Chapter Nineteen
Carmen
“What’s wrong with your camera?” Sofia asked as I held a finger over it on the video call.
“Alright. Listen. I don’t want you to freak out,” I told her.
I’d been dodging her video call requests all day as I did nothing but lounge around in Rune’s room, watching TV shows, eating the food he brought me, and taking more naps than I had in my entire life.
But it was the end of the night, and I knew she was going to get suspicious if I refused another call.
We were sisters who lived together all our lives.
There was no ‘I look like crap’ excuse that could work.
We saw each other at our worst all the time.
“What’s wrong?” On the screen, Sofia sat up straighter and paused the TV playing in the background.
“I just want to warn you so you don’t think the worst.” I was going to give her the same half-truth I gave all my employees earlier as we worked out who could pick up my slack while I recovered.
I didn’t love lying to my sister. But everything she knew about Rune and my connection with him was a lie. What was one more little fib?
“What’s going on?”
“I fell down the stairs,” I told her. “And I’m a little busted-up.”
“What? Oh, my God. Are you okay? Let me see.”
I moved my finger away and watched Sofia’s eyes go wide and her mouth slack before she tried to school her face into a mask of neutrality. “It’s… not that bad.”
Even in the little rectangle in the corner, it was pretty bad. “It is. But thanks for lying to me.”
“Did you get checked out?”
Not by a real professional. “Yeah. This is the worst of it,” I said, flashing my brace.
“Did you break your hand?”
“Yeah. And bruised my ribs a little. Twisted my ankle. I’m a walking bruise right now. But I’m okay. So don’t go panicking.”
“Those stairs have always been a hazard. I can’t tell you how many times I nearly went down on them. They’re so narrow. God, was Rune with you?”
“Not when it happened, no. But I’m with him now.”
“Good. You need someone waiting on your hand and foot.”
“He is. Don’t worry. I haven’t left the bed yet today.”
“I knew I liked that man.”
Yeah, I was really starting to as well. As weird, messy, and complicated as that was.
“So, you’re in Columbus?”
“Yep. All snuggled in at the hotel. Right, Hammy?” she asked, panning the camera to show me the dog passed out on the bed. “You’d think she walked for six hours, not dozed in the backseat. But we made a lot of stops today to stretch our legs.”
“How’s it going? You sick of driving yet?”
“No. I’m having a lot of fun, actually. It’s been nice to see more of the country. We never really traveled much.”
That was true. Our parents never had the money when we were kids, and we damn sure never had it as adults. She’d made one spring break trip to the Bahamas with a boyfriend and I’d gone to Puerto Rico last year. But that was really the extent of our travels.
“Good. I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying it.”
“Yeah, I… hey, Rune!” she called, making me turn to find him walking in from the bathroom in nothing but a damn towel.
My mouth went dry.
My sex, completely unconcerned with how bruised and achy I was, twisted.
“Hey, Sof.”
“I hear you’re taking good care of my sister after her fall.”
“I like to think so. She’s been a surprisingly good patient. Didn’t expect to keep her stubborn ass down.”
“I know, right? She once had the flu, and I had to go behind her back to cancel her cleaning clients so she would rest.”
“I’m sitting right here,” I mumbled.
“And you know how you are,” Sof agreed. “Okay. I’m going to let you get back to resting. I will call in the morning to check on you before I hit the road.”
“Sounds good. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
“See?” Rune asked when the call ended. “There was no reason to put that off all day.”
“I just didn’t want her distracted or worried while she still had driving to do. This was better. Even if I don’t feel great about not giving her the full truth.”
“Like the full truth you gave her about me?” he asked, shooting me a cocky little smirk.
“Ugh, don’t remind me. I’ve been doing so much lying the past year. I feel bad enough about it.”
“Hey, you were protecting her from your little murderous plot. I think that makes you a good sister.”
“You make me sound unhinged.”
“Passionate, sure. Maybe a little naive. Grieving. Not unhinged. Trust me, I’m feeling pretty blood-lusty right now myself.” His gaze slid over my face, and I swear it felt like a soft caress over my bruised and swollen skin.
“Did you get in touch with your hacker friend?”
“I did. We can go see him tomorrow.”
“We?”
“You’re not a prisoner here. We can go out. Plus, it would be easier if you come, in case Junior has any questions for you.”
“Can we take my car? I like the bike, but I don’t think that’s going to feel great with my ribs.”
“Yeah, you can’t be on a bike for a while. Depending on how you’re feeling, we could take a trip to the beach if you want. Just to get out of this windowless room for a bit.”
“And you promised me She’s Bean Around coffee.”
“I did.”
“And mafia pizza.”
Apparently, there was a lot about Navesink Bank my little preliminary internet search hadn’t told me when I’d been looking for Rune.
Namely, that it was just a hotbed for criminal organizations.
You named it, they had it: bikers, the mafia, loan sharks, hackers, mercenaries, and even some crazy paramilitary survivalist camp—which, apparently, was created by Rune’s aunt and currently run by one of his cousins.
It almost felt unreal when he first told me.
I’d actually laughed. Because a smallish town full of that much crime…
and it wasn’t constantly on the news? And the crime rate wasn’t in the toilet?
It seemed unlikely. But he was quick to remind me that there was a difference between petty and street crime and organized crime.
“It’s not like I’m gonna shoot someone on their morning run and leave their body for the cops to find,” he’d said, shrugging it off as we ate Chinese in bed.
And I guess that made a lot of sense. If you wanted to keep running a criminal empire, you couldn’t let the bodies pile up, could you?
“So where do you put the bodies then?”
“Are we talking facts or hypotheticals?”
“Hypotheticals. I don’t want to be implicated,” I teased.
“Hypothetically, for most of the year, it’s relatively easy to dig a grave. If you got some time, it’s hypothetically not that far of a drive to the Pine Barrens, where a body might never be found. Hypothetically, you could still sink a body off the ocean or river if you know what you’re doing.”
I’d been full of a million questions then: about the organizations, about his personal connections to them, then, eventually, about his various family members and their involvement either in those crews… or not.
Most of his female cousins (or ‘club princesses,’ as he called them) had relatively normal jobs. But most of the boys ended up in the club at some point. Except one, who was a relatively well-known musician.
I’d been fascinated by it all. The crime, sure. But more so than that, the strange family dynamics of this club and the syndicates in the town. While, technically, I had a large extended family, almost all of them were back in Puerto Rico.
My parents had moved to the States together when they were in their early twenties, but none of the other family had followed.
So while I did know of them, I didn’t really know many of them personally.
I’d met a few when I’d visited after Vicky’s death, but it wasn’t the same as growing up with them.
I didn’t have the kind of support system that Rune did.
And while my sister and I worked hard to make it feel like the two of us were more than enough, there was no way she didn’t feel the same longing I did when we watched holiday movies and saw all these big, chaotic, crazy, loving families all together.
Some part of me had always craved that. Rune lived it.
“Sure. But you gotta promise not to refer to it as ‘mafia pizza’ when we go there.”
“Is it really a secret?”
“You know, it kind of is. I think some of the people of Navesink Bank are keen to what is really going down. But for the most part, I think everyone is in the dark. We try not to let our business spill into the streets. The mafia, especially. So I think ninety-nine percent of the people who go to one of Lucky’s pizza places, or who frequent Chaz’s bar, or even Redemption, are completely clueless who owns it and what other business they’re involved in. ”
“You said the club has been a little more legit lately, though, right?”
“I mean, not necessarily. We still do what we do. But now on top of that, we also have our hands in several legitimate businesses.”
“Like Redemption.”
“And the shooting range. The car repair shop. And a couple others.”
“Have you ever considered opening anything like that?”
“Can’t say there are a lot of things I’m interested enough in to open a business for it. I could get behind a gym, but the town is teeming with them already. The Mallicks own one of them. My aunts own another. Don’t want to rock the boat with that. Would you?”
“Would I what? Cover up my super-secret crimes with a real business?”
“Hypothetically.”
“I guess? I mean, it seems like a good way to avoid issues with the government, right? Taxes and all that. Plus, I mean, a cleaning business also has some crime perks, right? Lots of access to cleaning supplies without suspicion. And the skills to clean up a crime scene.”
A chuckle escaped Rune.
“Careful, you’re starting to think like a criminal now.”
“I think I’ve proven what a terrible criminal I’d be. Couldn’t even shoot you when you were standing three feet from my face. Or, you know, track down the right person.”
“Eh, you were new at it. Who knows what you could accomplish if you applied yourself,” he teased.
“I think I will leave that to you,” I told him, getting to my feet. “I’m gonna take a shower too.”
“I’ll take the brace off,” he offered, reaching for my arm.