THREE
Anthea
As the cabcruised along the last few blocks before we reached the massive corner brownstone where the Rosanos lived, I gave my eyes several harsh rubs of my knuckles. It wasn’t hard to give the appearance that you’d recently been crying. I’d forgone makeup and accessories, wearing only a plain dress that was a little wrinkled as if I’d grabbed the closest thing on hand in my hurry to leave. The only luggage I’d brought with me along with my purse was a duffel bag stuffed with a similar apparent lack of care.
Everything was perfectly considered, of course, for the exact effect it’d create. I was walking into the lion’s den, and I intended to put on the best show I could to ensure that I walked back out with all my limbs intact. Maybe I’d even get to recover my dignity along the way.
The cab parked outside the house, and I pushed a few twenties into the driver’s hand before scrambling out, lugging my duffel with me. It wasn’t that heavy, but I also wanted to give the impression of frailty. Nothing threatening to see here. Just a distressed woman seeking sanctuary out of desperation.
I climbed the stone steps out front, as neatly swept as always, and pressed on the doorbell. The knocker, a bronze ornament that looked like an actual lion’s face, seemed to snarl at me as I waited for a response.
I used to find the knocker comforting when I was younger. Like it represented the forces that would protect me while I was within these walls. Now it stood for the men who might tear me apart like the beasts they were if I gave them the chance.
I kept my shoulders rounded, my head low. I didn’t know the details of all the Rosanos’ current security measures, but chances were good they had a security camera monitoring the front step. My act had to be comprehensive. Even when I was in the supposed privacy of a bedroom or bathroom, I wouldn’t be able to let down my guard.
It took a full minute. I was about to jab the bell again when the door sighed open. A musclebound man I didn’t recognize peered at me from the front hall, his beady eyes narrowed beneath tufts of reddish-blond hair.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
Such a friendly welcome. I couldn’t tell whether he had any idea who I was, but it was easiest to assume no.
I dragged in a breath, purposefully shaky. “I need to talk to Marcel Rosano. My—my father was friends with him, before he died. Abram Noble? I used to come here for a couple weeks in the summers… I didn’t know where else to go.”
The man’s skeptical expression didn’t shift. Then his head twitched, and I noticed the bud in his ear—a microphone. He was getting orders from someone.
We were definitely under surveillance.
The lackey waved me inside. The second the door had closed behind me, he motioned for me to hold up my arms. I set down my bag and did so, tolerating the shame of being patted down like a criminal. I’d expected as much.
The guy unzipped my bag and pawed through it, but of course I hadn’t concealed anything in a way the average or even above average person would notice. With a huff, he closed it again and pushed it toward me with his heel. “All right. I’ll bring you to Marcel. No funny business.”
“Humor isn’t really my forte,” I said, deadpan, as if I hadn’t understood what he meant. He scowled but managed not to aim his dour expression at me.
Someone had told him I was more important than a gang groupie or maid. Was Marcel Rosano himself on the other end of that earpiece? That would suggest this underling wasn’t all that far beneath the man in charge. I’d better keep an eye on him.
He marched me up the curved grand staircase and down the second-floor hall over the same thick, navy runner that’d covered it seven years ago. The route was achingly familiar, mingling nostalgia with regret.
Dad and I had always walked this path to greet Marcel and his sons when he’d drop me off for my summer stay.A chance to broaden your horizons and get a sense of the scope of our connections, he’d told me. I did wonder if Ezra was right—if it’d always been about the hope of solidifying the friendship and business alliance with a marriage.
That would make sense. Dad had clearly never seen me as more than a bargaining chip. It’d never occurred to him that I might be of value to the business in any way except by bringing a man on board.
Just for an instant, I wondered what would have happened if I really had run five years ago when he’d announced my impending nuptials. If I’d rushed to this same house under similar pretenses to now, only those pretenses would have been true.
I already knew the answer, though. Marcelhadbeen friends with Dad. He’d have sent me back without a second thought. It wasn’t as if the Rosano brothers would have spoken up for me either. They’d already gotten everything they wanted from me two years before.
Would they be with him now, waiting to inspect me and see how much worse for wear I’d come out of my marriage? Eager to confirm that they hadn’t missed out on anything worthwhile?
My teeth gritted, and I forced my jaw to relax. As much as I might have longed to stab each of the three of them—in the gut, angled to just the right spot so it’d be a slow and painful but inevitable death—I had a job to do here. And there were things more painful than dying.
I should know.
We stopped outside the room Marcel still used as his office. My escort poked his head inside, and a gruff baritone I immediately recognized said, “Just bring her in, Griffin. She’s a girl, not an assassin.”
Oh, he really didn’t know me as well as he thought he did.
The lackey let out a faint huff and prodded me through the doorway, following behind me. As I went to stand in front of the gleaming white desk where the head of the Hell Kickers gang was sitting, Griffin positioned himself next to the older man’s chair.
It was only the three of us in the room, a realization that gave me a rush of relief. I could face his sons, but it’d have been harder dealing with everything at once. This way I could focus on the boss while I gave my pitch.