Chapter 6 – DARIO #2
The room is packed tonight. Tony, Vittorio, Lucca, Tomas, Frankie and at least six guys from the cartel plus wives and dates. They’ve even invited Carlo, the smarmy accountant, and his cokehead girlfriend with the crazy hair.
If Carlo’s not skimming already, he will be soon. He’s a college boy playing mobster. He doesn’t have the healthy fear of the men at this table born from experience. The money will be too much of a temptation.
I’m seated in between his girlfriend and Perla Amato. Perla glances at me uneasily and tries to surreptitiously inch her chair closer to her husband. Idiot woman. I have no interest in her.
As a waiter fills my wine glass, I check my phone. Nothing.
“Got somewhere else you want to be?” Carlo’s girlfriend nudges me with her elbow. She’s tipsy. Maybe drunk. She’s flushed, and her eyes are shining. I glance over at Carlo. He’s absorbed in conversation with Lucca. Kissing ass.
I’m about to ignore her when a memory tickles the back of my mind. She works at L’Alba. She must know Posy. Now that I’m thinking about it, she’s one of the giggling, shrieking women that Posy invited to the pool in the summer.
I force my lips to curve. “Don’t we all?”
She snorts indelicately and leans in as if we’re instant confidantes. “I know you,” she stage-whispers.
“You do?”
She pokes me in the chest. “You were mean to Posy.”
My pulse kicks up, and under the table, my hands curl into fists. I’m careful to keep my face neutral. “Why do you say that?”
“You made her cry.”
I want to drag this woman outside and shake her until she tells me what she knows. Instead, I offer my best approximation of a rueful smile.
“Never intentionally.”
“Yes, intentionally.” She rolls her eyes. “You said she cheated on you. Posy’s not like that.”
Adrenaline surges through my veins. Did the key to finding Posy just drop itself into my lap?
“I know. I made a terrible mistake.” I furrow my brow and look down, hoping it’s close enough to an expression of regret.
“You did. She’ll never forgive you.”
I nod in somber agreement. “Still, I’d like to apologize, but I don’t know how to get a hold of her. Do you…?”
“Nevaeh,” she supplies. “Nevaeh Ellis.” She gauges me with bleary eyes, her thoughts flickering across her open face like tickertape. Sympathy. Consideration. Mistrust. I hold my breath. Finally, she sighs. “No. Sorry. I don’t know where she went.”
She’s lying. She knows something. I tuck her name away for later. I’m not going to wring her scrawny neck here in the middle of dinner. I can wait an hour. Maybe two.
I shrug and refocus on my meal. Veal cacciatore. Too much garlic. Not enough rosemary. A little underdone.
My phone’s silent in my pocket. No vibration indicating a notification.
Around the table, everyone is absorbed in animated conversation.
Occasionally, a sly look is cast my way.
The video must still be news. I note who smirks.
I file those names away, too. I will take great pleasure in wiping the smiles away. All in good time.
I let my fork clatter to my plate. I’m full, no one’s asking for stock tips, and it’s too loud. Too stuffy.
I push my chair back. Tony casts me a look and slides his gaze meaningfully towards the gentlemen from Sinaloa. I raise an eyebrow. He lifts his eyes to the ceiling. He understands how it is. I don’t answer to him.
There’s a hierarchy in the organization. Every man has his place. Well, every man except the capo and me. I answer to the market. If the numbers are good—and even now, they’re good—no one tells me what I can and can’t do.
I stroll off toward the hall to the john. Next to a vintage cigarette machine, they’ve kept the original wood and glass telephone booths with the folding doors. Framed ads hang where the phones used to be. I slip into one, slide out my phone, and squat on a red velvet stool.
No new posts. I click “request private meeting.” I don’t expect a response. Posy’s gone radio silent. Maybe she wised up.
I almost startle when her face appears on the screen. She’s flushed, and her hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail. She’s breathing heavily.
“Are you fucking someone?” I demand. An asshole skulking in the hall, holding his woman’s purse, smirks in my direction. I shove the door shut with my shoe.
“Yup,” she pants. “Just hopped off a dick. What are you doing?”
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m hilarious. You have no sense of humor.”
The screen shakes and then she’s lying flat on her back, her chest rising and falling, tits flattened by a black sports bra. She’s wearing low cut yoga pants. Her stomach curves in, her hipbones visible through her pale skin. I was right. She’s lost weight.
“You’re working out.” I relax against the wall of the booth.
“Ding, ding. Gotta keep it tight for the fans.” She blows me a kiss and winks.
My gut sours. I knew the veal was undercooked.
“Where are you? The bad guys are closing in. You don’t have time to play around.” I inject my voice with urgency.
“I’m in your brain, stalker.” She grins. “I’m all up in your gray matter. I bet you can taste me.”
She’s baiting me. Why? Hell, I don’t really understand why she’s reaching out to me at all. A smart woman would cut all ties. A truly smart woman would never have gotten involved with me in the first place. Good for me Posy is a smart woman with one hell of an Achilles heel.
“Hey, you sent me the link,” I say.
She scrunches her nose. “You clicked it.”
“You showed me your tits.”
“You’ve sent me one hundred nineteen private meeting requests in the past six days.”
“They’re very nice tits.”
She struggles against a smile and loses. A strange feeling sloshes in my stomach.
“Tell me where you are, Posy. Let me come get you.” I lower my voice. “You like it here with me. You like the pool. And the kitchen.”
I’m not sure about the kitchen, but she’s always in there, rooting around in the fridge. She knew what she was doing, grazing all day, keeping those curves round like I like. She’s clearly on a tight budget now, and she’s lost weight. Too much.
“When’s my birthday?” she asks.
“Why are you changing the subject?”
“When is our first date anniversary?”
“If I guess the right answer to the third question, do I get to cross a bridge?” This is typical female bullshit. I don’t know when her birthday is. Does she know what credit card gets charged when she orders delivery?
“What’s my middle name?” she throws down. It’s an accusation.
I glare at her face on the screen, fight to keep my grip on the phone steady. It’s infuriating—flinging barbs at each other over a video chat. She’s growing quite a false sense of security. When I catch her, I’m going to shove my cock down her throat until she remembers how to talk to me.
“How much are the property taxes?” I snipe back because that’s all I can do in this fucking booth. “How about the utility bill? What’s the name of the company insuring your car?”
Her eyes darken. “I didn’t want to quit my job.”
“I didn’t make you.” I did convince her it’d be a security risk—that someone could use her to get to me—and she’s softhearted. It didn’t take more than one conversation for her to give notice.
“You’re a manipulative asshole.”
“Why did it take you so long to figure that out?” I’m genuinely curious. She’s a brilliant strategist, but with people, she sees what she wants to see.
She sighs and rolls on her side, propping the phone and folding her hands under her cheek. Her eyes are huge on the screen, blue and sad.
“I don’t know. Wishful thinking.”
“I would think that with your experiences, you’d have learned to be wary by now.”
She tenses. I probably shouldn’t have said that.
“What do you mean?”
“How your father treated your mother. The boyfriend in the video. Frankie. All the failed relationships.”
I might not know her birthday, but I listen. When we first got together, she went through a confessional phase. Told me her life story. She cried, but I think she felt better afterwards. She didn’t bring it up again.
On the screen, her eyes shine and her chin wobbles.
“I’m sure you were warned off,” I point out. The women in our circle are terrified of me. They think I’m a monster. “But you fell in love with me so easily.”
“I don’t love you anymore.” Her voice is small.
I grit my teeth. That may be so, but it’s incidental. It’d be easier to go back to normal if she was still nursing a flame, but it’s not a requirement. Fear works as well as love as a motivator.
“Good. Then maybe you can think rationally. You’re in danger. Come back. I can protect you.”
“Why would you? You hate me.”
“I don’t.” It’s the truth, as far as it goes.
“You know what I think?” She sniffles, but the tears never fall. They gather until her eyes are blue pools like rounded glass. “I think you can’t stand that I flipped the script. You threw me away, and then you changed your mind, but I was gone. You’re butt hurt that the trash took itself out.”
“What are you talking about?”
The phone’s moving. She’s maneuvering herself upright up on the bed.
“You don’t care what happens to me. I doubt you care what happens to anyone. But you need to call the shots, don’t you? You can’t stand that the girl who let everyone walk all over her won’t lay down for you.”
“Posy—” She’s spouting nonsense. I need her to focus. “Can you stop with the woe is me for a minute? You’re in real trouble.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” she denies, indignant, even though she knows it’s a lie. She can’t help herself. The denial is a kneejerk reaction.
She has this front, and it’s paper thin. Everyone can see through it. That’s why men take advantage of her. She’s defenseless, and it’s obvious, but it’s a matter of pride for her to take whatever she’s dealt and shrug it off.
Someone taught her a long time ago that she’d better not let on when it hurts, but she never got any good at hiding the pain. She’s made herself a convenient victim.