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“You’ll be perfectly fine,” Corrado said, his voice flat.
“You think so?” Vincent asked.
Corrado nodded slightly. “We both will be.”
Vincent would have said more had he not been alarmed by his brother-in-law’s sudden presence. He had showered, his slightly curly hair still damp, his face smooth from a fresh shave.
“I’m going to bed,” Carmine muttered, standing up and bolting out of the room before Vincent could wish him a good night. Corrado stood in place for a moment before strolling into the office, sitting down in the chair Carmine had just vacated. He said nothing, but his eyes stared into Vincent intently.
“How much did you hear?” Vincent asked.
“Enough.”
“And?”
“And I think you’re right about people changing,” Corrado replied, “but I don’t think you were talking about me.”
4
The shrill sound of a familiar ringing phone shattered Carmine’s light slumber. He forced his eyes open, slapping beside the bed to find the offending object. He cursed as he accidentally knocked it off the stand, sending it crashing to the bedroom floor.
“Turn it off,” Haven mumbled, not even opening her eyes.
“Fuck, I’m trying,” he said, snatching his phone off the floor. He groaned as he answered it. Salvatore. Again. “Yes?”
“You don’t like to answer promptly, do you?” Salvatore asked with a hard edge to his voice. Definitely not a social call this time.
He glanced at the clock, seeing it was a few minutes past four in the morning. Haven had been asleep when he made it upstairs . . . or pretending to be asleep, more likely. He could still feel the tension between them, the conversation she was obviously avoiding having with him.
“Sorry, sir,” he said, covering his burning eyes with his forearm as he lay back down. “It’s just kind of fucking early.”
“You’re full of excuses, aren’t you?” Sal asked. “And you didn’t have Corrado call me like I asked.”
“He was asleep, and I, well . . .” He had forgotten. “I fell asleep, too.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re awake now, because you need to pick up a package in Charlotte.”
“Now?” Carmine asked incredulously. Charlotte was two hours away, and it was Christmas Eve. The last thing he wanted to do was leave Haven alone all day.
He laughed bitterly and Carmine clenched his free hand into a fist. The sound grated on his nerves. “Yes, now.”
Salvatore rattled off an address. Carmine jumped out of bed and rooted through his desk for something to write with, grabbing a cheap BIC pen with a chewed-up cap. He spotted one of Haven’s notebooks and grabbed it, flipping it open to the back and scribbling down the address as Sal hung up.
“Just great,” he muttered, staggering over to the closet. “Just what I need.”
“Where are you going?” Haven asked.
He glanced at her, seeing her eyes were open now. She watched him with confusion, and he spouted off the first thing that came to his mind. “I need to finish Christmas shopping.”
“Now?” she asked with disbelief. “Is anything even open?”
“They will be by the time I get there,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t press him about it. He dressed and kissed her quickly, running his hand across her cheek as he brushed some wayward hair out of her face. “I’ll be back later, tesoro.”
Haven mumbled incoherently, her eyes closing once again.
Carmine grabbed his things and the notebook, heading out of the house as quietly as he could, and climbed into the Mazda to start the trip to Charlotte. He had a hard time focusing on driving, his vision hazy from exhaustion, and ran off the road a few times. He cursed, agitated, and turned up the music while rolling down the windows, hoping the noise and cold air would keep him awake.
He arrived in Charlotte shortly after dawn and drove around for twenty minutes to find the address. It turned out to be a dingy hole-in-the-wall barbershop, the bricks crumbling and the barber pole barely hanging on to the ancient building.
