Chapter Twenty
Rune
Carmen was practically bouncing as we stood in a line nearly out the door at Lucky Grassi’s pizza place.
We’d already done She’s Bean Around on our way to Junior’s apartment. She’d spent almost ten full minutes gushing over not only the “vibes” of the coffee shop but the actual coffee she’d gotten as well.
After applying some of the makeup meant to cover up tattoos, she’d been excited to get out of the clubhouse for a bit.
If the light hit her just right, I could see the shadow of the bruises. Then again, maybe I only saw them because I knew they were hiding there under the makeup.
“Is that him?” she asked, nodding toward the man tossing the pizza dough up in the air, making his apron stretch over his stomach.
“No. That’s just Dino. A staple, but not a made guy.”
Ever since learning about all the various criminal syndicates in Navesink Bank, she’d been excited to spot the people in the wild. Never mind that she was in a club full of outlaw bikers.
“Yeah, but I already met you,” she’d said when I’d pointed that out. “I haven’t met a mafia boss yet.”
“Running into Jase Mallick and spotting my cousin Ferryn weren’t enough, huh?”
“Think of this like a celebrity autograph book. I have a biker, a loan shark, a mercenary, and a hacker. But I don’t have the signature from a mafia guy yet.”
If she was going to be this excited about them, I would personally drive her to every criminal in Navesink Bank’s house just so she could meet them.
“We should swing by Hope’s place on the way back to the clubhouse,” I said, my hand going to her lower back to scoot her closer so a guy with a giant stack of pizza boxes could pass.
“Hope… who is married to a cartel boss?”
“Yep. We’d probably walk out of there with a new dog for you, though.” At her pinched-brow look, I shrugged. “A is a dog person. He’s got a whole pack of pit bulls.”
“I definitely want a dog again eventually. I miss Hammy, even though I know she’ll be happier with Sofia. Oh! Is that him?” she asked when another guy came out of the back.
“That kid is all of eighteen,” I said, chuckling.
“I don’t know how old mafia dudes need to be to get made.”
“Usually at least drinking age,” I told her as we got closer to the counter.
As she was rattling off the different slices she wanted, I spotted Lucky and his trademark all-black suit outfit moving around in the back.
“Lucky,” I called, making his head whip over, brow raised.
Carmen’s eyes were saucers as he came walking out, offering me a hand. “Long time no see.”
“Yeah, you know how it is.”
“That I do.”
“This is Carmen. She wanted to meet someone… in your profession.”
Lucky’s keen eyes moved from Carmen’s face to her hand, then back again.
He offered his hand, then pulled her closer over the counter. “Tell me his name, and I’ll make him disappear,” he said, making Carmen’s mouth fall open.
He shot me a smirk, knowing exactly what he was doing. “I got this handled,” I told him.
“If she really wants to be impressed by… local restaurateurs, you should take her to Famiglia when she’s feeling up to it,” he said as someone slid our slices onto the counter. “Enjoy your lunch. It was nice to meet you, Carmen.”
“Okay,” Carmen said, shooting me a smile as we sat at a booth. “I think I could pick a mafia guy out of a crowd now.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“They have a certain vibe. Kind of like how you and the bikers have a vibe. Just different.”
With that, we ate pizza, talked about Famiglia and various other businesses that washed criminal money around Navesink Bank.
“Do you still want to hit up the beach, or are you in too much of a food coma?”
“I know I need to take it easy on my ankle, but I wouldn’t mind a short, slow walk.”
“If you get tired, I can piggyback you,” I assured her, bussing our tray, then leading her to the door.
I didn’t remember the last time I spent a whole day just… hanging out with a woman. It was probably back in high school. But there was just something different about Carmen. It was like the rest of the world went blurry, and she came into sharp focus. And I didn’t want to look at anything else.
Because of how much I was noticing her, too, I could easily see how different she was here in Navesink Bank than she was back home.
Everything about her had been tense, coiled, like everything within her was waiting for the ground to fall away beneath her feet.
And, I guess, her life these past few years had been very much like that.
In Navesink Bank, though, despite being in pain, she was so much looser, lighter, more go-with-the-flow. She smiled easily. She laughed a lot. And that tension that seemed permanently etched around her eyes had eased. I almost couldn’t imagine how different she might be after a few weeks or months.
That wasn’t exactly in the cards, though.
And I was choosing to ignore how that knowledge made my stomach dip each time I thought about her leaving.
Because she had to leave.
She had a life.
And it wasn’t in Navesink Bank.
“God, that’s a view,” she said as we drove over the bridge, getting to the apex where you could look down and see the sprawling yellow sand beaches, the white of the waves crashing at the shore, and beyond that, the endless blue of the ocean.
“Right? There’s another bridge to get here that is usually less full of traffic, but I wouldn’t give up this view.”
“You come here a lot?”
“I run the pathway several days a week. Sometimes I’ll run on the sand, if it’s not too packed.”
“My idea of a beach day is planting my ass in a beach chair with an umbrella overhead and some illegal margaritas hidden in a stainless steel tumbler.”
“That sounds like a good time, too.”
Suddenly, that was all I was picturing: the two of us getting up at the crack of dawn so we could get a parking space before the lots closed, packing a lunch, then spending hours in beach chairs or on a blanket, then she could take a nap while I went for a run, and when I got back, both of us going into the water to cool down.
Maybe at some point in the future, there would be kids there with us…
Christ.
I needed to get a grip.
“Why are we parking across the street?” she asked as I cut the engine from where we were parked in the lot of an abandoned restaurant.
Illegal, likely, but the cops were probably busy with all the tourists and teens creating chaos a little deeper in town.
Besides, there was no chain across the opening to prevent it.
I was shocked the bennies hadn’t found it and loaded in already.
“The main lots usually fill up by ten. You can sometimes get lucky to find a spot, but I don’t feel like fighting to find one when we could be out enjoying the day.”
“I can’t fault that logic,” she said, as I climbed out and moved around the hood to grab her door.
And thank fucking God my father raised me with manners.
Because if I hadn’t moved to the passenger side of the car, there would have been no cover when the tan car came out of nowhere, window down, something metal flashing in the sunlight.
Heart seizing, I grabbed Carmen, yanked her out, and pulled her forward toward the front wheel, hiding us behind the engine block just as the bullets started to fly, making metallic tings as they lodged in the body of the car.
A cry escaped Carmen as I turned us, pressing my own body against the tire and putting her in front of me, using my body as an extra barrier in case a bullet got through everything inside the car.
“You’re okay. It’s okay.” I was talking out of my ass. Nothing about this was okay. But letting her know I was panicked wasn’t going to help either. Though, to be fair, the source of that panic was her as well.
Because what the fuck? How many times could a woman be targeted and traumatized like this?
“Okay. It’s okay. It stopped.” I stroked her hair as she buried her face in my neck, her body shaking violently.
I didn’t dare pop up. Not yet.
It would be stupid for them to pause for any length of time on a busy street by the beach during tourist season. But they were clearly determined to hurt Carmen. If they saw this as their last chance, they might risk being seen if it meant they could lure us out and gun us down.
I could hardly hear anything over the hammering of my heartbeat, Carmen’s frantic breathing, and the wind that had picked up from over the water.
“You guys okay?” someone asked, making Carmen violently jerk as I wrapped her tighter, about to reach for a rock near my feet just in case, when I saw a shirtless blonde surfer type standing near the front of the car. “That shit was crazy.”
“Was anyone hit?” I asked, moving up just high enough to look over the car, checking the road for any suspicious tan cars.
“No, man. I checked. You guys good?”
“You’re good, right?” I asked, forcing Carmen back far enough to frame her neck, waiting for her to nod her answer.
“Yeah, we’re alright. Did someone—” But even as I was about to ask, the sirens of the cop cars wailed, moving closer. “Did you see anything?” I asked before the cops could get to us. “The driver? Passenger?”
“Two guys,” he said with a shrug. “But they had bandanas across their lower faces.” Of course they did.
“License plates?”
The surfer’s brows pinched. “You know, I don’t think they had ‘em. Or maybe they were from out-of-state.”
Which might excuse not having front ones, but if the backs were missing, that was a surefire sign of an experienced criminal.
I didn’t get a chance to ask anything else, though, as the cops swarmed the lot, hands on guns, faces tight, some of them seemingly relieved to have missed the action, others disappointed.
I couldn’t pry the shaken Carmen from me, so I tucked her at my side and tried to answer the questions for both of us, but nudged her to answer when it was clear the cop was frustrated with not getting her side.
“Really, we didn’t see much. As soon as I saw the gun muzzle, I got us down.”