Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
EDIE
I walk home, wrist throbbing, mind blazing with panic. I feel like there’s nowhere to run—just danger around one corner and more danger around the other. My only instinct is to hide. Somewhere small. Somewhere dark.
How could I have let Bender bully me into telling him about the meeting? How did he know I was holding back?
What have I done?
A cop car slides by, and I’m sure they’re looking at me.
I spot another police officer up ahead.
Are they all watching me?
I turn a corner in full freak-out mode. My heart is pounding so hard I think I might have a heart attack.
Deep breaths.
Deep breaths.
I stop and pretend to look at my phone. I don’t know what to do or even where to go.
For one wild second, I think about coming clean to Luka, begging his forgiveness. I have this fantasy of Luka going after Bender—grabbing his hair and ripping out his windpipe—because nobody fucks with what’s his .
But I’m not his anymore. Worse, now I’m a snitch.
What if he gets arrested? What if he goes to prison?
Needless to say, if you repeat any of this to anybody, you’ll get a firsthand demonstration.
It was pretty clear what he meant by that. I’d get a firsthand demonstration of the slaughtering if I repeated anything I heard, and I definitely repeated things I heard.
I’ve seen enough movies to know if anybody’s getting their windpipe ripped out, it’s me.
To choke the life out of somebody, to feel their blood run over your hands while the light goes out of their eyes. It feels fucking amazing.
If only I could time travel two months back when my top three concerns were how best to bump an A-minus up to an A, if Chelsea boots were still in, and whether I had enough money to get a day-old turkey sub sandwich at the cafeteria.
Now, it’s the bloody, horrific death at the hands of a man I may or may not be falling for.
Think, I tell myself.
First things first: my wrist. I buy an ice pack and a wrap at a Duane Reade. I’ll tell people I tripped and fell and sprained it. I add a Butterfinger for self-care.
I head back up the dirty street, still freaking out that I told what I heard. Hating myself for it.
What if I were to warn Luka anonymously?
Maybe I could send a message to his restaurant.
Or like a courier with a message specifically for Luka.
But how do I know Bender doesn’t have people at the restaurant?
If Bender were to intercept it, he’d know it was from me, and I shudder to think what would happen. Bender’s dangerous; that much is clear.
I could send a message to the hotel, but Bender likely knows about that, too. He’s obviously been following Luka. He could have somebody on the inside of Luka’s organization. Maybe even Orton. Or Storm.
I have no reason to trust anybody at this point .
Crossing paths with Bender and his partner that fateful night when I was searching for my sister out on the streets— not a thankable event , I think miserably.
I pass a bakery window full of cakes and pastries and cookies, thinking about getting another self-care treat. Maybe a whole self-care cake. But getting hopped up on sugar definitely isn’t what I need.
But then I slow my steps and back up to the bakery window.
There, alongside double-chocolate chocolate chip cookies, is an engagement display.
It’s like a bouquet of engagement cookies in the shape of rings.
Ginormous engagement cookies in the shape of rings and displayed on sticks as part of a massive cookie bouquet.
I set back off, mind spinning. Luka’s crew completely freaked out when they saw those circle cookies. Wouldn’t a meeting between potentially warring gangs be a somber or dangerous occasion? I could send them that bouquet.
But... would it be too obvious? They could go to the bakery and figure out who sent it. They’d want to know.
Then again, they don’t have to actually be the recipients of the ring cookie bouquet... they just have to catch sight of it.
I’m thinking about all those gifts for the wedding party in the velvet-roped area of the lobby. Orton said Saudis love that hotel for weddings. If a giant bouquet of circle cookies could be placed behind the reception desk, that might do the trick.
It would for sure do it.
I have to be so careful, I decide. I pull a Bender and walk through one of the residence halls’ courtyards and back through a Duane Reade. I see why Bender likes making me walk through this store; there are a lot of exits.
I buy a bright blue cap, stuff my hair into it, and go out a different exit, doubling back to the bakery, where I order three of the most massive and ostentatious ring bouquets they have for the meeting in two days.
“I want these bouquets to be resplendent. I want them to just be so gorgeous, completely the ring theme. Just sparkling rings, really big and bright and bold.”
She shows me pictures, and I give a few ideas, stressing that the rings have to be super prominent, and then I fill out the paperwork, directing that they be sent to the Milaga Hotel. I pay in cash. “The hotel desk will know what to do with it.”
“I need a name or a room number. It can’t just be to the hotel.”
I pretend to look at my phone, but really, I’m trying to remember how many floors there are. There are eight floors. I look up and smile. “Room 914.”
I give her my information—most of it fake.
“And it’s to be delivered at exactly 1:30 p.m.” The meeting is at two, but I’m thinking mafia men come to things early.
“A delivery time guarantee is extra.”
I’m more than good with that. I add two chocolate chip cookies to the order and head back home, giving myself a pep talk about how my plan will totally work.
Somebody in Luka’s crew has to spot the cookies—those bouquets are big and obvious, and the ring cookies are literally on sticks. I went for the most over-the-top ones—how could they not see them?
I tell myself that it’s a good plan. Mafia men will be posted and vigilant all over the hotel.
Luka told me how superstitious they all are.
I’m counting on it now. I just need one of the men to see the circular cookies and freak out like West did back in the restaurant.
The other guys will surely back him up, just like they did at the restaurant.
They all supported that one guy’s read of the situation.
Surely that’s enough to ruin the meeting.
Best of all, Bender will think it was because the cops were recognized. And how would that be my fault?
There’s still the problem of showing up at the restaurant. Bender said he’s only there a couple times a week... which means I’d have to be staking out the place. How would that not be obvious?
Lovelorn stalker stuff, that’s not me, and Luka would know. Luka gets me in a way other people don’t.
It’s strange to realize that.
Also strange that I actually miss him. Luka is like nobody I’ve ever known, even though, yes, he’s a killer by his own admission. A very bad man who scares other very bad men, a guy who hires prostitutes, a man who killed his own brother in some unspeakable way.
Even so, I miss him. It’s more than the sex, though that is shockingly good.
I inhale the cookies, replaying the night.
The way that the scars lined up suggested he was whipped by somebody who really enjoyed it. Luka grew up under the control of complete monsters until something happened and the tables turned, and he killed them. He wanted me to be horrified by what he’d done, but I wasn’t. How could I be?
Luka said he was quite the good little boy at one time but that it turned out to be a farce.
Is that what that place did to him? Made it so the only emotion he responds to is scorn?
Well, he certainly doesn’t like compassion.
Show him one ounce of compassion, and he pretty much freaks out. Takes the phone away.
I shouldn’t have pushed him. I don’t generally push people, but everything with Luka is different. We vibe together—deeply. Wildly.
This makes no sense because he’s a mafia don or whatever you call it in Albanian, and I’m an aspiring schoolteacher who has a thing against criminals. But Luka feels like my people in a way I’ve never experienced.
Our outsides don’t match, but our insides resonate.
At least on my side.
I loved being with him. Whether we’re fucking or just sitting there, it feels right. I can’t stop being endlessly fascinated by him and caring about him and wanting good things for him.
But he’s done with me. And technically, it’s for the best.
The absolute best-case scenario would be for me to show up at the restaurant, he sees me standing there, and he makes one of his guys throw me out before I even get a chance to talk with him.
That would absolutely be the best-case scenario.
It’s a hundred percent what I should want.
A million percent.
Maybe that’s how it’ll happen. Maybe things will be okay in the end—it’s not impossible.
I wave at Odetta, who’s commandeered a window table, feet up and earbuds in.
She’s in a faux fur vest with brown yoga pants and pink platform sneakers, one of her go-to awesome outfits. When she sees me, she sits up and pops out the earbuds. “Finally!”
“I had to stop at a drugstore.” I hold up my arm.
“Oh my God! What happened?”
“Don’t text while walking, kids.” I sit down and pull out my art history textbook one-handed. “It’s just a sprain, though.”
“Did you ice it?”
“Right before I got here.”
“Fuck.”
“It’s fine,” I lie.
“You sure?”
“Of course.” A sprained wrist is barely on my radar as a problem at this point.
“Chad did an ice-heat-ice-heat thingy for that sprain he got in dodgeball. I think Jenna down the hall has a heating pad.”
“Maybe I’ll try it.” I pull more stuff out of my bag and plop it down. “Is Chad working this weekend? Because I could really use an eighties rom-com night.”
“Friday late shift. Let’s do it!” Her eyes shine. She loves eighties rom-com movie nights. “Meanwhile...” She goes back to her studies.
So we’ll have a rom-com movie night... unless Bender makes me go to the restaurant.
I pull out my iPad. Getting started on schoolwork right away after class is my secret to success, and hopefully, it’s the secret to getting my mind off the vortex of danger that is my life right now.
Odetta opens a bag of corn nuts and positions them under a folder. You’re not supposed to eat or drink in here, but the powers that be look the other way if you don’t make a mess.
“Barbecue,” she whispers.
Gratefully, I take one.