Chapter Four
Alara
The guy’s brows shot up, surprised either by my question or my tone.
“Christopher,” he said.
“Well, Chrissy, see, unfortunately for you, I’m not an idiot.”
That got his brows pinching.
I was having all sorts of impacts on those brows.
They were good ones too. Kind of stern and broody-looking.
“Excuse me?”
“See, here’s the thing. My sister is Ezmeray, Chrissy. Do you mind if I call you Chrissy? Good,” I said before he could respond. “And because of that, I know that you’re not the bagman.”
“Ezmeray,” he repeated.
“You don’t know Ezmeray?” I asked, letting out a chirp of a laugh. “Dude. If you’re going to impersonate the mob, maybe do some research on them first, y’know? This is just… lazy.”
“I’m not impersonating anyone.”
“And yet you don’t know the wife of the Costa Family’s most ruthless enforcer?”
“Brio? You’re Brio’s sister-in-law?”
Alright.
That was probably a lucky guess.
Who didn’t know who Brio was?
I mean, he’d once answered the door when I showed up with blood literally squishing inside his shoes.
The guy was a psycho. In a lovable way. If that made any sense.
He loved my sister. And their family. And animals.
He just really liked hurting bad people.
As someone with a vengeful side, I related.
“Yep. Which is why I also know that Brio is cousins with Lorenzo, whose right-hand man is Emilio, whose sister is Isabella, whose husband is Primo, whose—”
“Primo. Primo Esposito?”
“My guy, you’ve gotta try a little harder to act like you actually know these people. Primo kidnapped Isabella and forced her into marriage to create a truce. But the two ended up falling in love. Same kind of thing with Lore and Renzo.”
“Little Lore?” Christopher asked, looking suddenly stricken. “And fucking Renzo Lombardi? That bastard?”
Huh.
He seemed personally invested enough to give me pause.
“I mean, Lore isn’t so little anymore. And Renzo didn’t kidnap her; she volunteered. So there’s that.”
“Where were her brothers? Where the fuck was Nico?”
Hm.
Okay.
He was starting to make a decent argument for being connected to the Costas.
“Well, Cesare is married to Mere. And Nico is married to Blair—”
“His best friend’s wife?”
“Chrissy, my friend, where exactly have you been? The moon?”
“Might as well have been,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Alright. Let me just…” I said, putting my gun down on the counter.
His gaze lasered in on it, then stiffened as he immediately clocked the guys in the back, still looking shady as hell.
Sensing the observation, the guys looked at Christopher, then me, before deciding to make their way out of the store.
“What was that?”
“The thrills of being a business owner,” I said, video-calling my brother-in-law’s number.
“Alara, not a good time.” Brio was panting and sweaty, and there was a streak on his cheek that looked suspiciously like blood.
“Just two seconds, I promise. Someone is here claiming to be the bagman, but I’ve never seen him before. I just need a confirmation.”
I turned the phone to frame the stranger.
“No fucking shit! Chris!” Brio called. “I thought I heard something about you being back, but wasn’t sure.”
“I’m back. And trying to do my job. But…” He waved back at me.
“Yeah, she’s got some brass balls on her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll be back to you in a second,” he called as someone groaned in the background. “Alara, he’s solid. Chris, we gotta link up.”
With that, he ended the call.
Christopher shot me the smallest of smirks.
“Why didn’t someone else tell me you were—” I started.
But the door flew open so fast it confused the chime.
Then there was Leondro. Leo. Brother to Nico, Cesare, Gavino, Zeno, and Lore. Second oldest, in birth order. My personal favorite of the brothers.
Yep.
I had favorites.
When you studied an organization as hard as I studied the Costas, it was impossible not to be partial to some of them.
While Nico was the overprotective big brother of the group, Leo was just as protective but with more of a go-with-the-flow personality.
Like all his brothers, he was tall and dark-haired.
His eyes were dark, too. But he was a little more bulky, thanks to a gym addiction, and he had these amazing dimples that looked like slashes down his cheeks if he smiled big. Which I could usually get him to do.
He was also the bagman I’d been dealing with for almost a year.
As soon as he flew in, his gaze slid to the gun on the counter, to Christopher, then back to me.
“Gave him a friendly greeting, I see,” he said, his smile quirking up.
“You know me, the welcoming committee,” I said, getting a chuckle out of him.
“Fucking subway ran late. Then I had to help some chick carry her stroller up the stairs because her shithead husband was too distracted by his phone to do it. Sorry to feed you to the wolves like this, man.” He clamped a hand on Christopher’s shoulder.
“It’s okay. I was getting… a history lesson, I guess. Why the fuck did you let Renzo marry your sister?”
“Oh, shit. You’re really out of the loop. They love each other. Not saying it wasn’t a whole thing back then, but they’re happy, building a family, all the shit.”
“So, who is this?” I asked, flicking a hand at Christopher.
“A cousin. Second cousin or something. I dunno. The family tree is confusing as fuck.”
It wasn’t.
I had a chart.
With pictures.
Quick facts.
Coffee orders.
I took my hobbies seriously.
But to an outsider, it would probably look like a cop’s whiteboard in the bullpen… or a serial killer’s stalker board in their basement.
“And I don’t know him because…”
“I was called to my hometown. Had a bunch of family shit going on.”
“Years-long shit?”
“Yes.” There was something almost a little haunted in his face when he said it, making me decide not to press. I did want to know his story, but I wasn’t in the business of pressing my finger into barely healed wounds.
“So, are you the bagman from here on out?”
“You can say it, sweetheart,” Leo said, giving me that dimpled smile, “you’re gonna miss me.”
“I’m just worried that if you don’t show up every week, I’m never going to get you to take me to the range again.”
“Nah, I’ll remember, kid,” he said. “Or Chris can take you. He’s probably a better shot than me.”
“I probably need the practice just as much as she does,” Christopher admitted.
“It’ll all come back,” Leondro assured him. “Anyway, Alara is our biggest pain-in-the-ass client.”
“I wear the badge proudly,” I agreed, doing a tiny bow.
“And that giant rat under her arm is Tuna Roll.”
“He survived a life on the streets,” I told Christopher. “And he has been angry about it ever since.”
“I got a nephew like that,” Christopher said, dragging a little laugh out of me.
“Teenager?”
“I think he might be possessed by a demon sometimes.”
“Bet you were a piece of work as a teenager.”
“You knew me as a teenager.”
“Nineteen, going on twenty. Doesn’t count. I need to know what that fifteen-sixteen mark was like.”
“I was angry,” I admitted. Though most of the anger was hiding sadness. I got very good at covering up hurt with hard.
“So, same as now,” Leo teased.
“Careful. My gun is sitting right here.”
“It sure is. And I’d be really scared if I was two inches from the muzzle. But we both know you’re not hitting anything further away than that.”
“Hey! I’m getting… less awful.”
“Keep telling yourself that, kid. You got this? I’m just gonna go drop in to talk to the guy at the deli before we head to the next place.”
“Yeah, I got this,” Christopher agreed.
“Do you, though?” I asked once Leo was gone.
“Fuck if I know,” he admitted, letting out a deep sigh.
Now that I knew he genuinely was a Costa guy, my interest was more piqued.
“Want some coffee?”
“I look that bad, huh?”
He was actually stupidly handsome. All the Costa guys were. But he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Not even gonna soften that blow, huh?” he asked, his smile bemused.
“I’m not in the business of stroking men’s egos.”
“No, you’re in the business of… tiny culturally insensitive figurines.” He picked up one from a shelf as I walked around the counter.
“That guy was here when I took over the place. I keep meaning to look up where I might be able to donate him or something. I’m not sure that just tossing him is the right move.”
“DVDs, really?” he asked as he followed me down the rows of stock.
“They’re actually crazy good sellers. DVDs and CDs. People want their physical media back. Luckily, I can’t go a week without someone showing up and dumping a box or two full of them on me.”
“I feel like you’re not a woman I should be following into a creepy, dark back room,” he said when I opened the door to the storage room and break area.
“You’re not wrong about that. But this is where the coffee lives.” I flicked the light on, making the kicked-up dust motes shimmer in the air like confetti.
“You have more crap back here?” he asked.
“Hey, someone loved all this crap at some point. But, yes. Sometimes you just have too many of certain things. So I don’t move more stock out until some other sells.
But there’s also stuff I haven’t gone through yet.
And those freezers are full of books.” I gestured to the deep freezers toward the far wall.
“Why would the books be in the freezer?”
“Book bugs.”
“Book bugs are a real thing?”
“They are. It also stops that old book smell.”
“I thought people liked the old book smell.”
“Some people claim old books smell like vanilla from the paper breaking down. They just smell musty and dirty to me. So in the deep freezer they go.”
“Do you sell a lot of books?”
“Depends on the genre. Old bodice rippers have been selling well lately. But I have a whole stack of detective crime fiction that is as dry as the paper it’s written on that might end up donated to a library or shelter because it’s just not gonna sell. In here.”
I opened the door to a makeshift room.
Dust was the name of the game when it came to a building full of old stuff that was hard to keep clean. So when I wanted a break room, I bought portable office walls on a liquidation sale and put up a ceiling made of cardboard covered in peel-and-stick tiles.
Fancy? No.
But it kept all the dust from getting all over the little kitchen counter, sink, fridge, and coffee machine.
“That thing wasn’t a donation or something, was it?” Christopher asked, grimacing at my ancient coffee machine.
“God, no. This was my parents’ coffee machine. It makes the perfect pot of coffee and doesn’t take a year to do it. I’d never use a secondhand coffee machine after I heard that story about that woman who used the hotel coffee maker to wash her panties.”
“Say what now?”
“Gross, right?” I asked, tossing the old grounds and piling in the new. “So new or at least familiar coffee pots only. If you like creamer, you will have to tolerate my chocolate peanut butter one.”
“Black is fine. What are you doing?” he asked as I pulled out my phone to jot down that note.
“Nothing you need to worry about. So, Chrissy. Why so sleepless? Not used to the city sounds anymore?”
“No. Well, maybe. But I am raising my niece and nephew. Apparently, that up-all-night anxiety parents feel transfers with custody.”
“It’s indelicate for me to ask, but no one has ever accused me of delicacy—”
“My sister died. They have no present father.”
“I’m so sorry.” My hand went to my chest where my heart cracked for him.
I had a sister. And I went over a year and a half thinking she could be killed at any time at the hands of her abusive husband.
I think I half-grieved her daily, some part of me preparing for what felt inevitable.
I couldn’t imagine the grief of actually losing her.
“Thanks,” he said, nodding.
“How old are the kids?”
“The girl, Charlotte, is twelve. Liam is seventeen.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, getting a surprised huff of a laugh from him.
“If my parents were still alive, I’d owe them a massive apology for being such an intolerable dick from fourteen until nineteen.”
“Not me. I was a complete delight,” I said, my smile betraying me. I passed him a coffee before making my own.
“Thanks.”
“So, you’ve been away for a long time.”
“Yeah. Lotta years at this point.”
“Is it weird to be back?”
“Yes and no. Yes, because everyone’s lives are so different. No, because this was home for a long time.”
“Why didn’t you keep in touch?”
“At some points, things were too crazy to answer calls or read letters. Then, I got so far behind that it felt impossible to catch up. I stopped even opening the wedding invites and birth announcements. Think I was just in survival mode for a long time.”
“Well, if you ever need a crash course so you don’t feel like you’re on the outside, I’m your girl.”
Why was I offering that?
I didn’t even know this guy.
I guess he looked a little lost.
And, despite outward appearances, I always had a bleeding heart.
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“That is a long story that ends with my sister and me kidnapped and being saved by hot mafia guys. My barely-adult self was obsessed. I’ve been studying the Five Families ever since.”
“You got a PowerPoint?”
“I have a board. With strings.”
“You serial killer, you,” he teased.
“If you tell anyone about it, I will utilize all the information I’ve gotten from Brio about killing people.”
“Is your sister like you?” Christopher asked.
“Oh, God no. She’s perfect. Sweet, good, not weirdly addicted to cult documentaries.”
“But she’s the one with Brio.”
“They even each other out. So, why are you a bagman?”
“I needed work fast. Leo had been doing the job, but it’s technically beneath him. I don’t mind paying my dues again before I can get Made.”
“I don’t see you as someone who would break a kneecap if they don’t pay.”
His gaze cut to me.
And suddenly, I could see it.
Which was annoyingly hot.
“You don’t know me.”
“I guess I don’t,” I agreed.
“But you will, huh? For your murder board.”
“It is an… interest board.”
“Sure, sweetheart, sure.”
“I guess I should get you your money now,” I said as I made my way back out of my makeshift kitchenette.
He followed me back out front, where we found two older ladies eyeing a collection of little angel figurines.
The cash was in a brown bag in a drawer behind the counter.
“Here you go.”
“Do I need to count it?”
“You think someone who studies the mob would stiff them?”
“Fair enough,” he agreed, shoving the cash into his breast pocket. “Thanks for the coffee.” He took a long sip before setting it down. “And the offer for a sneak peek at your serial killer board.”
With that, he shot me a smirk and headed to the door.
“I’ll see you next week, Alara.”
Suddenly, I was looking forward to it.
But in the meantime, I had a new entry to add to my board.
Christopher Costa.
Early forties.
Tall, dark, handsome.
Guardian to his niblings.
Takes his coffee black.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start.