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But with Deirdre in my car, her gaze like fire on my back, I start to wonder if that’s not my only weakness.
“Watch her,” I grunt at Curse. I toss him my keys. “Turn on the passenger seat heater.”
My brother catches my keys out of the air with a nod as I stride back towards the house to retrieve the violin. With every step, I fight to keep myself here, in the present, in the depths of Canadian winter instead of Sicilian summer. But I can’t help but feel as if I’m walking back into my past. Trying to get to my own mamma this time, instead of an instrument belonging to someone else’s.
But I don’t find my own long-dead mamma or the violin. I find a fourth Camorra soldier creeping through the living room. I’m faster than he is, gun in my hand, and I take him out by the kneecap. He howls and collapses, blood spurting between the fingers of his left hand as he shakily raises the gun in his right.
Not interested in taking another bullet tonight, I shoot the gun right out of his hand. The gun, along with three fingers, fall to the floor.
“Motherfucker… Fucking… Fuck!” he gasps, writhing and trying to clutch at both his hand and knee at the same time.
“Tell me why you’re here,” I say, crouching beside him.
“Holy shit.” His gaze, hazed with pain, focuses on my face. “Elio Titone? What the fuck are you doing here?”
I don’t know this soldier, but he knows me. Anyone in this city with half a brain in their head knows who I am.
“Getting what I’m owed. Now answer my question.”
I think he’s going to lose his shit on me. Maybe even lose consciousness. The metal press of my pistol against his forehead helps bring him back.
“Fuck! Here for O’Malley. Owes Mr. Serpico big time.”
“How much?”
He scrunches up his face as I push the gun more firmly against his skin.
“Don’t shoot! Eight hundred G’s.”
I don’t even blink. I’m already in this for 5.2 million, what’s another eight hundred grand?
“I’m going to let you live so that you can give Sev a message.” I press the gun even harder for a second, then pull it away, leaving a white circle on his forehead that quickly turns red. “Tell your boss he’ll get his money. Courtesy of La Cosa Nostra.”
“You… you’ll pay O’Malley’s debt?” he wheezes.
“It’s not his debt anymore. It’s hers.”
I don’t elaborate further. I stand and leave him bleeding on the floor. As I do so, I spot the violin and bow under a table, just where she said they would be. As I pick the items up, I make a mental note to let Deirdre know that the sum she owes has now reached a cool six million.
Chapter 6
Deirdre
The man Elio called Curse watches me with silent intensity from the driver’s seat, a gun in his lap. There’s something familiar in his gaze. I know Elio Titone has a younger brother, and I wonder if this is him. They have the same thick black hair, too, but otherwise they don’t look much alike. If Curse weren’t covered in tattoos, he’d look like a Renaissance sculpture come to life, his face chiselled like an angel’s.
A fallen angel, no doubt.
When I can no longer stand staring back at him, I turn my head to the passenger window, looking at the house’s front door, waiting for Elio to come through it. Heat from the seat warmer blooms along my quivering legs and my stiff back, echoing the body heat on Elio’s jacket when he’d forced it around me. I should have ripped it off the second he was out of my sight. Should have let it fall to the snow, ruined it even more than the bullet and blood already did.
But some strange part of me had liked the way the jacket felt, so warm against my goosebumpy skin. And if I hadn’t taken it, I’d be naked from the waist up now, with nothing but my arms to cover me. I pull the jacket a little tighter, shivering again, but this time with odd, hateful pleasure at the kiss of the jacket’s silk lining sliding against my skin. Elio’s scent surrounds me, the same scent from the pantry – exquisite and probably astronomically expensive cologne mixed with blood, leather, and a slightly deeper masculine musk.
Wrapped in his jacket and his scent, I see him coming through the front door. I should feel dread, but I can’t help the flood of relief when I see he’s found my mom’s violin. He holds it by the neck in one hand, the bow in the other. They look small in the grip of his black leather gloves, almost like toys.
I’ve already noticed how tinted these windows are from the outside. There’s no way he can see me in here, but even so, his gaze pierces right through the glass. It’s like he can see right inside me, like even my deepest inner thoughts belong to him now.
As the bright moonlight cascades down his form, I observe him, trying to memorize and understand every detail, to know exactly who I’m dealing with. He’s so tall – he’s got to be at least 6’4 – and built like a fucking tank. His black dress shirt moulds to the hard planes and curves of his muscles. I drag my gaze up to his face and I’m certain that these two are brothers now. It’s not just the hair and the eyes, but also something about the way they both carry themselves, the power that pours off of them in poisonous waves.
Elio comes around to the driver’s side and Curse slides out to make room for him, the younger brother trading places with the older. Curse is a big guy too, but when Elio settles himself into the seat, the space in the SUV feels suddenly smaller. Elio takes everything – even all the air in here.
