Chapter 43
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
The servants’ stairs were tight and winding. Jack couldn’t imagine trying to navigate them while carrying something heavy or expensive. For all that he despised clerical work, this seemed infinitely more humiliating.
“You sure we’re going the right way?” Boris murmured, peering over Jack’s shoulder.
“I think so. This will spit us out between the kitchen and the basement stairwell.” If he remembered correctly. Carla had only shown him the staircase once before as a convenient shortcut upstairs.
Boris nodded. “Alright. Basement. Right where we wanna be.”
“Exactly,” said Jack, even though it was the last place he wanted to go.
They reached the landing and waited around the corner, pinned up against the wall, concealed by shadows.
Five minutes later, a disgruntled delivery driver hauled a case of wine inside, grumbling and stumbling as Enzo and Carla direct him to the wine rack. A second case was to be brought into the basement, where the yellow-eyed man waited.
“Just get it inside,” Carla told the driver. “I got Enzo here to help me with the rest of it.”
“You think I’m carrying that into the basement?
” Enzo protested, his voice dangerously loud.
Too close. Jack shrank against the wall, praying that he wouldn’t be noticed.
Behind him, Boris tensed, grabbed his arm, held onto it like the rail of a ship at storm, like Jack was the only thing keeping him from pitching overboard.
Jack tried to smile reassuringly—Boris answered with a skeleton’s grimace.
“He’s a driver. He’s busy,” said Carla. Jack could hear the too-innocent shrug in her voice. “I can’t ask him to stay here all day.”
“His job is to carry this shit,” Enzo protested, half-hearted.
Footsteps clattered past, toward the basement stairs. Jack’s shoulders sagged in relief.
“Just help me with this, and you can get back to the club.”
“Fine, fine,” said Enzo. “Tell you what, I help you with this, and you tell me what you know.”
Jack forced himself to breathe evenly. Everything would be fine. Carla knew how to handle herself. Knew Enzo. Knew how to manipulate the situation.
It was more than a little impressive, the way she lied so effortlessly, like she’d been doing it all her life.
Pushing down thoughts about what else she might have lied about (what she could have lied to him about), Jack strained to hear the rest of the conversation.
Enzo grunted and grumbled, stomping down the basement stairs, box of wine supported in both hands.
“Watch your step,” warned Carla, but it was too late; a great crashing sound echoed throughout the house, followed by a series of rapid thumps, and at last, a groan of pain that made even Boris wince in sympathy.
“Jesus fucking Christ…” Enzo moaned.
Carla raced down the stairs. “Shit! Are you alright?”
Jack and Boris crept into the hallway.
“…fine, fine. Now that you’ve fucking ruined my suit…” Here Enzo’s voice grew dangerous. “…tell me what the fuck you know.”
“I don’t know what you think I know!” Carla snapped. “Not a damn thing. Whatever you need to know, ask Ronnie. I don’t keep up with his business.”
“It’s not Ronnie’s damn business!” Enzo’s voice became a snarl. Glass tinkled. Liquid sloshed. “I need to know what you fucking know, Carla! How come you’re out here doing something different every damn day?”
Jack waited at the top of the stairs, careful to stay out sight.
“Because that’s how I live my life?” Rage colored Carla’s voice. “I don’t do the same thing every damn day!”
“Really? Because as I see it, you left Ronnie twice, then you stopped fucking leaving him and started ruining my life!”
“Ruining your life? Your life?” Carla screeched.
Something smashed. Jack peered nervously around the corner and spotted Enzo, suit soiled, glass clinging to his pant leg.
Carla paced about and threw her arms out as she screamed, “You ever tried to leave someone, and found out you literally couldn’t?
You ever had something like that happen?
No, you haven’t, because if you had, you wouldn’t be fucking meddling! What the fuck did you do, Enzo?”
At once, there was a gun in her hand, the barrel pointed directly at Enzo, who raised his hands and said, “Hey, hey, hey! Calm down, you’re talking crazy!”
“I’m not crazy!” Carla sneered. A shot went off and embedded in the wall in an explosion of dust. It missed Enzo by inches.
Boris grabbed Jack by the arm, pulled him backward until they were out of view. Until he could feel Boris’s frantic heartbeat in his spine.
“That was a warning shot,” Carla growled. “Tell me what you know, and I might let you live.”
“Fuck,” Boris groaned. Jack squeezed his hand, took a step forward to find Enzo at the base of the stairs with his hands up. Oversized rings glittered on his fingers. A tattooed covered the back of his left hand, but Jack couldn’t make out the details.
“Alright, alright,” he babbled. “Calm down, calm down. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“Why the fuck did you do this?” Carla demanded. “Why the fuck would you—would you summon that thing?”
“What thing?” Enzo barked. “I haven’t summoned anything—”
“Then how the fuck do you know about the time loop?” Carla bellowed. The gun trembled in her hand.
“Easy, easy,” said Enzo. “Put that thing down and we can talk.”
Jack inhaled sharply as the yellow-eyed man emerged from the shadows, pale and disapproving, his brows curved downward as he scrutinized the situation before him. “Oh, I disagree. I think you won’t talk unless you’re… motivated to.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Enzo demanded, but the yellow-eyed man ignored him and gestured to Jack.
“I think we need our backup,” he said. “If you don’t mind, gentlemen.”
Jack stepped into the basement, Boris close behind, gun drawn. Enzo’s stare swept over them, unimpressed.
“You know Ronnie’s coming, right? Whatever you’ve got planned—”
“Dude,” Boris groaned, aiming the barrel of the gun at him with alarming disinterest. “No one cares.”
“You should care. You wanna make an enemy of the family?”
The slightest tick of worry. If he hadn’t spent so much with Boris, Jack would’ve missed it entirely. Certainly, he hoped Enzo hadn’t noticed. Let him think Boris was some kind of hardened assassin. Whatever would get them out of this alive.
“Listen, buddy. One more enemy’s not gonna hurt,” said Boris, jaw squared, hand steady.
“And who the hell is this pipsqueak?” Enzo pointed to Jack, who very valiantly did not wince.
“You don’t want to know,” said Jack, with an air of confidence that earned him a grin of approval from Boris and an eye roll from Carla.
“Yeah, real scary, buddy. I bet you got a gun, too.”
“Dunno,” said Jack, palms facing outward as he shrugged.
“It’s right there in your pocket. You’re not sneaky.”
“Oh, he’s sneaky, alright,” said Carla, free hand on her hip. “Sneakier than you wanna know. Alright, Enzo, you got four guns on you. You wanna cooperate, or you want me to blast you full of holes? It’s no skin off my back whether or not you die.”
“Cut the head off the snake,” said Boris, so quietly that only Jack heard him.
“What makes you think you have the upper hand?”
“Basic math,” Carla said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “C’mon, Enzo. Ronnie’s not coming to save you. Not right now.”
The yellow-eyed man remained silent. At his side, his hand twisted, fingers forming the sorts of signs that Jack’s middle school would’ve banned. His lips moved, but no words escaped.
Enzo dropped like a load of cement, twitched once, then lay unmoving, eyes open to reveal only the whites, lips parted to expose yellowed teeth.