SWNOVELS Sinners Condemned : Chapter 24
I miss about Atlantic City.” I set my cell on the bathroom counter and drag a brush through my hair with a shaky hand. “But nothing…big, you know? The salmon and cream cheese bagel from that little cafe on the pier. The passion fruit martinis at Ronnie’s bar. Um…what else…”
I pick up my phone and carry it into the bedroom, holding it up to my mouth while I rifle through my closet. I pick out a pair of jeans and a sweater, then drop my cell on the bed to change. As it bounces off the mattress, I get a glimpse at the call time and balk. Jesus. I’ve been on the line to Sinners Anonymous for forty-five minutes. Talking utter shit, simply to fill my empty apartment with something other than my own nervous energy.
Every bone in my body hums from the aftermath of last night. The ghost of textured wool still caresses the space between my thighs. Soft commands in strangled tones still nip at the shells of my ears. And every time I look at one of my stark white walls, the image of Raphael’s inked skin flashes against them.
My nerves are tinged with something…odd. Something that toes the line between unease and defeat. I called Raphael’s bluff and gave him a lap dance, so why don’t I feel like I beat him at his own game?
Bringing myself to orgasm like a fucking rabid animal against the front fold of his slacks might have something to do with it. Or, you know, the fact that I fell asleep in his passenger seat.
My cheeks heat for the millionth time today. Why can’t I repress last night like I can with all my other problems? The fear of being caught by Martin O’Hare barely rears its ugly head. Raphael Visconti, from his sharp suit to his hidden ink to his stupid collar pin: he fills every cubic square meter of my conscience, to the point I might burst at the seams.
Biting out a noise of frustration, I cross the room and peer out the window, taking in the empty street below.
“Doing nothing all day was torture. I’m also not working tonight and I have no plans,” I tell the hotline. “Matt’s coaching his hockey team, Rory’s got a flying lesson, Tayce is working, and so is Wren. Well, I suppose I could go down and see Wren at the Rusty Anchor…”
Earlier, I almost told the hotline about Raphael, but something stopped me. I guess growing up with the line makes the robotic woman on the other end of it feel more like a childhood friend. I don’t want to pollute her with sordid tales of lap dances and dry-humping. So, I keep it superficial.
Beep beep. Beep beep.
I frown, squint at my cell, and realize I’ve got an incoming call from Laurie.
Shit. Heart skipping a beat, I stab the ‘switch lines’ button. “Yeah?”
An easy chuckle floats down the line. “Relax, hun. I’m not firing you quite yet. Actually, I was calling to see if you can come in today? I know it’s late notice but there’s a super intimate meeting onboard and—”
“Yes! Yes, I’m free.”
“Jeez, that was easy. Usually, I have to bribe people with double pay before I can get them to agree to come in on their days off.”
Dammit. I’m about to backpedal when my gaze flicks to the mountain of money on my dresser. It’s more than I’ve seen in my life.
She tells me the staff shuttle craft will be waiting for me in an hour and hangs up.
An hour later, I’m being hoisted off the small boat by a heavy-handed Blake. By the wink he flashes me as his grip slides off my hip, he hasn’t realized I stole his wallet yet, or that it’s a very real possibility I’ll shove him overboard if he continues to wolf whistle every time I walk away from him.
I make a stop at the locker room to get rid of my shoes and coat, then follow Laurie’s earlier instructions to head to the bar on the sky deck. It’s only me and one other bartender today, so either barely anyone at this meeting drinks, or they’re super low maintenance. Somehow, I highly doubt either is true.
As I reach the top of the stairs, I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes at the sight of Blake. Again. Christ, all of Raphael’s men are idiots in one shape or form, but this one really is the biggest dunce of them all. Why is he everywhere? He’s guarding the sky lounge along with a bald-headed lackey who doesn’t talk much, and when I shove past without so much as a smile, I’m treated to another wolf-whistle.
It stiffens my back and makes white heat spark in my fist. “I’m not a fucking dog,” I hiss.
“Bet you fuck like one, though,” he mutters back.
Baldy snorts.
Glaring at the gold doorknob, I suck in a lungful of air and wait for the red mist to fade. Gone straight. Gone straight. Gone straight.
Fury cooling to a simmer, I roll my shoulders back and shove into the lounge.
The door is lighter than I think, so it crashes against the back wall and I wince. When I pop my eyes open, I slow to a stop.
Oh, shit.
I didn’t realize it was happening in here; it’s a smaller room off the sky lounge. But it makes sense, because it only consists of three people, a deck of cards, and a box of Cuba’s finest.
And a very loud Irish accent. It belongs to a cherub-looking man with a gray buzz-cut and piercing blue eyes. But there’s nothing angelic about his voice: he’s obnoxious, and every other word that slides through his mouth is a curse. All three pairs of eyes come to me, but I train my gaze on my toes and scurry along the wall until I reach the safety of the bar behind another set of doors. I open this one a lot more gently, and turn to catch it before it slams shut behind me.
In the narrowing gap, I meet Raphael’s amused gaze.
I smile sheepishly.
He winks.
Christ. Spinning off-kilter, I shut the door and drop my head against it, waiting for my blood to simmer down to a more appropriate temperature. I was so eager to get out of the apartment that I opted to do overtime without thinking of the consequences: seeing Raphael after that.
“Surprise!” A feminine trill makes my eyes pop open. Rory is sitting on a bar stool grinning at me. She’s wearing a khaki fly suit unzipped to her waist and a white T-shirt underneath.
I break into a smile. “What are you doing here?”
“Angelo’s got a meeting with Rafe and some old dude. Found out you were working so I decided to cut my flying lesson short and keep you company.” She cranes her neck to peer into the storage room, then whispers theatrically as she taps the deck of cards on the bar. Waves her notepad around. “I’ve been practicing!”
I didn’t even realize Angelo was here, I was so distracted by a loud Irish accent and the heat of Raphael’s wink. I bite out a laugh, slipping behind the bar. “I hope you’ve been practicing in private.”
“Oh, of course. Angelo thinks I’ve got a sudden obsession with gardening because I’ve been hiding in the shed.” She snaps the deck with a roll of her eyes. “What grows in winter, seriously? Oh, by the way, what are you doing Saturday night? There’s a game night in Hollow; you should come and watch me beat Rafe.”
Before I can respond, a man breezes out of the storage room, face hidden behind the crate of beer in his arms. He sets it on the floor, returns to his full height, and does a double-take at me.
“Jesus. Am I seeing a ghost?”
It takes me a few seconds to realize who it is: Dan.
As in, Dan, pass me the hammer.
“I’m very much alive,” I say dryly. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I usually work at the Rusty Anchor, but I moonlight as Rafe’s personal bartender.” He hitches a shoulder and grins. “He calls, I come.”
I have to grit my teeth to prevent an eye roll. Having a personal bartender only solidifies his status as the most pretentious asshole of the year.
Dan starts unloading beers into the fridge, chuckling to himself. “Can’t believe Rafe chased you with a hammer.”
Rory’s gasp feels hot against the shells of my ears.
“Yeah, and can’t I believe you handed it to him.”
“Hey, what the boss wants, the boss gets.”
“Okay, someone’s gotta fill me in,” Rory says, a breathless excitement to her tone. “What are you going on about?”
“She swindled Rafe out of his watch at the Blue’s Den in Devil’s Cove. It was wild.”
Rory’s eyes slide to mine then down the watch on my wrist. To be honest, it looks ridiculous on me. It’s far too big and even on the tightest notch, the face constantly slides around to my pulse. I don’t know why I keep swiping it off my dresser and putting it on every morning. I pull my arm off the bar and put it behind me, feeling defensive.
“What do you mean, swindled?” she whispers.
“Not swindled. We played a game, and I won his watch.”
“You won his watch,” she repeats, all-knowing mischief filling her gaze. “And now you’re wearing it.”
“And now I’m wearing it.” I scowl back.
She opens her mouth, then closes it just as quick. She goes back to scribbling on her notepad, a smirk lifting her lips.
Click.
The sound of the door opening travels down my spine. Rory’s head snaps up, and in a panic, she scoops the playing cards and the notepad to her chest and slides off the stool. “Gotta make a phone call,” she mutters, before diving out the terrace doors.
Raphael’s bemused gaze follows her, before coming to me. I smooth down my dress and give my best attempt at not looking flustered. Dan, on the other hand, is as easy as a Sunday morning. “What’s up, boss? What can I get you?”
Raphael continues to stare at me for another beat, before sliding up to the bar and giving Dan his full attention. “Two whiskeys and a water that looks like whiskey.” He runs a hand over his ticking jaw. “Think Kelly’s been mixing his liquor with Benzo’s again.”
“On it, boss.”
Dan disappears into the storage room, leaving me to bear the brunt of Raphael’s attention all on my own. It’s crazy that in the darkness of his car, high off his heat, I craved his gaze, yet in the sober light of day, it makes me want to crawl under a rock.
He looks down at my chest with a hint of disapproval. “No new uniform yet?”
“Laurie said it’s coming in tomorrow.”
He gives a tight nod and glances at a message that pops up on his cell screen.
Silence swirls us like a storm, me coming on his thigh and then falling asleep in his car for over six hours at the eye of it. I grab a rag and busy myself with wiping up imaginary spillages on the oak-clad bar, trying to ignore the sudden disappointment closing in on me.
I don’t know… In the cold sunlight streaming through the windows, Raphael oozes corporate perfection. Fresh shave, pinstripe suit, shoes so shiny they reflect my glum expression.
Last night, he was a whole different man. Soaked in rainwater, his ink shone through his shirt as if they were his true colors. Being around that man gave me a different kind of thrill. It felt like he’d let me in on his dirty little secret. But this man is what he broadcasts to everyone else in the world. And for some reason, I don’t like being lumped with everyone else.
His cell locks shut and he looks up at me through a half-lidded gaze.
“Did you sleep well last night?”
A simple question, but a wave of relief coasts through me so fast, I feel a little dizzy. At least I know it wasn’t a fever dream.
Of course, I don’t let it show on my face.
“Eh. Could have been better.”
His lips tilt. “Yeah? How come?”
“No pillow, and the blanket was only a blazer. If your car was an AirBnb, I’d give it a four-star rating.” I tap my lip in thought. “No—three and a half.”
“Why’d you knock off the half-star?”
“There was also this creepy man staring at me all night.”
He laughs a beautiful, raw laugh, and a rush sweeps through me knowing I’m the reason for it.
When the lines of his face settle back to neutral, I search it unashamedly. His eyes are bloodshot, and dark circles shade the undersides of them.
“Big meeting?”
“Mm.”
“You look tired. Didn’t sleep?”
He leans over the bar, warming me with his body heat. My breathing shallows. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Seems I was too busy being a creepy man and staring at a beautiful girl all night.”
My embarrassment is written all over my face in different shades of red. He huffs out a laugh and throws me another wink.
Christ, he’s charming when he wants to be. Even though I know what’s underneath, I could see myself being a little fooled.
Dan comes out with a tray of whiskeys and sets one slightly aside from the rest. Raphael raps his knuckle against the bar and returns to his full height. “Penelope, bring them in for me.”
And with that, he breezes through the door, leaving the absence of please in his wake.
Dan doesn’t say anything, just watches me with pursed lips as I clumsily take the tray through to the lounge.
Inside, the air is thicker than it was when I first walked through, partly due to cigar smoke hanging above the coffee table, and partly because of the cards splayed out on its surface.
Immediately, I recognize the layout to be this Visconti Blackjack they all play here, and a conditioned zap of adrenaline crackles through my core. Past life, Penelope. Past life.
My present life involves serving those at the table instead of sitting around it. I set a glass next to Angelo. His gaze slides to the watch on my wrist then up to me, something unreadable flickering in its depths. My heart lurches but he doesn’t say anything.
I move to Raphael’s side of the table. He doesn’t acknowledge me, but still, my arm crackles as it brushes against the sleeve of his suit. Then, without a break in his stoic expression, his hand glides up the back of my thigh and comes to the hem of my skirt.
He pulls downward.
I stifle a gasp. Angelo snaps out a card from the shoe and tosses it on the pile.
Queen of Hearts.
Raphael folds.
He huffs out a breath and settles back into his armchair.
Shaky from the unexpected skirt grab, I set down the Irish man’s drink a little too hard. He winces then turns to me with wild eyes. Something warm floods through them, and he shifts in his seat to get closer.
“Hit or stand, Princess?”
My jaw ticks at the nickname, but I can’t stop my eyes from gliding to the table anyway. Only a quick sweep at the dealt cards tells me he should stand—there are too many low-value cards already played—but I clamp my mouth shut and plaster on a smile. “How would I know? I’m just a silly little Princess.”
His laugh melts into a thick silence. Even with unfocused eyes and a reckless sway to his movements, there’s something in his gaze that makes unease trickle down my spine like syrup. I move to get away from him, but he’s quicker than he looks. His hand shoots out and grips my wrist.
Three pairs of eyes, including my own, glare down at it. In my peripheral vision, Raphael leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
Tips. Think of the tips. “Penny.”
Again, another laugh. One too loud for a three-person meeting. “That’s a very lucky name. What’s that expression again? Find a Penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck? Although, red-heads aren’t very lucky on boats, are they?”
“Uh-huh,” I say dryly, silently recoiling at the old adage that haunted my childhood. I tear my arm away, but his hand reaches for my necklace. He strokes the four-leaf clover pendant, expression curious.
“Kelly,” Rafe says, too calm for comfort.
“You’ve got the luck of the Irish,” Kelly murmurs, ignoring the way Raphael delivers his name in a silk-clad warning. “You got any Irish in you, sweetheart?”
“Nope.”
“Would you like to have Irish in you?”
Raphael’s on his feet, but I’m quicker, leaning in and hissing in Kelly’s face. “If you don’t remove your hand from me right now, I’ll bite it.”
He stares at me for long, awkward seconds. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticks. Raphael’s gaze scalds my cheek. Angelo clears his throat.
Eventually, with a shit-eating smile creeping onto his thin lips, he releases me.
But not without a parting word. One I know is meant for my ears only.
“I knew it was you.”
I blink, and then the dread hits. It’s lazy, seeping into my veins hot and sticky, deadening my limbs. It pools in my chest and slows my heart rate; fills my lungs.
Knew it was you.
Numb, I stand to my full height and glance at Raphael. He’s poised but his eyes are on me, simmering with unadulterated rage. Still reclining in his armchair, Angelo says something in clipped Italian, and with a slow roll of his head, Raphael begrudgingly sinks back to his seat.
I wade toward the bar, swimming through words filled with arrogance and amusement. “I was kidding,” I hear behind me. “But how about we up these stakes a little…”
I slam the door shut with the heel of my foot and press my back against it. Rory’s nowhere to be seen, but on the other side of the bar, Dan stops twisting a rag in a glass and cocks a brow at me. “Kelly really that bad?”
When I shake my head, the words I knew it was you rattle around in it. I don’t recognize him, but even in his fucked-up state, it seemed like he recognized me.
Unless I imagined it? He said it so quietly, so slurred, that he could have said anything. But there’s one niggling observation that makes his words impossible to dismiss.
He’s Irish.
Martin O’Hare’s Irish.
No. That’d be terribly unlucky of me. Wouldn’t it?
With nerves racking through my body like a freight train, I nod and agree in all the right places as Dan takes me through the signature cocktail of the week—passion fruit martini—and rambles on about the snacks in the crew mess: salmon and cream cheese bagels.
I couldn’t give a flying fuck about cocktails or food, and my cheeks ache from holding up a plastic smile.
When the phone rings behind the bar, I jump out of my skin.
“Yes?” I breathe down the line.
Raphael’s voice comes smooth and somber. “Tell Dan to bring a water, no ice.” He pauses. “Penelope?” I clutch the receiver tighter, my shoulders bracing for impact. “Dan. Not you.”
He hangs up.
“Was that the boss?” Dan asks, tone too chipper for my frazzled state.
I nod, scrambling for a glass and filling it up with water. Why Dan? Why not me? Christ, my mouth is watering in suspense.
Maybe I do recognize him, and I just wasn’t looking at him properly.
There’s only one way to find out.
I slide the water on a tray and stomp into the sky lounge. Now, the air is thick from something other than cigar smoke and lighthearted competition. My gaze sweeps over the back of Kelly’s head to Angelo’s stony expression, then locks on Raphael. His eyes simmer with a cool green fury that suggests I’m in deep shit for disobeying his request, but right now, I don’t fucking care. I drop the glass on Kelly’s side of the table and glare at his profile.
No, I definitely don’t recognize him.
He rolls his head on his neck to give me a smarmy smile. “Would you deal, Princess?”
I blink. Shift my gaze to the cards in front of him. He’s playing the last hand of the game; there’s a pile of discarded cards on the table, and only one card left in the shoe.
I don’t know why it slides out of my mouth. Maybe it’s because I want to keep him looking at me for longer, so I can truly study his face and see if I recognize him. Or maybe, it’s because I’m a fucking idiot.
“Depends if you’re playing the ace as a high or low value card,” I whisper.
A second passes like the beat of a drum.
Raphael rubs the bridge of his nose. Angelo lets out a slow breath. And Kelly’s resounding chuckle reverberates in the hollow of my chest. “Deal.”
Raking a cautious eye over Raphael, Angelo plucks the last card from the shoe and flicks it on the table.
Ace of spades.
It’s so quiet I can hear the tick of Raphael’s Breitling on my wrist. The whir of the blender going on the other side of the door. How can Dan make passion fruit martinis at a time like this?
I look to Raphael for an answer, which is stupid, because I don’t even know the question. Head dipped between his shoulder blades, he slowly drags his gaze up to me, and I don’t like what I see in it.
It’s soft. At odds with the suffocating tension pressing against the four walls of the room. When it drops to the pendant around my neck, it hardens with resolve.
“Penelope.”
“Yes?” I whisper back.
“Tell me what the weather is like today.”
I blink. I couldn’t cut the air in here even if I had an obsidian knife, and he’s worried about the weather? “What?”
As if trying to convey something calming with his eyes, he nods to the French doors behind me. “Look out the window, and tell me what the weather is like.”
After a breathless second, I do as I’m told. My gait is clumsy as I make my way to the glass and press a sweaty hand against its cold surface.
I swallow. “Well, uh. It’s cloudy, but I don’t think it’ll r—”
My forecast is sliced in half by a sound I’d know anywhere. It’s a sound I’ve heard before, twice, as it took the lives of both my dead-beat parents.
Bang.
The gunshot reverberates off the walls and rings in my ears. Everything stops—my words, the time, my pulse.
“Penelope?” I latch on to the tranquility in Raphael’s voice like a life-line. “Don’t turn around. Just open the door and take a walk.”
I follow the calm voice. Slide the door open with trembling fingers and step outside.
I suck in a lungful of icy wind and tilt my head to the sky.
You know, maybe it’ll rain today after all.