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I don’t get homeuntil after eleven p.m.
Exhaustion is leaching from my bones as Dog and I take the private elevator up to my apartment.It’s been a hell of a day, starting with Ella kneeing me in the nuts, and ending with a tense meeting with the Italians over a spate of armed robberies and other crimes on their turf which they’re accusing me of instigating.
I was ice-cool in my disinterest. HuntingEl Alquimistadown is the only thing worthy of my attention right now. I have the FBI and every police department in New York on my payroll and earning it, along with two hundred of my own men infiltrating street gangs and doling out bribes and incentives, but still nothing. People are either too scared of him, or not scared enough of me, so it’s time to turn up the heat.
Stepping into my apartment, I tap out an international number on my phone.
She answers on the first ring.
“We’re moving up the date of the operation.”
The woman laughs, unfazed by my clipped demand. “Do you have an endurance problem, Grayson?” she purrs, her accent so similar to mine, yet far more sensuous, curling around each word like silver smoke tipped with razor blades. “What happened to ‘staying the course’?”
“I killed another of his disciples today, but not before I received my second threat in a week. Tell your insider we need a new schedule.”
“For when?”
“Three months’ time.”
“Threemonths?” she hisses in disapproval. “It’s too soon. We’d planned to do this in six months. This is the biggest shipmentEl Alquimistawill have organized from Colombia to GCT, New York. I’m not even sure he’ll have enough product by then.”
“He’s greedy. He’ll make it happen. If he’s already in the country like we suspect he is, he won’t be far away when his ship sails in. That’s when we take him and burn him.”
There’s a long pause as she calculates the pitfalls and risks. I know she’ll go for it, though. She wants to unmaskEl Alquimistajust as much as I do. Always send a Colombian cartel princess to catch a Colombian kingpin wannabe because they won’t ever stop until the job is done.
“The things I do for you, Grayson,” she says with a sigh, rare resignation in her voice for someone with her reputation. She can cut a man down as quickly as I can. She’s more like her father than either of her half-sisters. “You owe me for this.”
“Don’t do it for me, Isabella. Do it for Ella.”
Chucking my keys on the table by the door, I collect a whiskey decanter and glass from the sideboard as I pass through the living area. I’m heading straight for my favorite room in the apartment with Dog following hot on my heels. She hasn’t left my side all day, and Don Russo didn’t dare comment on her presence in the meeting earlier. When it broke down, she ingratiated herself by pissing all over his priceless Fornasetti rug.
Punching in a security code, the metal door slides back to reveal a dark cave of a room. The far wall is lined with forty-eight hi-tech monitors.
Forty-eight black and white angles of an apartment I know even better than my own.
Placing the decanter and glass down on the desk, I toss a half-smoked packet of Marlboros and an old Zippo lighter next to them and collapse into a leather chair. No one knows about my Black Room, not even Sam. I spend most of my nights in here, drowning more than sleeping—letting my life play out through a lens, but it’s better than no view at all.
The black walls cocoon my obsession, giving me and her a fucked-up sense of intimacy whenever she appears on screen.
Glancing from monitor to monitor to locate her, I almost forget about Dog until she barks.
“Liar. You just had the best steak of your life.”
Dog barks again and rests her head on my thigh, but I make no move to touch her. She hasn’t earned it yet
I’m sparking up my first cigarette when there’s movement in the righthand corner of one monitor. Ella is unfurling from the couch, her face contorting in pain. It’s midnight and time for her Vicodin and Ambien. I know her medicine schedule better than she does.
I follow her into the bathroom and watch through the three-way mirror as she counts out her pills and knocks them back. I study her unguarded face in fine detail. When she’s alone is when her truth comes out. It’s when she finallyallows her bright smile to slip, making my fucking chest explode.
This is the place I share her pain.
I’ve been right there with her through it all: The days when she can barely get out of bed until her meds kick in. The tight scrunchy thing she does with her face when she’s counting down from ten before calling her father and breezing through a lie, telling him that she’s fine and happy, and if he asks her to go back home one more time he’s not getting a Christmas gift.
I’ve witnessed her confusion and self-doubt after her dates never call again, when in truth they all loved her because there’s nothing about sunshine to hate. It was my intervention that made them run a mile.Those who smiled at her, got a warning. Those who touched her, got a broken hand. Those who tried to kiss her earned themselves a hospital stay.
I’ve heard her play her favorite record over and over, and that one song in particular. I know it’s because the lyrics remind her of me.
She hides it well atThe Eagle, but her flares are more frequent, and her meds need urgent reviewing.
