Chapter 4 Maria
“... And that’s why he’s sent his men after me!” I finished telling him the long and short of it as the two of us ran along the hallway. There had been no time. As soon as Elio had knocked out the first guy, two more had come.
He’d alerted his security detail about intruders, and then took my hand and ran off with me.
“I gotta say, you don’t strike me as the kind of girl who would put her life on the line for a scoop,” he said, taking hold of my shoulders, looking behind me, and then pulling me through another door.
The Plaza Hotel had a party room? I never knew. Disco balls and laser lights swam in the dark room as EDM music blared and couples danced close to each other, the air smelling of alcohol and sweat.
“It’s too loud in here!” I said.
“What!?”
“It’s too loud in here!”
“I know! No one’s going to overhear us!” Elio said, placing his hands around my waist and pulling me close. “There are four more guys after you. Saw them in the hallway. I figured this’d be the best place to lose ‘em!”
Something told me that that was not the only reason we were in here. He was so close to me, his hands on my waist, his body rubbing next to mine, a lively smile on his face, a spark in his eyes that had nothing to do with all the flashing lights all around us.
He was enjoying this.
That worried me.
I didn’t have three hundred grand, and I didn’t want to be caught in the middle of this mafia drama, regardless of whether it was the Romanos or the North Creek guys.
I just wanted to go home, forget about all this, and submit my story for tomorrow.
But then again, I also liked the way this guy smelled. He was fresh, smelling like Axe shower gel and Axe body spray. It would have been tacky if he hadn’t been wearing a crisp suit. But he was pulling off the suit, the boots, the smile, the smell.
Jesus Christ, he was hot, and how unfortunate that I had to meet him like this.
The doors to the party room burst open, and the four men who had been chasing us stepped inside the room.
“Just lean closer,” Elio whispered, his face so near to my face. “When it comes to guys like this, public displays of affection really rub them the wrong way. Most of them have this pent-up aggression that they can’t really let out anywhere, so anytime they see someone having a good time, they—”
I couldn’t wait to finish what he was saying because the four security guards had now parted the crowd and were coming for us.
“Just shut up and kiss me!” I said, hooking my hand behind his head and pulling him close.
Oh dear, he tasted good as well.
That was going to be a problem.
His cool lips met mine, his light stubble brushing against my smooth skin, and then, a little too suddenly but quite gently, he introduced tongue into the mix, his tongue slipping past my lips, looking for my tongue.
I became all too aware of his arm on my waist pulling me so close, our bodies touching, our tongues rolling in our open mouths, and the loud music blaring all around us in the dark.
Did it work?
It looked like it certainly did. The guards had moved away from us and were now combing other parts of the room. That was our window. Elio grabbed my hand and ran toward the exit. We burst through the doors and headed out into the hallway.
Two minutes went by as we walked briskly through lobbies and hallways, taking the stairs instead of the elevators, and no one followed us. It looked like we’d lost them for good, and all it had taken was a really sweet kiss.
“You’re a really good kisser, Maria Thurman,” Elio said, smiling at me.
“Thanks, you too,” I said, looking away for a moment, but then deciding to look back at his face again. There was something about him, a certain draw, a raw magnetism that made me want to just keep staring into his eyes.
“We should do this again sometime,” he said, smiling, still holding my hand in the main lobby.
“Yeah, right. Totally,” I said, giggling. “Tell me how I can get out of this mess with the auction. I may have ruined the whole thing.”
“That’s okay,” he said, taking out his phone and smiling. “I’ll just send you the three hundred thousand in your account, and you can use that to pay the auction.”
“You really helped a girl out in a pinch. Lemme know when I can return the favor,” I said as we both stepped outside in the hotel and into the cool night.
A cool night in July, that was surprising, but New York had a way of surprising you.
It rained when you never expected it to; it snowed when you had an important meeting the next day.
It was true what everyone said about this city.
It was alive, with a mind and a soul of its own.
And tonight, New York had come in clutch and saved me in the form of this handsome man, who, I was still undecided as to whether he was a genius or a complete idiot.
“What do you say we go for a walk? They might still be looking for us,” Elio said, putting his arm around my shoulder.
“You’re smooth,” I said, noticing just how surely he put his arm there.
“Just a mix of good old narcissism with a splash of overconfidence,” he said. “Shall we?”
It was hard to refuse him. The park was right there. And when was I going to get another opportunity to enjoy a nice nighttime stroll in there? It also helped that he was good company.
However…
“I don’t condone this,” I said, pausing in my tracks on the sidewalk and looking at him earnestly. “This whole… thing. You being a don’s son, the mafia life, all that glitz and glamor and…”
“And you think I do? There’s something to be said about not having a choice where you were born, Maria Thurman,” he said, frowning a little. “I didn’t choose this life. Why do you think my father’s hell-bent on trying to teach me lessons?”
“Tonight was a lesson?”
“Yeah. He wanted to humble me with a bachelor auction. He’d even lined up an old crone to be the highest bidder.
I cannot even imagine what she had in store for me.
Well, I kind of do. This Agatha woman, she’s the one my Father’s seeing these days; she’s got not a drop of English blood in her and yet she talks in a strong British accent, pretends that she’s some aristocrat from London, acts the part, talks the part.
But I know who she really is. She’s a rube from Nebraska.
This whole thing she does, it’s an act. She isn’t old money either. ”
“You sound like you really hate her,” I said, taking his hand as we entered the park.
“I do. She’s going to be my step-mom someday soon,” he sighed. “And it’s… kind of hard for me to acknowledge the fact that my father’s decided to move on from my mother.”
“You’ve got a deep emotional understanding of the matter,” I said.
I couldn’t help but turn around and look behind me to see if we were still being tailed.
It did not look like we were being tailed.
Besides, he was here with me, and he’d just demonstrated excellent aptitude at disarming and outrunning dime store thugs.
“Just because a monkey is self-aware of the fact that he’s a monkey doesn’t change the fact that he’ll fill his own feces in his palm and sling it at others,” he said grimly.
“Schopenhauer?” I asked, giggling.
“Nietzsche,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure there’s a bit of Thomas Hobbes in there too,” I said.
“Oh, I hate that guy. Now, if we’re talking about Freud, though—”
“You seem to have your plate full with family drama enough to be talking about Freud,” I said.
“Touche.”
We came to a bend in the track where it was just us, the lamp glowing overhead, and no one else walking past us. Here, I stopped. There was a bench just behind me. I sat down on it to catch my breath and to rest my legs.
“So, this journalism thing, does it pay well?” he asked, running his shoe over loose gravel absentmindedly.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’m sure it doesn’t beat being a billionaire’s son.”
“Right,” he scoffed. “And His Highness can just freeze my accounts at a moment’s notice.”
“Was that what forced your hand to show up at the auction tonight?”
“What do you think? Do I look like the kind of guy who wants to be at that sort of place?”
He was tired. His tie was loose, the first two buttons of his shirt undone, his sleeves pulled up to his elbows. There was a grimness to the way he held himself, a kind of defeat that made me feel sad for him.
“I think you’re lost,” I said.
“No, I’m pretty sure I can find my way home from here,” he said, kicking loose gravel.
“I meant lost as in… you’re still trying to find who you are.”
“I thought you didn’t condone all this,” he said, looking at me with great vulnerability.
“I don’t. I’ve spent the last three years of my life trying to make New York a less shitty place by exposing the big bads who run this town,” I said, sighing. “But you don’t strike me as the guy who’s going to inherit his father’s title and be the next Don Romano.”
“Well, he seems to think so,” Elio said, finally sitting down beside me. “And he lies. He tells me that his whole enterprise is legit. That he’s paid his fines, did this, that, the other, and now he’s a born-again nice guy.”
“He’s not lying,” I said. In all the time that I’d been doing my research on the lawbreakers, the tax evaders, the property encroachers, racketeers, extortioners, the Romano name hadn’t come up once.
And I was paid very well to make sure that I dug all the way through to the core and found out whatever dirt was there.
As far as Don Romano was concerned, he’d not only paid all his dues, but he’d also invested heavily into reparations.
But there was just one caveat. He still referred to himself as don, and he still held incredible influence over public offices.
Despite not doing anything illegal, he was still an extremely powerful man.
“I thought you said you didn’t approve,” Elio said, looking at me confusedly.
“I mean, I’m not a fan of the whole mafia thing, and your dad still insists on following traditions, even if he’s distanced himself from the more brutal aspects of said tradition. And he’s a billionaire.”