Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
KITTY
LATER THAT DAY
Stan: You good to meet in forty-five minutes?
Me: I’ll be waiting outside
I didn’t want to sound too eager but…
I was.
And not solely for his company, either.
I’d spent the last two hours contemplating escaping my apartment via the fire escape because my mom was driving me crazy.
In the best, most loving way possible of course, but still.
She’d made me take Andrew’s Liver Salts.
Gag. Now, had I truly come down with a stomach bug, I’d have been grateful.
The Liver Salts were a powder from the UK that settled your stomach and had always worked in my favor.
Only, not when my stomach wasn’t unsettled to begin with. So that had gone down great.
If she tried to force-feed me anymore tonight, I’d barf on her to get her to leave me alone.
Somehow, Ma had fallen for our lies, and Cade, who’d popped around to eat, had sent me a sympathetic glance as he’d watched me turn green while Sgt. Ma Frasier had forced the concoction down my throat.
Nearly gagging at the memory, I got up and tiptoed around my apartment. But, being a mom of many children, that meant she possessed a radar for us sneaking around. Knowing her, she’d call it ‘the Sight.’
“Kitty? Is that you, darlin’?” she yelled up the stairs.
“Only using the bathroom, Ma,” I called back.
“Margie asked me to go for a drink with her at the Legion. Are you okay for me to pop out for a couple hours?”
Gleefully, I pumped my fist. “Sure thing, Ma. Enjoy yourself.”
“You mean it? You’ll be okay without me?”
“Positive. I’m feeling better after the Liver Salts,” I lied.
“Never fails, my little love. Never fails. Why they’re discontinuing them, I don’t know.”
This was a commonly heard complaint in our house.
As was…
“Da swore by them,” I muttered.
“Your father swore by them! Okay, I’ll see you later, then. Get some rest. Love you!”
“Love you too!” I hovered in place until I heard the front door slam.
Sagging in relief at the reprieve, I jumped into the shower, washed before shaving every inch of my body, then leaped out with a spring in my step.
Because I’d been planning my outfit in my head since Ma had frogmarched me to bed, I pulled on some thigh-highs, retrieved a flirty dress, my fave espadrilles, and a vintage cashmere coat.
The dress, like the coat, was from the fifties—a floral fabric cut into a tight-fitting bodice with boning that flared into a full skirt.
The emerald-green espadrilles had a small heel and matched the amber/spring green flower pattern perfectly.
‘Sexy’ wasn’t my end goal here. As much as I wanted sex tonight, I wanted to trigger a different reaction in him more.
He’d seen me in scrubs, while high, annoyed, banging, scared, and first thing in the morning—now I just wanted to look low-key pretty. That effortless kind so he’d know that gorgeous = my natural state when we weren’t fleeing underworld war zones.
After drawing my hair into a braid that curled over my shoulder, I rubbed some tinted moisturizer into my face, dabbed bronzer onto the arcs of my cheekbones and smudged it over my eyelids before patting on some highlighter, then adding a nude lipgloss.
As I smacked my lips together, my cell buzzed.
Stan: Duci?
Me: Two minutes!
Because my dress rocked and had pockets, I shoved my cell, my lipgloss, and some breath mints into them, then hesitated over tucking the credit card into the wallet on the back of my phone.
It wasn’t like I’d need it tonight…
Still unsure about the whole thing, you know, what with it being unlimited and him clearly a millionaire, I tucked it into my jewelry box for safekeeping.
Things were moving fast between Stan and me. Raisin and Neev hadn’t let me forget it either—them abandoning me to perish via the St. Andrews Liver Salts constituted punishment, IMO—but the credit card rammed the realization home.
There were so many red flags waving in front of me, yet for once in my life, I didn’t hate being willfully ignorant.
Shaking my head at my self-confessed idiocy, wanting to ride this wave of oxytocin even to my heart’s doom, I took off down the stairs with a happy bounce, thankful that my sisters were also out.
When I spied the town car waiting for me, I waved at the driver I recognized from before and the vehicle slid in front of our building.
No parking zones didn’t matter when you were a Capo, clearly.
The door opened and Stan climbed out, so he could hold it for me.
Stomach fluttering at his chivalry, I watched as he tucked my hand into his then stared at me over his shades. “Well, don’t you look like a peasant girl in need of a thorough debauching, bedda mia.”
Refusing to blush, I chuckled. “I can’t say that was my end goal, but I won’t say no to a debauching if you’re doing it.”
Smirking, he kissed my knuckles, then helped me into the car before shuffling onto the seat beside me.
Relieved now that we were alone, I turned to him with a frown. “What’s with the sunglasses?”
“Slight headache, gattaredda. It helps with the car headlights.”
My brow furrowed. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine. Busy day since I left you.”
“We could have rescheduled—”
“And disappoint you again?” He tutted. How did he make that sound Sicilian?
“Never. I have to honor my promises, Kitty, or you’ll start to think I’m unreliable.
” He made that sound like the worst sin imaginable.
“Anyway, I missed you—” I could feel my eyes bug.
“—and I thought you might like to see my home, so it was a win-win all round.”
“Really?”
“To which part?”
I licked my lips. “That you missed me.”
“Oh, bedda mia.” He curved his arm around my shoulders. “I’ve been waiting for you a lifetime. Why would I waste time now that I’ve met you?”
I squeaked.
Again.
“I’d enjoy that.” He arched a brow as I blurted out in a rush: “Um. I mean. Yes. That sounds… Wow. Um. Great. I missed you too.”
He peered at me over his shades again. “Are you sure? That outfit is wasted on my house. We can go out—”
“No! I didn’t wear it for your house or for anyone in the restaurant you might have taken me to. I wore it for me and for you.”
His smile danced around both corners of his mouth. “That is a superlative answer.”
“I aim to please.”
He snatched my hand. “You succeed.” Fingers locked together now, he sagged into his seat. That he showed me his exhaustion didn’t offend me. If anything, it made this whole experience seem real. Raw. “How was your day?”
“I’m going to kill my sisters.”
The smile didn’t just flicker, it flared to life. “Again?”
“Yes. I forgot, you see.”
“What did you forget?”
“Stomach upsets in my house are solved by Liver Salts. They didn’t forget. I saw Raisin smirk when Mom force-fed me the stuff.”
“She doesn’t trust easily, does she?”
“Ha! She makes Stalin look friendly!”
His brows lifted. “Should I expect to be Purged?”
“Only if you hurt me.”
“Threat duly noted.”
I laughed. “At least my brother fell for the lies. No one complains about a stomachache in our house.”
“What made you forget?”
My nose scrunched. “I plead the Fifth.”
“Ah.” That smile of his hit me in the ovaries because I knew he knew what I knew.
He’d distracted me.
I forgot.
The basic tenet of life in the Frasier household and I forgot because this man fried my synapses.
“What vengeance are you plotting against them?”
“Not sure yet. I’m a slow-burn plotter.”
“How slow?”
“I waited four years to get back at Raisin for fucking up my hair dye the night before prom.”
His brows lifted. “It was intentional?”
“She claimed it wasn’t.”
“You didn’t believe her.”
I hummed.
“Did you… look bad? I know how important proms are.”
“I’d have shaved her hair off if I looked bad,” I reasoned.
He stared at me over his sunglasses again. “You’re a dangerous woman, duci.”
“With a needle.”
He guffawed, and just as I grinned at seeing such a light and carefree expression on his face, we arrived.
The house deserved italics.
What a fucking whopper!
The gates - huge.
The driveway - enormous.
The parcel of land itself - massive.
And the mansion?
I gaped at it.
Talk about size appropriate for its plot and owner.
This wasn’t rich. We were talking 1% of the 1%.
When he helped me out of the car, something I’d never needed help with before but enjoyed nonetheless, he stood behind me and propped his chin on my shoulder.
“It’s hideous, isn’t it?”
Withholding my chuckle was impossible. “I mean…”
“It’s a statement piece.”
I rubbed my cheek against his as I angled my head to better look at him. “To whom?”
“The world. The city. The underworld.”
“You didn’t choose it?”
“You could say it chose me.”
Curious at the half-answers, I turned in his hold. “Explain.”
“You might not like what I have to say.”
I pursed my lips as I pondered how to reply to that. “Just because I might not like it doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear it.”
“Fair point.”
“We can’t always like what the other has to say. Not only is that impossible, it’s impractical and tedious as hell. I hate yes-men and -women.”
He barked out another laugh as he tapped the tip of my nose. “You grow more and more perfect, Kitty.”
“It’s hard being me.”
“I bet.” Amusement still gleaming in his eyes, he tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow and guided me to the front entrance, which had no less than ten steps that led to the grand entranceway. “This belonged to the Fieris. Do you know who they are?”
“The leaders of the Italian Famiglia.”
Not to be confused with the current Famigghia.
Just like my ancestors were not English or British but Irish…
“Ten points to Kitty.” His smile turned sour as he took my coat and slipped it over the bannister of a rather grandiose central staircase. “Once upon a time, my grandfather ran this city—”
“—until the Fieris blew up his home and pinned it on Currau. He told me.”
Stan shook his head. “It still amazes me that he talks to you. We believed he was nonverbal.”