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I curled my fingers around the drink but didn’t sip it. “You’re Dean, right?”
“When it's convenient,” he said.
Now his voice was plain old middle America. My scalp prickled and I tried not to swallow my own tongue. Dean’s ability to change his voice like that was borderline supernatural. For a second, I couldn’t even remember why I was here.
He tugged on a thick beard and eyed me. “If you're not askin’…”
“Where can I find Ryan White?”
Dean leaned on the bar and gazed at me. “If you know to ask for Mr. White’s location,” he said in a low voice I could barely hear, “you know it doesn’t come cheap.”
Swallowing, I fished in my purse and slid a wrinkled fifty-dollar bill across the bar. Dean whisked it into his pocket and flicked his eyes around the room. For a moment, I wondered how he'd ended up as a part-time bartender, full-time informant for this Ryan White.
I also wondered how many others had come in here, desperate and down to their last dollar, asking for the kind of help you could only find in a place like this.
I’d heard all about the underground bar, Dean the job dealer and the drink through my cousin Ricky. He’d explained that placingan order for a Taranis on the rocks and paying a small fee of fifty bucks could get you Ryan White’s location. And this Mr. White, according to Ricky, could give you a job — “not just under the table but underground.”
This came from Ricky, who I’d barely seen in the last ten years and now had no choice but to trust. He’d shown up out of nowhere three days ago with torn clothes, a black eye and bad news.
“Your dad really fucked up this time, kid,”Ricky said by way of hello.“But he’s long gone overseas. The Sons know you’re his daughter and they’re coming for you.”
Blood drained from my face as I swayed around the doorway, sure I was about to wake up from a very unpleasant dream. My long-lost cousin Ricky couldn’t be standing on my doorstep next to frosted-over flowerpots explaining how my father had managed to ruin my life.
Again.
Only, this time I might not survive. Dear old Dad had managed to land me thousands in debt to the most dangerous mob in Boston ? not even the mob but their muscle, The Sons of Celt. Brutal and relentless, the byword on the streets was that theyalwaysgot paid.
If someone tried to skip out — or, as in my bastard father’s case,managedto skip out — the debt passed over to the closest blood relative. Of course, when Ricky had suggested I come to one oftheir bars and ask for a job, I’d balked. That had seemed as naïve and suicidal a move as it got, but he’d persuaded me it would be gutsy.
And then, of course, there was the little matter that I had no other options.
“You’re Ricky’s cousin. He told me you would come,” Dean said and I jolted back to the underground bar, the music settling to a slower beat, no less dangerous. When I nodded, a flicker of sympathy went through Dean’s eyes and he pulled over a Guest Check Pad, then scribbled something down with the pen he’d fished from behind his ear. “He’s in Eastie, 336 Border Street. Cut across the parking lot and look for the building about to fall into the river. ‘Got a white door.”
I slowly accepted the torn piece of paper with shaking fingers and nodded. “He’ll have a job, right? Quick money, and lots of it?”
Dean shrugged. “Every night’s different. And by the way, blondie, you can’t miss it — it’s the only doorway with a working light.”
“What?” I asked. But someone called Dean’s name, and he was gone.
Resisting the urge to throw the drink at yet another douchebag bailing on me instead of answering a simple question, I pushed it away instead and turned around, shoving my hands into my hair without thinking. My bun came apart and I accidently ripped outthe elastic, almost yelping when it snapped against my fingers. My hair fell around me in a torrent, and I made a face, wishing I would have gotten a haircut.
Then I paused, going cold all over and looked back at the glass of whiskey beginning to sweat on the bar. That fifty for a drink and Ryan’s address had been my last savings, plus what Ricky had given me. I had nothing left, not a nickel to my name, and nowhere to go.
Apart from Sara, no one gave a damn if I couldn’t afford to pursue my only dream, if I ended up on the streets or if I died. If this didn’t work out, if Mr. White couldn’t give me a job, I’d be more than screwed. I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills, I wouldn’t be able to get into art school for which I’d scrimped and saved all of last year, and I wouldn’t be able to pay back the Sons of Celt for my dad’s foolish shenanigans. They’d at least accepted the twenty-five thousand I’d had saved and what Mom had left me.
For a second, my eyes closed, and the bar swirled away into black nothingness.
Twenty-five thousand dollars:gone.
A sob threatened to rise and choke me, but I swallowed hard and opened my eyes.Whatever. If anyone was used to the left hooks that life threw, that one was me.
Turning, I shoved my hands in my pockets and stalked away from the bar. With my chin lifted and rage curdling in my veins, I dared anyone to try me… only to falter when I stumbled into thedark gaze of a tall stranger. He sauntered towards me, wearing a bespoke suit that screamed blood money, a fancy silver watch, nice shoes and hair styled straight out ofGQ.
At that moment, Ellie Goulding’s silky voice purred through the speakers.
Oh, my my my, what you do to me,
Like lightning when I'm swimming in the sea….
