Chapter Five
Alara
“Yeah, well, I’m not happy about it, either,” I told Tuna as he let out a deep sigh at the long stretch of sidewalk in front of us.
Whoever designed the pawnshop was an asshole.
Because the pawnshop was also my home. There was a whole halfway adequate living quarters upstairs.
The problem? There was no interior access to the pawnshop.
Not only that, but the exterior access was from the back.
And it was only accessible from the next street back through this creepy-ass narrow alleyway.
It meant there was no stumbling out of bed and rolling down the stairs to work.
Nope, Tuna and I had to squeeze down the alley, then walk up one block, around, and back down the next to get to the pawnshop.
I figured it was the universe’s way of ensuring that I got a little exercise on the daily. Sure, on cleaning days, I was on the move and getting sweaty, but the average day at the shop was pretty sedentary. And Tuna? Tuna slept about twenty-three hours a day. So he needed the activity too.
It wasn’t usually something I grumbled about.
But the sky had opened up and been pelting the city with rain. I’d stood at the window, hoping it would let up, but it was showing no end in sight.
So Tuna had on his raincoat.
And I had a hood up, since the alley was too narrow for an umbrella.
“At least you’re dry,” I grumbled as the rain almost immediately soaked through my hoodie.
Tuna took off at a dead run through the alley and down the block, pausing only to pee on his favorite tree.
I was so distracted by him and how wet I was that I missed it until I was right out front of the shop, the water pouring over the gutters and ensuring I’d be wet down to my bra and underwear.
The gate was up about eight inches.
And I never left without securing it.
Most of the stuff in the shop wasn’t super valuable in and of itself. Especially to a layman who didn’t know what antiques or niche items were worth. But everything in it was easy to sell to another pawn shop to make a quick buck.
The pawnshop might not mean much to anyone, but it meant a lot to me.
And I protected it. Myself, of course. But also by paying the Costas for their protection.
Was I getting a discount? Sure. Actually, Brio hadn’t wanted to take my money at all.
I’d been insistent. Mostly because it seemed cool.
Even if that extra cash in my pocket would have made life a little easier.
I glanced up at the camera in the vestibule near the door, hoping it caught whoever had messed with the gate.
But even as I lifted it, I noticed something else.
A busted door lock.
“Son of a bitch,” I snapped, making Tuna jump. “Come here,” I said, reaching down to scoop him up.
I knew the smart thing would have been to step back, get somewhere dry, then call Brio, Leo, or any of the other guys to handle this.
But the gate was down. Which meant that whoever had been inside was likely long gone.
I pushed open the door and sidestepped behind the counter, reaching for my gun as I set Tuna down on the floor. He immediately shook, splashing water everywhere.
I needed to take his coat off, but I wanted to make sure we were alone first.
“Stay here,” I whispered to him. As if he ever listened to any commands I made.
With that, I checked the gun and carefully steadied it between both hands as I crept down one aisle, then the next and next, until I was sure the front was clear and stepped into the back room.
Fear sliced down my spine as I spotted several overturned boxes, shelves that had been rummaged through, items knocked over or broken. But there were no men hiding in the shadows, no one waiting to jump out and attack me.
As I suspected, they were gone.
I exhaled hard as I made my way back out front, looking more closely at my shelves. Because if they messed around in the storage room, of course they would in the front.
They’d been more careful there. Some things were knocked over or placed in the wrong spots. But at least nothing seemed broken. And if anything was missing, it wasn’t something I immediately recognized.
With a sigh, I made my way back to the counter, bringing up my tablet and looking for the footage from the cameras.
Footage that wasn’t available.
“Oh, come on.”
I scrolled the footage clips back, back, back.
There was nothing for days, almost a week. Actually, exactly a week. But the camera also didn’t catch anyone messing with it. So maybe it just malfunctioned. It was ancient. And the wiring in the pawnshop had issues on and off.
It was just a coincidence.
But there was a tingle on the back of my neck as I pushed the tablet back under the counter.
I leaned down, removed Tuna’s rain slicker, and hung it to dry, then made my way back through the store to get myself a big cup of coffee.
To find the damn machine wouldn’t turn on.
It was going to be one of those days.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!”
“You okay?”
“Jesus!”
I whipped toward the sound of the voice, my hand shooting toward the knife in the drainboard as my heart flew up into my throat.
Then there was Christopher, his hair a little damp, his hands raised in surrender.
“Sorry. I thought you would have heard the chime.”
“I was too busy knocking the coffee pot around.”
“Did it have it coming?”
“The bastard stopped working.”
“After only forty-five years? The nerve.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“You’re soaked.”
“It’s raining.”
“I know you live inside a movie set from the 1930s, but there’s this brilliant new invention out there. They call it an umbrella. It keeps the water off of you.”
“And that would be a great idea if one would fit in the alley leading to my apartment.”
“Leading to? I thought you lived above the pawnshop.”
“Been looking into me, huh?”
“Leo mentioned it.”
“Mmhmm.” Liar. “Well, in what I can only assume was greed, when the buildings around this one got built, they squeezed them right together, sealing off the door I used to have leading up to the second floor. Well, technically I still have the door. You just can’t open it anymore.”
“So how do you get upstairs?”
“The next street over. There’s a long, narrow alley. I pretty much scrape my shoulders just moving through it. No room for an umbrella.”
“I know the way this city inconveniences its residents shouldn’t surprise me, but damn.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, reaching for some paper towels to squeeze some of the water out of my hair. “Has it been a week already?”
I hadn’t been counting or anything. Or adding him to my board.
“Went fast,” he agreed.
“How has settling in been going?”
“Been invited to four different dinners already.”
I tamped down the jealousy that sprang up.
I would saw off a toe for an invite to certain members of this family’s tables. And not only because they were all annoyingly amazing cooks.
As it was, though, I mostly only got invited to places Brio and my sister were going to attend. Even then, not always.
I was (and as much as I hated to admit it) and would always be on the outskirts of the Costa Family. A sort-of relative that the primary members of the family seemed to forget about as soon as I was out of the room.
The only way I’d be an insider would be to marry one of the guys.
And as much as I loved them all, it was a sibling-type connection.
At least to them. I was sure I could develop feelings toward one of them if they showed it to me.
The problem was that I was a lot younger than most of them.
And the ones that were more age-appropriate were not viable options.
Nero, Miko’s little brother, who was still too green.
Zeno, who loved his computer more than having clean clothes to wear.
Gavino, who I probably knew the least about since the man never seemed to leave his apartment.
“Alara?”
“Hm?” I asked, zoning back in to realize Christopher was staring at me like he’d asked me something.
“You’re trembling.”
“I’m literally wet through to my underwear,” I admitted.
I couldn’t tell if I was hard-up and looking through wishful eyes or if his gaze genuinely dipped to my chest. Almost like he was trying to imagine what was beneath.
“One second,” he said, turning and walking away.
I watched him go, some part of me wondering if he was trying to walk off a hard-on.
But that would be pretty pathetic. Then again, maybe he was in as long a dry spell as I was.
I was days away from sitting on the washing machine at the laundromat.
Or taking that dude at the corner store up on his relentless flirtation.
Alone, I turned back to the coffee machine, unplugging and plugging it back in because it never failed to amaze me how many things that simple move could fix.
Alas, it seemed old Bunn was finally heading to a landfill.
And I was going to be going without coffee.
Because no matter how good business was, spending five to seven bucks for coffee that would cost me cents at home was insane.
If I was going to splurge, it was going to be for something I couldn’t make myself.
Like, you know, food. I lived on frozen meals and sandwiches most of the time.
Which, if you think about it, was another reason I would never be a Costa wife. They all knew how to cook. And I wasn’t patient enough to learn.
I heard the chime as Christopher came back a few minutes later.
Then there he was, carrying two wet brown bags.
“What’s this?”
“Instant coffee,” he said, pulling a glass bottle out of one bag. “Not ideal. But it will do in a pinch. I have a feeling that you are not someone anyone wants to be around when you’re not caffeinated.”
“You’re not wrong,” I agreed. He sprang for the creamy blonde roast variety, too. Which was the only drinkable one, in my humble opinion. “What’s in there?” I asked, nodding to the fuller bag, hoping it might be bagels.
He set the bag on the counter and reached inside to pull out a white tee with an I <3 NYC design on the front.