I swallow hard, eyeing his hand. “Is that what happened there?”
“Some people like playing with fire.”
I can’t tell if he’s talking about himself or not. I shake my head and smooth back a loose lock of hair that fell out of my messy updo. “Sorry. None of my business.”
“Nah,” he says, setting down his fork and grabbing a few blocks from my creamer pyramid. “I’d rather you ask than keep staring at it and then pretend you’re not.”
“Shit,” I mutter, my face heating.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Everyone does it. You know, I used to be a big shot like the Dolces. Played football. Had all the girls. And not just the ones who like bad boys who smoke under the bleachers.” He gives me a lazy wink as he repeats my words.
“I’m pretty sure all girls like that. Even the ones who pretend they don’t.”
He shrugs. “They fucked up our family pretty bad, Harper. In one year, they systemically destroyed everything our fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers built over hundreds of years. You might not feel it on your side of town, but Faulkner’s different. The small-town America vibe isn’t quite the same when there’s mafia men running it.”
“Oh,” I say, remembering calling them the Sopranos. Maybe I wasn’t so far off. Not that Colt is an unbiased source. But still. It’s hard not to feel for the guy who lost so much. He’s right about me, though. On our side of town, we already had nothing to lose. How could we lose more? In some ways, maybe it’s better to be someone who never knew any different, who hungers for a way out, a taste of something more. A guy like Colt who had it all, he knows what it tastes like, and all he has left is the bitter aftertaste.
His eyes are hard with it as he goes on. “Sometimes I wish they’d just killed us all instead of letting us live to suffer, watching them strut around like kings, seeing them continue to chip away at everything this town stands for and infect it all with their rottenness.”
“Damn.”
“I’m not talking little shit, like getting me off the team. I’m talking about murder and mayhem, sick shit you can’t even imagine.”
“Sounds like my kind of fun,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.
“They got away with it, too,” he says. “Ruining people’s lives, their livelihoods. I guess we could have kept fighting. We did, for a while. But they were always just a little meaner, a little crazier. It was like, when they lost Crystal, they had nothing left to lose. We still cared about each other, about the town. They don’t care about anything. They ran us into the ground, humiliated us, destroyed our family. They paid off the cops if they came looking, paid off judges if things went to court, paid off the mayor to look the other way.” He shakes his head and wads up a napkin. “The mafia has endless pockets.”
“But you’re still rich.”
“Not that rich.” Colt lowers his voice and leans forward. “There are still Darling loyalists, though. Not everyone forgets their history when new money comes to town. We’re not done fighting. We might look beaten, but one day…”
I think of Mr. D wanting info on the Dolces. Now I’m sure it’s one of the Darlings, but I don’t think it’s Colt. Mr. D talked about the Midnight Swans, about the founding of the town, and how it had changed. I should be happy to do his bidding, to help him after what the Dolces did to him. And I do feel for Colt. But it still feels dirty. No one wants to be a snitch, and that’s exactly what he’s asking me to be.
I push the thoughts away, though. I don’t owe the Dolces anything. I owe Mr. D.
Colt has only made my job a whole lot easier. Why should I feel guilty about spying on some people who sound pretty damn evil? Helping Mr. D take down a family that destroyed his and is destroying this town isn’t a bad thing. I’m pretty sure Colt has no idea someone in his family is behind my inquiries, though.
I consider telling him, consider bringing him into this scheme to take back Faulkner, but when he reaches for his coffee with his scarred hand that’s missing the middle finger, the words die on my tongue. This isn’t a game. Or maybe it is, but it’s a dangerous one, and it’s not fair to involve him. He’s played with Dolce fire, and he’s been burned. He’s no longer a player in this game, and he probably doesn’t want to be. He might be bitter he lost, but he’s accepted his defeat.
“So… Now what?” I ask Colt, mopping up syrup with a forkful of fluffy pancake. “You’re the rebel who hangs out under the bleachers and runs an illegal fighting ring, and they’re the kings of the school?”
He nods. “They got what they wanted in the end—to destroy our family. I hope they’re fuckin’ happy.”
I think about that night at the tracks, about the look in Royal’s eyes when he had his hands around my neck and I couldn’t breathe. He looked capable of murder. He didn’t look happy about it, though. I shake my head and take another bite of the sticky sweet pancakes, washing it down with the bitterness of cheap, scorched coffee before answering. “I’ve never seen a dude who looks less happy than Royal Dolce.”
Colt shrugs. “They won the game, but they lost their sister.”
“Sounds like they lost her before they won the game.”
“If you’d met her, you’d know it wasn’t worth it. Not even to destroy the Darling legacy.”
“She must have been really something,” I say, finishing off my food and pushing the empty plate away.
Colt tosses some money down on the table without even counting it and stands. “She was.”
I’m surprised at the disappointment I feel that I won’t have an accomplice, and the twinge of sadness at his words. It’s not that I’m jealous of some dead girl I’ve never met. It’s more that I’m jealous of what she meant to someone—to a lot of people. Not just to her family, but to a guy whose family was destroyed by hers. If I was gone, not even my mother would mourn. She loves to tell me how much easier her life would be if I wasn’t around.
I try telling myself what I always do, that I don’t need anyone. Not my mother, not friends, not an accomplice. But a little voice inside whispers the truth—even if I don’t need them, I still want them.