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Donny holds a shadow of a smirk. “If I didn’t want someone to hear what was going on around me, I’d buy out the houses on either side of me too.”
“Sounds like something my brother would say.”
Donny turns on me, the leather of his seat scrunching, eyes angry steel. “Don’t you ever compare me to that piece of shit. Loophole is a fucking snake.”
Says the guy who will snatch an innocent woman off the street? Again, I find the truth dangling on the edge of my tongue to throw in his face, only for me to bite it.
“What?” he says, his voice flat. “No snarky remark?”
“The dog doesn’t want to get slapped again by the big strong man.”
He sighs and turns back around. “You really don’t let things go, do you?”
“Little things, yeah. I do. Not the big things, though.” I glance outside and do a double-take. A shifty-eyed thin man with too much hair-gel just exited the left-most house in question. John Belissi. He always gave me eyes when I was too young, and it makes me want to sic my dark stallion on him.
What the hell am I even thinking?
“Moderator, seven o’clock,” I say.
Donny swivels his head like a hawk. “What the fuck? John? What the hell is he doing here?”
“You know him too?”
“What do you mean, too?” Donny shifts his eyes to me.
“He’s with the Barones.”
“He has dealings with my father directly,” Donny says, his hand tight around the door handle. He wants to run him down on the spot. I can see it in his eyes.
He cools fast, confirming once again he isn’t a hothead like most of the other thugs I know.
John is walking down the block, one arm swinging in exaggerated fashion. He’s an odd duck, I recall. And he’s almost out of sight.
The car purrs to life, and my nerves get entangled around my chest. What’s he going to do?
Donny U-turns the car and pulls carefully beside John, keeping pace. He rolls down the window, and I shrink into the backseat as best I can.
“I heard you called for an Uber,” Donny says to John.
The color drains from John’s face. He thinks he’s about to be hit. And Donny the Stallion plays the part convincingly. There’s conviction in his eyes.
After a long moment of silence, John finds his voice. “Donny boy, that you?” He laughs nervously. “Scared the shit out of me, kid. Hah.”
“Get in. Don Gio wants a word.”
“N—now? I got things to do before the big g—” He clears his throat. “Got a busy night, Donny. Can I come see him tomorrow, first thing?”
“Afraid not, John. It’ll only take a minute,” Donny says, his voice as deep as the car engine. “Get in. I don’t like to repeat myself.”
John hesitates, his cheek twitches, but he eventually nods and does as he’s told.
Donny unlocks the backdoor on the other side of me, and a survival instinct tells me to burst out of it. But I don’t. I stay. Hell if I know why.
Donny’s phone rings and he picks up. “Yo, Dice. Nice of you to join us among the living.”
Sal says something witty, making Donny laugh.
Click.
