Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Pfeiffer
My life is unrecognisable.
My days are short and filled with lists, reminders and bouts of anxiety, while the nights blur into one long evening filled with low jazz and dimmed lights.
I stare at the text message a few seconds longer then fire off a quick response, slide my cell into my jacket pocket and secure the locker. Dad’s forgotten where he put the keys again. That’s the second time this week he’s asked me about it.
My chest tightens like a rope has been drawn around it. His memories are getting worse. I need to get him to a doctor, regardless of how much he protests.
He insists his forgetfulness is nothing to worry about. He doesn’t remember mentioning my mother when I first arrived, he doesn’t remember when I returned from Boston. And living with this new reality is a lot more stressful than I’d anticipated.
I can’t stop myself from catastrophizing about the future. What happens when he forgets how to do his job at the hardware store? What happens when he’s home all day? Or when he forgets how the brakes work on his car? The anxiety makes my skin crawl.
I swallow down the temptation to cry. I can’t. Not when I’m about to step out into a club full of people all wanting smiles and impeccable service. All I can do is push the sadness down into the pit of my stomach until I’m finally alone somewhere and can let it out.
Not for the first time, I wish I had someone to talk to, but apart from Shane, I’ve never let anyone get too close.
I wouldn’t know what to do with a close friend.
Aren’t close friends supposed to confide in each other?
Share secrets? I have a five-year-full closet of skeletons I couldn’t unleash on anyone.
It’s easier to be alone than forge a relationship that might force me to let down my guard.
My own needs aside, some practical advice about managing Dad’s decline would help.
I make a mental note to call Gayle, Dad’s boss’s wife.
I haven’t seen her in a while and she was always kind to us.
I don’t want to let slip how worried I am that my father’s memory is declining but I do want to gauge if they’ve noticed anything at the store.
I slip on the heels Vivienne gave me, hold my chin up and walk out into the lounge.
I’m getting used to the clothes and the heels with practice.
At first I felt terribly self-conscious—and wobbly.
But now, after a couple weeks, I feel more confident.
Even a little bit sexy. But as I step out this evening, a cloud darker than normal hovers over me, threatening to drop an oceans-worth of rainwater on my head.
When I’m almost at the podium, the curtain moves to one side and several men, unmasked, walk into the club. I haven’t seen their faces here before but there’s something familiar about them.
There are five men, four of them early thirties maybe, one a little older, each dressed in impeccable Italian tailoring, and strikingly handsome.
Tall, broad and quietly menacing. They’re heading toward me when a man wearing a turtle neck sweater and dark green mask strides across the lounge to greet them.
Once I’ve taken my place behind the podium, I realize the men are all Di Santos. I recognize them now. They don’t court attention like smaller-time criminal gangs, but I’ve seen photographs of them in the papers and on TV.
My heart catches as I take them in. The photographs don’t do them justice. They’re larger than life, their charisma otherworldly, and they carry an aura of power like they could move the equator one-handed if they wanted to.
Another masked man arrives—one who shares the same gravitas as the Di Santos. Similar height and build, same style of dress, same sharp lines and easy gait. And when he turns to catch me staring, I notice the exact same aura of power.
It haloes him, almost glowing. I feel it in the firm brace of his feet on the carpet, the grind of his jaw as he regards me and the burn of his gaze as he returns my stare.
Swallowing hard, I force myself to look away.
Il Diavolo just caught me staring again.
Surely, that’s reason enough for him to fire me. If he really doesn’t like people staring so much, why hasn’t he gotten rid of me yet? I can’t seem to help myself.
I lift my lids and force a polite smile when the seven men walk past the podium. A couple of them nod in acknowledgment but Il Diavolo doesn’t look at me again. As soon as they’ve disappeared out back, my bones sag with relief.
Then, the curtain parts again and a couple I’ve seen previously walks through. I push another smile onto my face and direct them to their table, then school my features ready for the next set of guests to arrive.
But, clearly, I’m not being very convincing.
“Okay, so what was it? Your dog died? Your beautician put too much wax on your coochie?”
I lift my gaze to see Hallie looking back at me over the screen, arching an unimpressed brow.
“It’s nothing,” I say, shaking out my shoulders and forcing yet another smile.
It’s unusual for me to struggle with optimism.
In the hospital, putting a smile on my face for patients and visitors, no matter how dire their situation, came easily to me.
Here though, caring for a father whose memories are fading faster than I can catch them, and working a job I don’t like and didn’t want, all to redeem an uncle who cares about no one but himself, I’m struggling.
The sensation of a tear rolling down my cheek makes me startle. I hardly ever cry.
I wipe it away quickly, pretending I’ve got an itch, but Hallie doesn’t miss it. She’s around the podium and at my side in an instant. I’m too frazzled to flinch when she puts an arm around me.
“Hey,” she soothes. “I was joking, I’m sorry.”
I sniff and swallow back more tears. I refuse to cry in this place.
Reaching for my water, I take a long drink. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just being silly.”
Hallie stands in front of me so I can’t see anything else but her. “Don’t ever say you’re being silly, Fi. What’s wrong? Do you want to talk about it?”
I glance around the lounge through blurry eyes. “Not here.”
Hallie motions to Dee, one of the waitresses, and whispers a few words in her ear. Dee shoots me a sympathetic glance and takes my place while Hallie pulls me toward the staff rooms.
As soon as we’re through the door, she pushes me down onto a chair and crouches at my knees.
“Talk to me,” she says softly. “I won’t breathe a word to anyone. Cross my heart.”
Tears thunder out of my eyes. I can’t stop them. It’s been two weeks, and up to now I’ve had nobody I could talk to about this stuff. I’ve bottled it up to the point the top has blown and all the fizz is bubbling out.
“I can’t do this,” I say through hiccups. “I can’t work here for a whole year, paying back debt that I have nothing to do with.”
Hallie listens, her face tilted at an angle.
“My dad, he—” I swallow, trying to calm my sobs.
“He’s losing his memories. That’s why I came back to New York—to care for him.
I gave up a job I loved, working in a hospital, caring for people who needed urgent medical help.
I was doing something good. I gave it all up to care for Dad, and thanks to his beast of a brother, I’m stuck here doing a job I’m terrible at, hardly ever seeing the daylight, and too tired to care properly for my father.
I hate it. I hate all of it. I don’t know how I’m going to do this for a year. ”
“God, Fi. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”
Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop.
“And Il Diavolo hates me. He doesn’t say a word to me.
I don’t know why he wants me here. If what you say about the Bellucci’s being brutal is true, why hasn’t he…
I don’t know, tortured the money out of my uncle somehow?
Why is he using me instead? I don’t understand. ”
Hallie shakes her head in confusion. “I don’t understand either.”
It makes me feel marginally better knowing someone else is as perplexed as I am.
“But I do know this…”
She links her fingers through mine. It’s a sweet gesture but it makes me bristle. I force myself to not yank them out of her grip.
“If Il Diavolo really did hate you, you wouldn’t be here. I’ve never known him to let a problem hang around. He deals with it fast and swift. If you’re still around, it’s because he wants you here.”
I glance up, more tears swelling. “Then why doesn’t he speak to me? I see him speaking to the other girls—and you.”
She releases a tense breath. “I don’t know, Fi. It doesn’t make any sense to me either.”
I watch, detached, as our fingers interlink.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say, quietly.
She’s silent for a long moment, then looks up suddenly.
“There might be a way out.”
“What’s that?” I jump on it like an addict in dire need of a fix.
“Fallen Angels.”
There it is—that word again: Angels. The one Vivienne mentioned on my first night.
“What is that? Some kind of biker club?”
I meant it as a joke but she withdraws her fingers and bunches them on bended knees, nervously.
“It’s like a silent auction,” she explains. “But instead of bidding on items, they bid on people.”
“What?” I whisper. “Isn’t that illegal?”
She cocks a brow. “You think anyone here cares about what’s legal?”
I think back to the bullet holes in the door. The gun in his waistband. “I suppose not.”
“So, how it works is, you can either put yourself down as an Angel—a prize—or you can elect to bid. But to be eligible to bid—to get access to ‘the list,’” she says, putting air quotes around those last two words, “you need to pay a hundred thou upfront.”
I make an unladylike snort. “What is that? A deposit? Does that money go to the… Angel?”
I feel weird even saying that word. And even weirder to be giving it genuine consideration. One hundred thousand dollars is life-changing. If that fee goes to the person offering themselves up—