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Nick held eye contact with her for a long minute, then turned away and headed for the door.
He stopped midway through the foyer and turned. “I can wait.” Then he headed toward the door and walked through it without a backward glance.
“Are you all right?” Cheryl startled at Isabelle’s voice. She had no idea how long she’d been standing there after Nick left.
“Yes, no, I don’t know.” Cheryl sunk into the chair, then rested her head in her hands. “It can’t be, it just can’t be.”
Nick didn’t remember getting on the elevator or walking through the lobby. He stopped at the revolving doors leading to the carport remembering he came with Cobra. He backtracked to the bar and found Cobra exactly where he’d left him looking exactly like he did twenty minutes ago. Nothing changed in his life, while Nick’s life took a nosedive and then crashed against a brick wall.
Nick slid onto the barstool and Cobra flagged over the bartender and ordered a double of Jack. “You look fuckin’ rattled, man.”
The bartender slid the drink in front of Nick and he gulped it down in two swigs, then motioned for another.
Cobra eyeballed him. “Where the hell did you go?”
“Back in time.” The bartender placed another drink in front of him and he emptied half of it.
“You’re gonna have to give me a little more to go on.”
He’d gotten so lost in his thoughts he’d almost forgotten Cobra was next to him. “It’s a long fuckin’ story.”
Cobra shrugged. “Joker can hold shit down for a few.”
Nick hit the highlights of him and Cheryl and their screwed-up relationship back in Brooklyn. Her coming to him after witnessing a mob hit only to find out the person who carried out the hit was Nick’s boss at the Oasis. Then as a grand finale finding out that the same notorious mob boss, Frank Barnett, was Cheryl’s father. A fact neither of them knew when they met.
An hour later, Nick finished the fucked up story. “Everything slid sideways when she walked outta Frank’s office.”
“Fuckin’ unbelievable. And this is the first time you’ve seen her in ten years?”
“I thought I saw her the other night at Johnny Russo’s party but—Oh, shit!” Realization hit Nick like a bucket of ice water. “She’s married to that fucker.”
“Russo?”
“The waiter at Russo’s house party said the woman I described was Johnny’s wife.”
“Maybe he got it wrong. Maybe he thought you were talking about somebody else.”
Nick rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, but there’s no way she can be hooked up with a guy like him. No fuckin’ way.”
“Is this gonna screw up our deal with Selective Services?” Cobra asked.
Good question. Even if they dealt directly with Isabelle there would always be a chance of them running into each other—just like today. And if she really was married to Johnny?—
Oh fuck, he couldn’t even wrap his brain around it. What could possibly have happened to make her so desperate to marry that asshole?
“I hope not.” It was the only answer Nick could give before he found out all the facts—and he would find out every last detail.
7
“Who the hell was that?” Izzy rounded the couch. “And don’t bother with any comments like, I barely know him, or we used to be friends.”
“We knew each other back in Brooklyn.”
“Yeah, I got that. From the looks you were exchanging and the sparks flying around this room, I’d say you more than knew each other.”
As close as her and Izzy were, Cheryl never relayed the tangled story of her and Nick. She revealed only the bare minimum and glossed over all the details saying Portia was the result of a one-night stand.
At the time, it was far too painful to relive and later she reasoned there was no sense digging up the past. Some stories were just too painful to rehash along with wishing for something that could never happen. Cheryl let her mind drift and of course the memories collided inside her brain along with mixed emotions and a ton of unfinished business.
