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“You wouldn’t happen to know where your boyfriend went, would you, pretty?”
I frowned as a prickle of goose bumps flew up my back. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
Nonna’s silent stare told me I had answered exactly right, but not because of her concerns about Michael.
Unfortunately, Reyes wasn’t buying it.
“Hear that? She don’t have a boyfriend,” Reyes told his cronies, then looked back to me with an expression wholly different than his genial words. “Guess we’ll have to test that out.”
I backed up instinctively. “What does that mean?”
He grabbed my arm. “It means you’re coming with me. Grandma too. No better way to catch a rat than with a big juicy trap.”
TWENTY-THREE
YOU’D THINK THE MOB COULD AFFORD BETTER COUCHES
Lea
You learn to pick your battles when you live in Belmont. When I was fourteen, some guy tried to take my purse while I was waiting for the bus. It was a Coach bag I’d saved up for six months to buy on layaway from a consignment shop near Fordham. I wasn’t letting that thing go without a fight—not at ten a.m. on a Saturday to a wannabe thug with nothing more than his hands and some good sneakers. Not when I was at a crowded stop with three of my friends to back me up. And not when I had a big brother who taught me exactly how to use a kick to the back of the knee to bring someone down.
But Paul Reyes and his friends weren’t a bus-stop mugger, a deserted street after a blizzard wasn’t a crowded street on a busy Saturday morning, and my little old grandma wasn’t a bunch of teenagers and another ten strangers backing me up. So, this was not the battle I was willing to pick.
Which was how Nonna and I allowed ourselves to be hustled down the block to a freshly plowed 187th, where we were ushered into a battered SUV and quickly blindfolded as the car took off into the frozen city. Nonna’s shaky hand grabbed for mine, and she kept it tightly in her grasp until we reached its destination. We were lugged out of the car and into a nondescript building before our blindfolds were finally removed.
Once we could see again, Nonna and I squinted, trying to adjust our eyes to the light. We were in a room containing a few threadbare couches surrounding a television. A man with slicked black hair and a yellow-checked hoodie was sitting at a battered wooden table, counting a stack of cash.
He looked up when we entered. “Paul, finally. Took you fuckin’ long enough.”
“She wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Had to go on a goose chase.” None too gently, Paul guided Nonna and me to one of the couches. “Sit.”
We obeyed, though the sharp smell of mildew clinging to the couch made it difficult to breathe. Nonna trembled beside me, her frail hand tightening its hold on mine.
“What—what do you want from us?” I asked Paul, then looked at the man sitting at the table.
“Did you tell Carrera?” the man asked Paul, ignoring my question.
Paul nodded. “I paged Gina. She’s putting the word out with everyone in the neighborhood. He’ll find out.”
“Who?” I asked. “What is it you want? I can’t give you anything.”
Finally, the man at the table turned to me with a glint in his eye and offered a smile that revealed two gold teeth. “It ain’t you we want, sweetheart. I’m sorry you had to get mixed up in all this, but we’re trying to catch a rat, see. And you are the sweetest piece of cheese he ever sniffed.”
“Michael,” Nonna whispered.
A new and very different type of fear bolted through my stomach.
Obviously, I knew that Michael hadn’t walked a straight and narrow path. But I hadn’t known he was still involved in criminal activities. And I had no doubt these men were absolutely criminal.
Nonna’s trembling hand tightened around mine even more, seeking comfort and reassurance in our shared fear. The room seemed to close in on us, suffocating us with its heavy silence.
“What do you mean? What has Michael done?” I stammered, my voice barely above a whisper.
The man leaned back in his chair, a sinister smile playing on his lips. “Your sweetheart owes me a favor. More than one since he made a fool out of me. He thought he could run and hide, but little did he know we’d find the perfect bait to lure him back out again.” His eyes scanned me with an unsettling intensity.
As dread consumed me, anger ignited within. What exactly had Michael done to earn this man’s vengeance? What was the “favor” he was expected to pay back? But I knew that dwelling on these questions would get me nowhere. I had to focus on keeping Nonna safe and finding a way to help Michael.
“Please,” I said, desperation coloring my voice. “Let my grandmother go. She has nothing to do with this. I’ll do whatever you want. Just release her.”
