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“Listen, Roxy. You and me, we ain’t had much to do with each other, and mostly I’d like to keep it that way. But right now, you need to listen to me and do what I’m telling you.”
“Okay...” she says, cautiously.
“You got told to pull out of that movie, and you didn’t.” She flicks her head like she doesn’t want to hear it, but I plow on. “So now we got a problem.”
“Do we?”
“Yeah. You fucked around. You’re about to find out.” I lean in closer. “Dad wants you gone.Gonegone. Understand?”
She makes another gasp, her hand flying to her chest, and shrinks away from me. It’s about what I expected: shock, fear, a touch of panic. But there’s something a little weird about it all.
“But Leo,” she says, “I’m sure Poppy didn’t mean it.”
Poppy. That’s what she calls him, and the old man likes it, I know. I see him grinning every time she says it, giving her the kind of look a father-in-law shouldn’t give his daughter-in-law. “Poppy’s already given the order,” I say flatly. “That’s why we need to get you somewhere safe.”
She shakes her head emphatically. “I’m sure you must have misunderstood.”
I stare at her for a long moment. “What?”
“I’ll sort it out, Leo. Don’t you worry. I’ll talk to Poppy myself, tell him I’ll pull out of the movie if it upsets himthatmuch. I just didn’t realize, that’s all.”
“Girl, you aren’t listening to me. I didn’tmisunderstand. And you’ve run out of options. Even if you pull out—“
“Really, Leo,” she says quickly, “I’m sure it’ll all blow over. And don’t call megirl, it’s so reductive. Shush now,” she adds, as I try to speak.
Shush?Did I just get fuckingshushedby this chick? I’m about to lay down the law when I realize what the shushing was all about: Gino’s strolling up, looking as pleased to see me as he is to see his squeeze.
“Hey, my two favorite people,” he says, kissing Roxy and then slapping me on the shoulder. “What are you doing here, Leo?”
“Leo came by to ask about the wedding details,” Roxy chimes in quickly. “He’s taking a plus-one after all, so he wanted to make sure we could seat...them.”
She smiles at Gino, and then at me. I didn’t miss the deliberate pause and the neutral pronoun, though Gino does; he starts going on about who’s the lucky lady and when do we get to meet her.
But Roxy has clocked me. Probably a long time before now, and her cunning smile tells me she knows how much power that particular secret has. For the first time, I wonder whether Dad wants her dead for more reasons than this Castellani-backed movie.
Maybe Roxy found out a few secrets from “Poppy,” too.
She’s a cool liar. And for someone who just heard that a Mob Boss wants her dead, she shows a shitload of composure. She takes another sip of the drink as I stare at her. Her color has returned to normal.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Leo,” she says again with meaning.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I say when Gino takes a break in his talking, and I get the hell out of there.
* * *
There’s not much about Roxy that makes me inclined to protect her, if she’s so hell-bent on ending up in the morgue. But Gino...
Gino loves her, that much is clear.
He’ll get over her, though. I’m sure of it. He’d grieve, sure, but he’s a resilient guy. And he’s got me to lean on.
As I ride back to my place, I think about the ways Julian might do it. He’s notoriously playful with his kills, almost legendary around here. And he’s taken out scores of Bernardi boys without even breaking a sweat.
He’s my enemy, in all ways. Not only because he’s a Castellani, but because of the way he acted in front of my father, picking at that wound that I was dumb enough to expose to him.
You want your father to be proud of you, don’t you?
I get into my apartment and go straight to the bed, where I punch the fuck out of my pillow, pretending it’s Julian Castellani’s smug little face. And then I can’t help thinking of him here in this same bed, the hot flutter of his breath over my lips as he came for me, arching like a cat, his cock pulsing in my hand.
