Chapter 11—Tommy
“Want a drink?” I head to the bar, already knowing I need a double to finish out this night. Perhaps I can get drunk enough to pass out before I do something I can’t take back. Other than what I’m already doing.
Why the hell did I bring her here?
I could have just as easily driven her to a hospital or even to her place and called a doctor there.
But I didn’t.
I brought her to my house.
My house.
Not a family property, but mine. Stupid on so many levels. But only one that really matters.
That she’s more than an employee. Which is a problem.
This last month, I buried myself in work. I had hoped that she was just something I looked at to bide my time between meetings. A pretty distraction. But my first reaction was to bring her here. Taking her somewhere else never even crossed my mind.
Until I saw her in my shirt.
That’s when the warning bells started going off.
Because my first thought—my only thought—was I want her in more of my clothes.
“Um… should I?” I look over my shoulder at her. She hasn’t moved from the seat she sat in earlier. “I mean, because of the meds?”
I shrug as I pour myself a very generous drink. “Your choice.”
Turning, I lean back against the bar by the windows and watch her nibble on one side of her lip. She’s conscious enough to not bite on the whole thing, as is her usual habit.
Finally, she shakes her head. “Just water. Please.”
Pushing off the bar, I go to the fridge, grab her a bottle of water, and then come back to the table.
I uncap it for her before glancing at the prescription Doc left and giving her the dosage he recommended.
Maybe I should have waited to give her the meds till after I got my questions answered.
However, seeing her in pain isn’t working really well for me.
Having Doc come and check her over curbed some of my need to kill. Not all, though, which is why I have a team on standby, waiting for my call. Waiting for details I plan to get from Payton about who did this to her. I don’t care about the why, just the who.
“Thank you.”
I nod as I pull out the chair beside her.
Doc had her move her chair a bit to get her to sit straight when he examined her, which has her beside the table and not facing it.
I mirror mine to hers but pull it a little farther back to give us more room.
The more space between us, the better it is for my brain.
The one part of me setting off alarms. My hands itch to touch her.
To pull her close and check her over on my own. But I resist.
Barely.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I… I did.”
I shake my head after taking a sip of my drink, sloshing it around in my mouth for half a second before swallowing.
“No.” I shake my head. “You lied to me. I want the truth. What happened? Falling down, even on stairs, doesn’t do this. And I’m warning you.” I pause to let her know how serious I am. “I don’t like to be lied to. Ever.”
“I… I….” She takes a breath and closes her eyes before she continues. “I was attacked.”
When I say nothing, she opens her eyes and looks at me.
I try to keep my face neutral, but my jaw is tight. I knew she was, but hearing her confirm it is almost like a shock to the system.
“By who?” My teeth are clenched as I take steps to rein my temper in. I don’t break my own things. But if I don’t get answers soon, I will.
Her eyes are wide as she shakes her head, like a child’s in wonder, or maybe fear of how I must look sitting here barely controlling my anger. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before.”
“Them?”
Once again, her head answers with a nod before her voice does. “Yes. Two.”
“Where?”
“My apartment.” She whispers this, and I wonder if she’ll cry, but no tears grace her eyes the second I see them before she looks down at her lap. At her hands that tremble. That have been shaking since I saw her at the club.
I leave her sitting there as I go to my room. I pull my phone out the second I enter my closet and head to the back shelves.
“Yes, sir.”
“Send the team to 15th Street between Bedford and Nostrand.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hang up as I grab a sweater and head back to her.
“Here.”
She takes it easily but doesn’t put it on right away.
“You’re shaking,” I say and look at her hands.
Still, she doesn’t put it on, just looks up at me. There’s so much in her expression. Fear, worry, helplessness. But also want.
Not sexually, but like a want for someone to take over.
For a night, maybe longer. She’s out of her depth, which is crystal clear.
So much has happened to her in less than a year.
I have a full file on her, but I haven’t looked into it.
I had my guys just tell me the basics. Her parents died, and she took on their debt, selling everything till there was nothing left.
And then she came looking for work.
As a dancer, it makes sense that she would try to find a career in that, but I still don’t know how she went from potential prima ballerina to a strip joint. I could ask. I could read about it. But knowing is just another layer of getting to know her that I shouldn’t.
And having her in your home isn’t already crossing the line?
“Now what?” she asks softly.
Isn’t that the million-dollar question?
“Yes?” I say as I answer my phone. Been sitting on my couch for an hour now, just staring at the fireplace. It’s electric, and while it’s not nearly cold enough to have it on, I still enjoy watching the flames dance.
Reminds me a bit of Payton.
The woman who’s inside my house. Sleeping in my spare room. Wearing my clothes.
“You know how you said not to bother you unless there was an issue?” Dante asks.
I shake the ice lightly around in my tumbler as I take in his words. It’s my second one of the night, and I’m not planning on a third. But depending on what he says, that might change.
“And?”
I swear to Christ, if he’s calling to complain about some stripper shit, I’m going to fire everyone involved and be over it. My anger lessened once I got news from my team about what happened at Payton’s place, but it hasn’t fully dissipated.
“The Kings are here.”
I sit up at his words. That’s an issue.
“What do they want?”
“Don’t know. They just showed up. They’re sitting at a table right now, watching one of the girls onstage.”
They wouldn’t be there for entertainment. Kings do their own entertaining. And my place is too mild for their tastes. Having them show could mean a variety of things, all of which involve me meeting with them.
If I were still at the club, it would be easy to send them up. But I’m not. And it might seem like an easy thing to just go meet them, but I won’t. I’m not about to leave Payton in my home alone.
Unprotected.
I drum my fingers on the coffee table in front of me while I think through my options. Only one seems the clear choice.
“Give them my address.”
“You sure?”
Him questioning my decision is more bothersome tonight than it should be. But with anger already brimming in my system, it irritates me more.
“Yes. I’d rather they come to me than make them wait and risk them taking it as a slight,” I say, then hang up.
I swallow the rest of my drink in one gulp. The burn is stronger than before, as I’ve only been sipping on my drink. I wait for the feeling to die down, to push my anger down before I call Danny.
He picks up on the second ring.
“What?”
Typical. Never “hello” or “nice to hear from you.” Just down to business. I do the same with my team, but I’m his brother. I should get more than that.
“Hello to you too.”
He huffs. “Hello. Now, what?”
I roll my eyes. At least I got that much from him.
“Kings are on their way over.”
He waits a beat. “Location?”
“My place.”
Another pause. “Time frame?”
I shrug, not that he can see. “Not sure. They’re at the club now. Twenty minutes, maybe?”
That’s pushing it. All Dante can do is ask them to come. They don’t have to. But they also know that not coming, especially to the home location of someone in the famiglia, would look bad for them.
They might show, but they can take all the time they want. They came to my club, after all. I didn’t go to them. If they have something for me, or want something, they have the upper hand till I know what they want to discuss.
“I have a team headed there now.”
“Thanks.”
He just grunts and hangs up.
Typical bastard. Good thing I love him. Cold heart and all.
I stand and head to the bar. Another drink is in my future.
The Kings don’t travel in the same groups as the Leone family, but we know of one another.
There are four of them who run it, but there are more than that connected to them.
We aren’t stupid enough to think they do what they do on their own.
They’ve got people—lots of them—we just don’t know who they are.
The Kings grew up on the streets, and those who grew up with them are now part of them.
Or so the rumor goes. But like their life on the streets, they’re tough and don’t admit to shit.
Which makes getting a head count difficult.
The Kings also don’t come into our businesses.
There aren’t any unspoken rules on it, but to my knowledge, none of them have crossed into Leone territory before.
They are literally the Kings of New York in their mind, but they know where the lines are drawn in the sand.
They’ve never tried to get into our business, and we haven’t flexed our numbers in theirs.
If they’re doing so now, it makes me wonder why they came into my place and not one of my brothers’.
Perhaps Vinny’s plan with me being the face is starting to work. People coming to talk to the “easy” brother hoping to get a favor or something. If the Kings are looking for a friend, I can be that. Anything else and they’ll find out why Danny sent a team to my location.
They won’t show themselves, but I know they’ll have eyes on me.
I wouldn’t put it past my brother to have already bugged my place when I first moved in.
He does it out of love, in a messed-up, controlling way with zero privacy, but I’d rather deal with that than getting killed and no one knowing. Or worse, the killer gets away.
I’ve got plans for my death. Now that I’ve been so close to it, I have wants and desires on how I go out of this world.
Some claim they want it in battle. Others want to die old and in their sleep. I don’t really give a shit on the how, just that people know who did it.
One of the guys I was with shot the asshole who shot me.
I wish he hadn’t. I would have enjoyed hunting his ass down.
But now I’ve got the wound of a lifetime, and that fucker gets the easy penance of death.
I can’t even tell you what he looked like.
The boogeyman who haunts me is faceless, nameless, and already beyond my reach.
Some might think that’s better. No face means no one to fear specifically. But also no one to hate. No one to force the anger on. Instead, all I see is nothing other than my own reflection. And the hate for them transfers to what I see. To me.
I don’t want to hate myself. But I do. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.