”
“Been there, done that too.” Right after Vinny’s death. When the world had been cruel and cold and dark and I hadn’t wanted to be a part of it. I’d only gotten past that time because Neev had needed me to step up so I had.
His shoulders sagged, that impressive posture of his crumbling as he admitted, “My dad tried to get me out but…”
“Too late?”
“Yes. Getting me out involved getting him in. He ended up managing the books for my dealer as a trade-off. The dealer’s business expanded, came to the attention of the big boys, in walked the Famiglia, and who did they recognize?”
I gasped. “Your father?”
“Distinu fucks with you every time.”
Distinu—destiny—fate.
“When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
His brows furrowed at the random-to-him but not-to-me question. “A chemist.”
“Not a mobster?”
“Never that. We weren’t of this world. Not really.
But our blood made it so. My brother was supposed to be some madcap history professor.
Aurora…” He shrugged. “The second she found out about Currau, her life changed.
She wanted to free him. Being a lawyer was the only way to make that happen, and so she dedicated herself to that path.
“The past was always coming at us. We just didn’t realize we’d been standing on the train tracks, waiting to be mowed down, since the day we were born.”
“Now you reign over your slice of Manhattan,” I murmured, touched by his story, though it had rammed home my own unfortunate, precarious position.
“We do, and Martinez was right—the West Coast has come under Sicilian power ever since my sister’s wedding.” He turned away from the pool and leaned back against the marble balustrade. “Do you know why they have brought you here aside from our meeting on the plane?”
“What?!” The notion sent a shiver of fear rushing down my spine. “You mean… you think he wants us here, specifically us, for a reason? Not you?!”
“I think so, yes. Martinez is a clever man. He doesn’t make a move without being ten steps ahead.”
“It’s not enough that my brothers work directly with Aidan O’Donnelly?”
“Perhaps.” He pursed his lips. “But I don’t think so. Who was this Beatriz that you knew in college?”
My mouth worked. “You can’t be serious!”
“I know that you’re here for a reason, Kitty.”
“Leverage? Aidan O’Donnelly would help my family if my brothers told him where we are.” I prayed he would, anyway.
“Have you checked in with them?”
“Earlier. When we landed. Not since…” I pulled a face. “I didn’t want to make things worse by extending the lie.”
“Your instincts were right. Have you told them you’re in Mexico?”
I shake my head.
“What about Beatriz?”
“She died in a car crash.”
“A few weeks before graduation,” he prodded.
“Yes. She was T-boned at a junction.”
“Did the driver who killed her serve any time?”
“No. It was a hit-and-run. We were really close. I … Tonight, I realized how I’d blocked her out.”
“Grief gets you like that.”
“Yeah, it does. And I feel as if I’ve lost so many people in my life. When…”
“When?”
“When they transferred you into the VIP ward, I was sneaking a visit with your great-uncle. But you had nobody with you.” I shook my head.
“If I were in your position, and as big of a pain in my ass as they are, I’d still want my family there.
It was very unethical of me, but I called Lucas, who told Aidan… ”
“Who told my sister-in-law.” He grunted. “Thank you for that.”
It was said insincerely.
I cringed. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
Lie.
“I knew it was unprofessional, but… if the worst…” I blew out a breath. “I stayed until they came. Fell asleep. Your mom woke me up. She was crying like crazy. I envied her.”
“You envied her?” he repeated, tone blank.
“She wailed.” I smashed my hand against my chest. “It came straight from here. She hurt. And the world knew it. And she didn’t care who heard.
She let out her fear and pain and… God, I wish I could do that.
Sometimes, I feel like my heart’s caged, and I know I did that to myself.
Years ago. Just to get through my grief. ”
Silence fell between us, until he admitted, “She’s changed.”
“Accent aside, I thought she was Sicilian.”
“She comes from English nobles. My father and she shared a holiday romance. He was poor and her parents didn’t approve, but she didn’t give a damn.
She loved him. Fiercely. And she lost him.
Now, she drinks too much and pretends she doesn’t, then she grieves, and where once she’d have kept that shit locked up tight, she lets it out. That’s probably the alcohol.”
I thought of how her hands trembled. “We all have ways of coping.”
“Some more legal than others,” he said wryly, but I recognized the tone from earlier and found it stung.
“You’re mad at me.”
“A little.” His laughter was gruff. “My family knowing about what happened added to my workload.”
“Sorry.”
“No. It’s fine. You’re right—they should have been there. I’m the one acting unSicilian. Working too much, not eating, barely sleeping, fixating on the end prize. I could go on.”
“Currau said you lost someone you loved.”
He stilled. “He told you that?”
“He did. But you did too. That night in the ER.”
“Did you know Rory found out about Currau when she completed a family tree for a school project?”
“How could I know that? Still doesn’t answer my question.”
He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Yes, I mourned someone I lost.”
“Past tense.”
“Is that how grief works?”
Now there he had a point. “No.”
He shifted around to stare at the pool. “One of your sisters—what about them?”
The change of subject had me at a loss. “What do you mean?”
“Could they be a reason why Martinez brought you here?”
“I guess. I don’t know everyone in their lives like they don’t know everyone in mine. Look, are you sure about this?”
“My trip down here was last minute, Kitty. So last minute that I reserved the flights when the sun was still rising. Yours, I have to assume, were booked before that.”
“Y-Yeah. Maybe ten days ago.”
“That recently? Well, they had a picture of you. He showed it to me.”
Anguish shivered down my spine, but before it could take flight, his arm curved around my shoulders. “Fuck.”
“I could be wrong, Kitty. But if I’m right, you’re safe, duci. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I had no reason to trust him. Actually, it was the direct opposite.
But that didn’t stop me from tucking myself into his side and letting him hold me.
Unlike on the plane, he couldn’t appease my worry by distraction. Even as my mind raced with the possibilities of why we’d been brought here, I sank into him and wished that we really had gone to Key West...
Sending up a silent apology to my brothers, I turned my face into his chest. “Do you think they’ll hurt us?”