“How could I not want you?” he asks, his voice almost choked. “You’re so fucking beautiful I’m scared to touch you. I don’t want to break you.”
“You won’t,” I whisper. “I’m not fragile. You won’t hurt me. You can only heal me.”
seventeen
King
“I’ve been researching the attack atJean-Jean,” Eliza says to me over dinner a week after the shooting. “I think I found something.”
“I talked to Little Al about it already,” I say, not liking her getting involved in the business side of things. “He’s looking into it, asking around.”
“Well, I have connections, too,” Eliza says, setting down her fork and lifting her chin to give me that stubborn look of hers that makes me want to fuck her into submission. Of course, pretty much everything makes me want to fuck her. She’s trying, but we haven’t progressed past making out yet.
“If people find out you’re sniffing around…” I start.
“Whoa,” she says, holding up a hand. “What do you take me for? I’ve been in the Life longer than you have. I’m not stupid.”
“I know,” I say. “But there’s no reason for you to get involved.”
“You think it was my family,” she says. “It’s too late not to get involved. If I can’t prove it’s not them, your uncle is going to kill my father. You expect me to sit back and let that happen?”
“No,” I say grudgingly. Truth is, she’s already involved. In this line of work, there’s no real way to keep her out of it. Sometimes the mafia will kill a man’s whole family just to make an example of him to others, to show them what could happen if they cross us. Still, the less she knows, the better.
“I know you want to protect me,” she says, laying a hand on mine. “But it’s too late for that. I’m not sheltered, King. I grew up around all this. You didn’t. Did you ever think maybe that’s why Al picked you?”
“What?” I ask, drawing back.
“I can help,” she says, her face earnest. “I’m part of this. I know you think you’re protecting me, but you’re just pushing me out. I’m an asset. Treat me like one.”
I just stare at her. I’m not trying to push her out. I just don’t want her killed. Al keeps telling me to use her knowledge, and I know she has plenty, but I can’t. I’ve already lost one person I love because I didn’t keep her out of this side of things. I won’t do it again.
“No,” I say. “No fucking way.”
Eliza threads her fingers through mine. “King. I know that you feel lost sometimes, that you’re frustrated about knowing less than everyone. Let me be your eyes. I grew up doing this shit. I know the families inside out. Don’t shut me out. I can help. Please let me.”
It’s true. I’m at a disadvantage in every fucking thing because I didn’t grow up here. I don’t know anyone outside Manhattan unless they’re related to me. Even my wife knows more about this than I do.
“I’m not going to put you in danger,” I say, picking up my fork and turning it in the overcooked spaghetti Eliza made in her first attempt at cooking dinner.
“Fine,” she says, going back to her food, too. “But reading the news is allowed, right?”
“Yes…”
“Well, dead men don’t talk, and you killed all the ones who attacked,” she says. “They haven’t released a couple names because the cops haven’t been able to get hold of their families. But the rest of them were on the news or in the obituaries.”
“Anyone on your dad’s payroll?”
“No,” she says. “They’re from the Bronx, though. Which means they should be either my dad’s men or Al’s. But they weren’t.”
I frown and push my plate away. “They’re not mafia?”
“Nope,” she says. “But it’s almost like they were chosen because they were from this area. Except if you look close enough, you can see that they were only born here. They’d all moved away.”
“Someone wants us to think they were Pomponio men?”
“Exactly,” she says, taking a sip of chianti. “It was a set-up. But not by my dad.”
“Then who were they?”