Domenico Valente
January hovers near Eli’s Maserati G-Class right where I instructed her to be. She’s wearing a red dress and looks so good I want to pick her up and bite into her porcelain skin. She must hear me coming through the underground garage because she turns, her big green eyes blinking at me.
“Hi, Nico,” she says in her sexy voice, and I want to drag her upstairs to bed, tuck her into my side and fall the fuck asleep. Address all the sexual tension and murder and bullshit when I’m well-rested because I know I’d sleep fantastic with her beside me, and I’m exhausted. Fucking smoking. You don’t know how bad a vice has you until you give it up. Not the best timing considering my dual ‘seduce Tits and kill Parker’ plan, but I can handle it. I have to. When I found out January was abducted I made a promise with a God I don’t know exists. I said that if she was safe, I’d quit smoking.
The second she was rescued I bailed on that promise because what was God gonna do? Hit me with lightning? And then I got out of the pool two days ago and hacked up my lungs like never before. I almost puked into Morelli’s little tiled grotto like a freshman at a frat party.
I knew the big man was holding me accountable. If it was just me getting cursed, I might have kept smoking, but there was this voice in my head telling me ‘January’s gonna get hurt again. Worse this time.’
So the cigarettes had to go. I just wish it could have been next week. Next year. Next lifetime.
January tugs the hem of her dress, all eager and nervous. She’s still scared of me and that turns her on, which means I need to fucking concentrate. I’ve got a heart and body to win before I fly to Vegas and put my life on the line for revenge.
“Hi, Tits,” I say, flashing her my best smile. “What do you wanna do today?”
January frowns. “Are you okay?”
No, I need cigarettes. Cigarettes, a blow job from you and a Parker’s head on a spike. “I’m flawless.”
Her gaze drops to my hands, and she clocks that my left fingernails are bitten ragged. I hold them up. “Gnarly, huh? Lady tobacco and I are having a rough break-up.”
“Um… pardon?”
“I quit smoking for you, Tits.”
“Oh…” She doesn’t believe me. I can’t blame her. I’ve hardly been a boy scout up until this point. I push my mangled hand into my pocket. “Anyway, we’re not here to talk about me. What do you feel like doing today?”
She purses her pretty lips. “I thought you were taking me somewhere?”
“And I thought that after a month of being dragged around by your hair, you might like to make your own plans.”
January’s eyes widen. “Do you mean it? We can go wherever I want to go?”
She sways on the spot, her red dress twirling around her luscious hips. I bite back a groan. “I don’t say shit I don’t mean, Tesorina. Now hurry up and decide because there’s a growing chance you’re gonna get fucked on the hood of Morelli’s car instead.”
“Then… I guess I know somewhere, but I’m not sure you’ll want to take me there.”
“Is it outside the continental US?”
“No.”
“Then spit it out.”
A shadow crosses her face. “Today is my… it’s my Zia Teresa’s funeral.”
I make my face a mask. “Where is it?”
“St. Peter’s Church in Brooklyn. Is that… Can we go?”
We’d need a car, new clothes, a veil, a faraday case…
“Nico?”
God, the way she says that makes me want to drop her in caramel and suck her clean. I grab her hand and drag her toward my Charger. “Of course, we can go. What time’s the ceremony or whatever?”
Her face lights up. “One. Can we actually go?”
“Yes. Now get in the fucking car.”
I drive out of Velvet House and onto the highway as fast as I can without attracting cops, making calls the whole way. January sits beside me like a hot lieutenant. Morelli would kill me if he knew what we were doing. But he won’t know and neither will anyone else.
When I’m done making the calls, the car falls into silence. January’s twisting her hands in her lap, adorably nervous or scared or whatever.
“You can pick a radio station if you want?”
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them and I immediately regret it. I hate everyone’s taste in music. I’ve killed because one of Adriano’s guys wouldn’t lay off the deathcore.
January scrolls through stations and I wait for whatever twinkly teenage shit she’s into to pollute my eardrums. Then a low, familiar voice fills my ears. “Is this the Black Keys?”
She takes her hand away from the dial. “Yeah. Is that okay? I feel like it’s good traveling music…”
“It’s fine, Tits,” I say, settling into the driver’s seat. I don’t know how she keeps surprising me, but she does.
An hour later, we pull into my buddy Dave’s chop shop. I’ve arranged to switch the Dodge for a tasteful old black beamer.
“Get out but stay near the car,” I tell January, then walk to the counter where Dave’s waiting for me with the keys.
“You got the faraday case?” I ask.
“In the back. And there’s a full tank of gas,” he says, staring through the office window at January. She’s perched on the hood of the Dodge, looking hotter than any of the calendar girls plastered on the walls. “Where the fuck did you find her, you lucky asshole?”
I smirk. “You don’t wanna know.”
“I’ve gotta get to Dreams again. Whatever she charges, I’ll pay double.”
“Then you’ll need two lives. January doesn’t work at Dreams, she belongs to Velvet House.”
Dave looks like all his nightmares have come true at once. “Fuck! Sorry, Doc.”
“I’ll be back this afternoon. Keep the Dodge safe.”
“On my life, Doc! I swear!”
I lead January to the shiny BMW and hold out my hand. “Gimme your phone.”
I expect her to whine, but the little lamb just hands it over. I love this new, uncaged January Whitehall. She’s so much brighter and less annoying. I slip her phone and mine into the faraday case and toss it in the back seat.
“Let’s go, Tits.”
“What’s the case for?” she asks, as we pull out of the lot.
“It blocks electromagnetic fields. Means people can’t track our phones.”
“People like Mr. Parker?”
I punch the church address into the car’s GPS. “People like Roberto Bassilotta.”
“Bobby? Why?”
“Because he’ll be tracking you like the hairy pervert he is. And I’m not having him fucking up our big day out.”
“Why don’t we just turn our phones off?”
“He can turn them on remotely, but there’s no way that slippery fucker’s getting through the faraday. We’ll get to your Zia’s funeral, Tits, don’t you worry about that.”
“Oh.” She slides her hand into mine. “Thank you, Doc.”
My heart goes all fluttery and I try to squeeze her fingers, but it’s like holding a block of ice for too long. I pull away. “We need to talk disguises. You can’t walk into the church looking like Tits McGee Whitehall.”
January purses her lips. “You know, you don’t have to be mean to me just because you’re stressed.”
I lift my fingernails to my mouth then force them away. If I’m feeling anything, it’s exposed, like she can see into my filthy head. “If you don’t watch your mouth, you’ll be feeling a lot of things. I don’t give a damn what Morelli and Basher have done, your ‘no sex’ rule doesn’t mean shit to me.”
She flushes but doesn’t say anything. I’m glad, but I also feel like a shitheel. I don’t want her to think I’d take her virginity in a stolen BMW on the way to her mother-figure’s funeral.
But it’s too late, I’ve already been the asshole. I always am. Like when I kicked the shit out of Baskerville at Dreams instead of holding her or threatening her by the pool when she was just trying to be nice about Alessia. After Parker’s dead, things will be better. I’ll have time to get a hold of my temper. I’ll be able to let January take my hand without thinking of the million and one ways I don’t deserve to have her like me.
Soon we arrive at the tiny tailor shop outside New York. I lead January around the exposed brick walls to where dozens of Italian wool suits and shirts hang beside rows of belts and racks of shiny leather wingtips.
“What is this place?” she asks.
“A friend of Morelli’s from the old country. We get a permanent discount on suits.”
The wizard who owns the place appears out of nowhere, clapping his gnarled hands. “Ciao, Mr. Valente,” he says in his heavily accented voice. “And you, bella. How are you?”
January lowers her head into what’s almost a curtsey. “Io sto bene signore, lei come sta?” I’m well, sir. How are you?
The old guy gets so excited to hear a hot girl speak Italian, his cock probably gets hard for the first time in years. I browse the suits as they make small talk, him nattering fluidly, her responses sweet and hesitant. I’m a little in awe. Usually, the old guy says only two words and they’re ‘hold still.’
Maybe Parker wasn’t the stupidest fuck in the world to try and marry her. She’s got that Jackie O thing, all pretty and polite and genuinely interested. And she’s got a body like Marilyn Monroe. JFK’s two girls in one.
If I get a chance, I’ll mention that to Parker before I choke the life out of him in Vegas. By tomorrow, I’ll know if Jessica—the cousin of one of my dancers—is able to sneak me into Palm Casino. If she is, I’ll fly to Vegas and tidy up this Parker thing before the contract’s signed.
I check my watch. Only two hours until the funeral, we need to hurry.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I tell the old guy. “But we gotta get moving. I need a black suit appropriate for a funeral and a dress and veil for her.”
The old man makes a spitting sound as he gestures to January. “You’d cover this magnificent face?”
“’Fraid so. Quick as you can, old man.”
Ten minutes later, we’re back in the BMW, me in a penguin suit, January in a tight black dress. In her lap is a hat with a thick veil. She touches the rim. “Won’t everyone think I’m a total freak wearing this?”
“Sure, but you’ll be a freak they can’t recognize and that’s the point.”
“But who will I be? What will I say if someone asks who I am?”
“You’ll shut up and leave it to me.” I catch a glint of gold between her fingers. “What’s that?”
She opens her hand to reveal her St. Christopher medallion. Something about it all small and gold in her palm makes my chest hurt. “Your Zia gave you that?”
“Yeah, I wish I could wear it.”
“So why don’t you?”
“I don’t have a chain.”
“Okay.” I look around. We’re driving through a dinky nothing town, but I can see an ancient pawn shop next to a box store. I pull over in a screech of tires. “Lemme have the medallion, I’ll get you a chain.”
She shakes her head. “Can I please… it needs to be me. Or at least I want it to be.”
I remember the tattoo gun in Naples. How Adriano was the only person I could stand drilling ink into me. After someone you love dies, you’re entitled to be weird about shit. I flip open the car locks. “Fine, but hurry. And don’t talk to anyone you don’t have to.”
January nods, taking a few hundred dollar bills out of her pink handbag. I smile to myself. That’s the cash I gave her, so it’ll still be me who buys her the chain.
A few minutes later, she slides back into the car.
“How’d it go?”
She shows me the medallion, now hanging from a thin gold chain. “It’s lovely.”
It’s not but looking at it makes my insides hurt all over again. I start the car. “Put it on and hide it under your clothes, Tits.”
She obeys, tucking the chain under her dress with a sigh, like some big burden has been lifted. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” I gesture to my lap. “I’ll take my payment now.”
She stares at me in horror, and I laugh. “What? You don’t wanna give me road head? My suit isn’t nice enough or something?”
She shoves my side. “You’re so gross!”
I laugh even harder. “It’s okay, Tits. You blow me later. I heard you’re pretty good at it.”
She flushes, no doubt thinking about her roll in the grass with Bobby. “I still can’t believe you guys talk about that stuff.”
“Believe it. How are you feeling about the funeral anyway? We’re not far.”
“I’m nervous, I guess.” January gives me a sidelong look. “I can tell you had a sister.”
The statement sucks the air right out of my lungs. I see Alessia, opening the oven, getting out tots. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, you’re all… cheeky, the way guys who have big sisters are.”
I snort. “Cheeky.”
“What was she like? Alessia?”
The bottom falls out of my brain. It’s so wrong to hear her say the name… yet part of me likes it. Part of me wants to talk about how funny and annoying and weird my big sister was, but my jaw feels wired shut.
“It’s okay,” January says quietly. “Maybe you can tell me some other time?”
“Maybe.”
To my relief she stops pressing and stares out of the window as Bowie sings around us. Anger prickles through me. She wants to get close but she’s yet to apologize to me for running away and I’m yet to forgive her. But at the same time, I want to talk to her.
Soon, I tell her in my brain. Let me kill Parker and tie you up and torture you for a while and then I’ll talk to you about Alessia.