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She nodded. Her fists clenched at her sides, she moved to stand behind Santino, using him like a shield. I could’ve rolled my eyes. People’s reactions to me were so tiresome.
Santino glanced at his assistant. “Sweetheart, give us the room.”
“The name’s Delilah,” she said in a clipped tone, turning to leave. He watched her like a lion hunting a limping gazelle. As soon as the door closed his attention zoomed to me.
He frowned. “I have a job for you.”
“It better not be boring.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s different.”
I arched a brow.
He hesitated, swiping through his phone. “It’s not a hit. It’s a…conversation. I want you to meet this girl, Violet Harper.”
The name struck my brain like a bolt of lightning. Then he showed me a photo of a twenty-something woman in a cropped shirt. It was her. The same soft brown eyes stared at the camera. Cowboy boots peeked out from a long pink skirt. She sat on the front steps of a shabby house. Smooth olive skin. Wavy blonde hair. A pixie-like face. It shined with so much joy, I felt it coming off the screen.
“She was in Afterlife on Tuesday, asking questions about you. I thought you should know.”
I studied her, my interest climbing. Afterlife was a club owned by the Family. A neutral zone in which associates, mercs, and businessmen mingled to network. Violet wasn’t the typical profile of a woman tangled in Boston’s underbelly. At the restaurant, she’d seemed like an overwhelmed single mom. Now she was a job? Who was she?
“She’s connected to someone from your past. Remember Elise? Brunette, used to hang around Afterlife?” He didn’t wait for my nod. “She was killed six months ago. Gunshot wound to the head. Violet’s her sister.”
Elise. The name flickered like a distant flame. “So she was murdered, and her sister’s curious about me.”
“She’s fishing.”
“But I had nothing to do with her death.”
“Well, maybe you should tell her that.” He scrolled to a less polished image of Violet at a playground. Yet another showed her strumming a guitar onstage. “She plays at this bar every Thursday for open mic night.”
I sucked in my lip. This was twisting in my gut. Violet and that boy didn’t belong in my life. But in the nights since the botched hit, visions of them haunted me. Mom wouldn’t let me forget, blowing up my phone. Did you find her? You need to do a paternity test! Achille, when are you going to admit that baby is your son?
They’d carved a space in my mind that I couldn’t fill with denial. I needed to force them far away from me, but I had to see her again. If only to figure out why her kid looked like me.
“Alright. I’ll handle it.”
The words felt like chains, heavy and cold. I patted my brother’s back, heading for the door.
“And Kill?” he called out, grinning. “Watch out for the knives on the table. I wouldn’t want you to have a repeat of the last job.”
The warning barely registered. I was already in a shadowy alley with Violet, dreading the answers I’d find.
FIVE
ACHILLE
I dragged myself to urgent care, spinning a story about a fork. Doc didn’t even blink. Guess it wasn’t his first rodeo with bullshit stories. I imagined what that must be like. Guys walking into his clinic, clutching their sides, claiming to have fallen on something because admitting their wife shoved a butter knife into their gut was too humiliating.
I wasn’t ashamed of my secret, but it wasn’t exactly dinner conversation. When I used to date, I’d lie my ass off about my job.
I filled the prescription at the pharmacy and swallowed down the damn pills. Then I strolled to the only country music venue in Boston, a restaurant called Boots & Bourbon. Only a few blocks from my place. At eight, I yanked open the saloon doors. I stepped inside, my shoes sliding over a hay-strewn floor.
The bar was sprawled out with long, beaten-up wooden tables topped with red-and-white checkered cloths. The scent of whiskey and fried food wafted from the kitchen, and everybody was in denim. Cowboy boots galore. Yee-haw.
I ordered a beer and sat close to the stage. On the dance floor, people stomped their feet as the band played a fiddle, banjo, and bass guitar. No singing, just a frenetic melody electrifying the air. Sitting at the table, I felt like a stranger in a strange land.
The song ended to a smattering of applause. The girl with the fiddle approached the mic. “Thank y’all for that warm reception. Next up, we have a special treat for you. A songbird straight from the heart of the south, Violet Harper!”
