3. Enzo
ENZO
A dull sound jolts me awake.
I’m on the couch in the living room of my penthouse apartment, an empty brandy glass still in my hand, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth when I try to swallow.
The world outside is dark, the sky reflecting the glow of the myriad of city lights below.
There are no lights on inside, just the shimmering blue glow of the TV home screen.
Reaching for the gun in my pants pocket, I slide my eyes towards the private elevator. The door is open. But I can’t see anyone.
I rise slowly, scanning the apartment for a glimpse of movement, something out of place, a sign that I’m not alone.
Nothing.
Then I hear it again, a low groan, coming from the direction of the elevator.
My shoes are on the floor underneath the coffee table, set neatly together where I left them before I sat down and closed my eyes, so I cross the room without a sound and approach the elevator with my back close to the wall.
I listen again, count to three, and face the open door with my gun raised at chest height.
At first glimpse, it appears that someone sent a bundle of clothes up in the empty elevator. But then the clothes move, and that’s when I notice the blood.
Pocketing the gun, I step inside and crouch beside the woman curled up in the corner.
My sister peers up at me. Her face is swollen beyond recognition, one shiny purple eye almost completely closed, her left cheek swollen and pulpy, her lips bloated like she had an allergic reaction to something toxic.
Every muscle in my body clenches. “Who did this to you?”
“Enzo…” Bianca shakes her head and winces. “Help me up.”
Her hand feels small and breakable in mine. She sways on her feet, hitting the elevator wall with her bony shoulder, and I scoop her into my arms and carry her through to my bedroom. Like a fragile bird with broken wings, I set her down on my bed and kneel beside her.
Her loose linen shirt, open at the collar, reveals more bruises.
Her hands, when I inspect them more closely are bloody, impossible to tell if the blood is hers or if it belongs to whoever did this to her.
She has lost weight. Her body, once curvy, is now all sharp bones and awkward angles that make my stomach clench.
“Tell me who did this.” I hold her gaze till she looks away.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It fucking matters to me.” I lean closer.
Bianca didn’t walk away from her life, the woman she loved, everything she’d ever known, from choice.
When Gio figured out that she orchestrated the car crash that killed our parents in Sicily and told the Fish where to find Megan and her little sister Amber, he gave her an ultimatum.
Walk away or the whole world would know what she was capable of.
Mafia take care of their own. Her betrayal was unforgivable.
But she’s still family.
“Why did you come here, Bianca?”
“I didn’t know where else to go.” A tear trickles from her open eye and tracks a damp path through the blood smeared across her cheek.
My gut twists. We haven’t spoken in almost twelve months.
I’ve no idea where she has been living or who she has been with, and sure, my sister has always courted trouble like she has a personal vendetta against herself, an unfulfilled death-wish waiting to happen.
But I can’t sit back and let a man do this to her without taking an eye for an eye.
Morally, it would make me as bad as the person who punched her in the face.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I fetch a bowl from the kitchen and fill it with warm water in my ensuite.
Using a soft face cloth, I dab the blood from her face, hairline, and neck.
The wound on her cheek is deep enough to need stitches.
Several fingernails are missing when I wash her hands, and the bruises on her chest are visibly darkening before my eyes.
“I should take you to the ER.” I sit back on my haunches on the floor beside the bed; I already know what she’s going to say.
Her clothes are damp. The bed sheets are streaked with watery blood. But she pulls the comforter up to her chin and rolls onto her side, knees hugged to her chest.
“No doctors.” She closes her eyes, dismissing the suggestion.
I find Steri-strips in the medical kit in the kitchen and patch up the skin split open across her cheekbone while she sleeps. She doesn’t even flinch.
I consider calling Gio. I have my cell in my hand, my thumb hovering over his number, and then change my mind. I can handle Bianca. Besides, this is the second situation I’ve helped her out of in the past twelve months; she owes me.
Straightening, I roll my neck from side to side to ease the tension in my shoulder muscles and spot the business card on the nightstand where I tossed it a week ago.
JADED.
I’ve no idea what kind of club it is, or how the pristine business card came to be on the back step of a busy bar at the precise moment I was there, but I kept it for a reason.
Maybe that reason is Bianca.
She always has this effect on me, even broken, as if she taints everything she touches.
Before I can talk myself out if it, I grab the card and close the bedroom door softly behind me as I go. The decanter of brandy is still on the coffee table where I left it, but I don’t need liquor.
I need a distraction.
There’s no sign at the address on the card to indicate that the club even exists.
No security outside.
No one coming or going.
It’s 2 a.m. But this is New York, the city that never sleeps.
I’ve spent enough nights out on the town, drinking till dawn, and then moving onto private parties to know that an exclusive club with zero information on its business card will welcome the kind of clientele looking for a buzz after midnight.
I step up to the doorway and locate a hidden buzzer on a narrow panel between the frame and the door.
Almost immediately as I press it, the door swings open.
The small foyer inside is dark when the door closes behind me, and I instinctively slide my hand into my pocket.
A woman appears in front of me holding a flashlight in one hand.
Her gray hair is scraped back into an austere bun so tight it slants her eyes.
Her lips are painted red, the lipstick making her mouth appear wider and plumper than it is.
She’s wearing a black suit and black turtleneck, no ID on her lapel, nothing to indicate that I’m in the right place, and that she isn’t a psychopathic serial killer waiting in the dark for her next victim.
“Invitation?” Her voice is softer than I expected, in complete contrast to her severe appearance.
“Will this do?” I produce the business card embossed with shiny green letters.
A small smile appears and then vanishes as quickly as it came. “The entrance fee is ten thousand dollars.” She produces a card reader with almost superhuman agility and holds it in front of me.
“Maybe the invitation should carry a warning about how much it costs to get in.”
“Fifteen thousand.”
I smile involuntarily. “You raised the fee because I queried it?”
“Twenty. Pay it or turn around and walk away, no questions asked.”
In any other circumstances, I might be tempted to do just that. But I’m here now, and my curiosity is piqued, and my sister is currently unconscious in my bed.
I pull my Centurion card from my wallet, tap the top of the card reader, and tuck it away again along with the so-called invitation. This will be the most expensive drink I’ve ever ordered, assuming they hold a liquor license.
“I’ll take that.” The woman shines her flashlight on my wallet and holds out her other hand, palm upward. When she has it in her possession, she adds, “You’ll get it back when you leave.”
“Am I supposed to trust you?”
“The door is right behind you if you don’t.”
I incline my head and wait for her to continue. The room is so dark, the only light from the flashlight in her hand concentrated on the two of us, so I haven’t seen another door.
“Cell phone and weapons next.”
Maybe I should consider cutting my losses at twenty grand and walking away, but my Spidey senses are telling me I’m in no immediate danger of losing my life, and whatever comes next is going to be worth it.
Or it’s at least going to make me forget Demi for a short while.
I hand over my phone and the pistol I always carry around.
“Is that it?” Her eyes narrow briefly.
“Maybe I’m not your regular clientele.”
“Oh, you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I realize I’m risking handing over more cash before I’ve even discovered what’s beyond the foyer, but I don’t want to think that she’s sized me up and totally missed my unique selling point.
“You’re looking for a distraction. You kept the invitation. It was only a matter of time before you used it.”
She isn’t wrong, so I stay silent.
“Shoes.”
“Okay, maybe this isn’t what I—”
“Take off your shoes or I’ll double the entrance fee.”
She has my wallet. I could wrestle it from her, but I didn’t see where she put it, and I’m not a hypocrite. A credit card can be cancelled, and I don’t make a habit of hurting women. That honor belongs to the kind of lowlifes and dickheads my sister gets involved with.
So, I toe off my shoes and hand them to her. “Is this some kind of swinger’s club? If so, it’s not really my scene.”
“Mr. Sabatelli. If you seriously believed this was a swinger’s club, you wouldn’t be standing here right now.” Before I can ask how she knows my name, she produces a document and a gold-lidded pen. “I’ll need a signature before we can proceed.”
“What is this?”
“An NDA. For the protection of our workers, you understand.”
I understand. They’re probably in the country illegally, and this NDA is to protect the slimeballs who brought them here in fucking shipping containers.
I’ve already mentally checked out, but I’m going through with it because if I can catch one of the slimy fuckers out, then it’s less shit for the rest of the world to deal with.