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“Rough night?” she asks.
“I’m hoping this is rock bottom and the only way is up,” I joke.
She offers me a cigarette, but I shake my head.
“Is this your first job tending a bar?” she asks.
“Is it that obvious?”
“As obvious as a bomb.”
“And as destructive, it would seem.”
She shrugs. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
“I don’t know, your faith may be misplaced.”
“I’m Lavender, by the way,” she says.
“Bianca.”
She drags on her cigarette. “So what leads someone who has no experience pouring drinks to look for a job in a bar?”
“Desperation.”
“I can respect that.”
I exhale roughly. “Natalie doesn’t like me.”
She smiles. “I wouldn’t worry about that. She doesn’t like anyone. Well, not until she gets to know them.”
“I’m not sure she’s interested in getting to know me.”
“She’s wary of new people, is all.”
I don’t care if she’s wary of me or not. She pushes me too far, and I don’t care how much I need this job, I’ll push back.
A set of headlights cut into the darkness.
“Shit.” Lavender drops her cigarette and crushes it into the concrete with her boot. “We gotta get back inside.”
The way she hustles me toward the door takes me by surprise. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“That’s Dario, and if he sees us out here, he’ll get mad.” With a worried look on her face, she glances down the alleyway.
I’m learning a lot of things tonight.
One, I suck at tending a bar.
Two, I’m not sure I’ll ever get better at it.
And three, Dario scares Lavender, and going by the look on her face, he scares her a lot.
8
MASSIMO
“This is a bad idea, Mass.”
My stepsister sits behind her desk and eyes me suspiciously as I stand at the observation window overlooking the club. I turn away from her to watch Bianca serving drinks at the bar.
I lift a glass of scotch to my lips. “It will work out.”
As I say it, Bianca fumbles as she pours tequila into a row of shot glasses and knocks two of them over.
“How can you be so sure?” Eve asks. “For all intents and purposes, she’s the enemy, and you just let her in behind enemy lines.”
“You know the old saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“Thanks, Don Corleone. But this isn’t The Godfather. This is real life, and you’re walking a dangerous line.”
“I always walk a dangerous line,” I say dismissively, my gaze fixed firmly on Bianca. Christ, she just knocked over a tumbler of expensive scotch, splashing it across the front of the customer’s shirt.
“I’m serious, Mas. This could go south real quick. How do you know she’s not up to something? She’s a Bamcorda.”
“And they’re demolished. Scattered to the wind. Every alliance was broken the moment Luca Bamcorda went against the De Kysa. She’s got nothing left.”
“Don’t underestimate her, Massimo. I have a feeling Bianca has a giant pair of lady balls on her. She’s got nothing to lose.”
I turn back to my view of Bianca. “I have eyes and ears on her. I know what she is doing every second, every minute, every day. If this is a play, I’ll find out what game she is playing and beat her at it.”
“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Eve is the only person I will allow to question me. In the years since our parents met and married, we’ve become close. For some reason, we just click, and she’s become one of my closest confidantes. Which came as a surprise to both of us considering how resistant she was initially when her mother came home from a cruise suddenly engaged to the old don of the De Kysa family.
A precocious nineteen year old, she had a lot to say when they got married.
Now, she’s as much a De Kysa as I am.
She leaves her chair and joins me at the observation window to watch Bianca. “Oh God, it’s like watching a newborn foal trying to walk for the first time.”
“It’s her first night.”
“Yeah, but she isn’t a natural.”
She’s right. Bianca isn’t a natural. But that smile, fuck, no wonder the customer laughs it off. Somehow it manages to be bright and beautiful but awkward and apologetic at the same time.
I feel Eve’s questioning look searing the side of my face.
“What,” I ask, knowing she’s got a lot more to say about the matter.
“Why are you really doing this?” She tilts her head. “Does this girl mean something to you?”
Her question triggers the memory. And for the first time since Bianca walked into my club, I let myself recall the last time I saw her.
Never in a million years would I have imagined kissing Bianca Bamcorda in the back of a car while driving through Manhattan.
But here we are.
Kissing like hungry teenagers. A needy groan falls between us, and I realize it’s coming from me. She whimpers in response, and I know I’m beyond stopping now.
