The setup was simple, but Zico and I still went over it every night for three nights to ensure we had thought of everything.
“So, Gary will be meeting on the far edge of the city on which dates?” Zico asked, running a finger over his notes, wanting to ensure, for what felt like the hundredth time, that we had the same information.
“The third, thirteenth, and twenty-third,” I said, double-checking my spreadsheet. “And who is he meeting with again?”
Zico looked at me, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You’re joking, right?”
“I mean, I know who he is meeting with, but I can’t remember their name,” I said. “They are your rivals, but who are they?”
He sighed. “For the last time, they are not our rivals. And they are the Marino family.”
“Marino. Marino. Marino.” I repeated it three times out loud and countless times in my head, wanting to engrave it in my brain. “It doesn’t matter if I forget their name though, does it?”
Zico shook his head. “Not really, I suppose. The more in the dark you are, the better. You need to be shocked by the discovery that Gary is working with mafia families. We want you to look as innocent as possible.”
“Right. I would not do well in prison, I don’t think.”
Zico smiled and leaned over to kiss me. “I don’t think so, either. A pretty face like that in prison? What a waste.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but my heart fluttered in my chest. “So, you will take care of everything from here, then?”
Zico nodded. “Yes, you’ve done more than enough. Now it is my turn to pick up the slack.”
“Which date are we going to bust him?” I asked.
“I’m not going to tell you.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because the more surprised you seem by it all, the more realistic it will seem,” he said, looking at me, his green eyes serious. “If Gary or any of the cops there suspect that you may have been involved in Gary’s arrest, it could be really bad news for you.”
“I don’t understand why. I’m doing my job; I’m catching a criminal.”
“No,” Zico said, “you’re catching a cop. They like to look out for one another, and if anyone suspects you may have ratted on your partner, you’ll be a pariah.”
“A pariah?” I said, eyebrows raised.
“You’ll be ostracized, an outcast.”
“I know what it means. I’m just surprised you do.”
“You should really stop underestimating me,” he replied. “Despite what you may have heard, us mafia guys went to school as well. I ain’t no dummy.”
“I sure hope not,” I said, winking at him. “Because if you are, I just entrusted my entire career to a total dummy.”
# # #
Going to work was suddenly very tense. Before, I’d been in reconnaissance mode. I was gathering information and clues, and it was enough to distract me from the reality of what I was doing. Now, though, we had all of the information we needed, and all I could do was wait it out.
Zico refused to tell me which of the three dates the ambush would happen on, so I just had to continue going to work as if nothing unusual was going on, as if I wasn’t about to get my partner fired from his job.
I wondered who my new partner would be and whether Sergeant Hale would make me move offices. Gary had been on the force for a long time, so he had a really nice office. I didn’t want to be partnered with another newbie and shoved down in the basement.
“Grasso, what’s up with you?”
Gary’s voice pulled me from my thoughts, and for a brief second, I was worried he had read my mind. Of course, I knew that was ridiculous, so I composed myself as quickly as I could, and turned to him.
“Just a case of the Mondays,” I said.
“Rough weekend? Or was it a good weekend and now it’s especially hard to be stuck in this teeny office?”
I felt myself blush slightly, remembering how Zico and I had spent Saturday night and Sunday morning… and Sunday night.
“The latter,” I replied.
“Well, only four more days left before the next weekend,” he said, laughing.
Don’t be nice to me, I thought. It’s too late for that. Don’t joke with me and be my friend. You’re a criminal. These words echoed in my head over and over. I tried to commit them to heart. No matter how nice Gary was being to me today, he deserved to be caught. He deserved whatever was coming his way.
“Do you have any plans this weekend?” he asked.
“This weekend?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “That is what I meant when I said ‘this weekend.’ ”
“Oh. Uhmm… no. No plans.”
The real answer was much more complicated. Zico and I had taken to spending most weekends holed up in my apartment under the pretense of plotting Gary’s capture. However, by the end of the night, we were surrounded by takeout packages and were typically in a state of undress trying to burn off those calories the best way we knew how. Of course, I couldn’t say any of that to Gary.
He nodded a few times, his lips flattening into a straight line. Then, he spoke, his words coming out all at once in a jumble. “Maybe you’d want to get a drink or something?”
He’d spoken so quickly, and I was so surprised by it, that my brain didn’t comprehend what he’d actually said.
“What?” I asked, swiveling my chair to face him, my head turned to the side.
Gary’s face was red and splotchy. It looked like he’d been out in the sun too long. He took a deep breath and tried again.
“Maybe you’d want to go with me and grab a drink somewhere?”
Though he’d slowed it down considerably, I still couldn’t understand what he was saying. Did he want to go grab drinks after work? Or as friends? Or did he want a date? And regardless of which of those he intended, I still had no idea how to answer the question.
Zico’s face popped up in the back of my mind. Though he wasn’t my boyfriend by any means, it still felt wrong to go on a date. And even if Gary just wanted to grab drinks as friends, we weren’t friends! He didn’t know that, of course, but I did, and if I spent any more time with him than I already did at work, I was certain to crack under the pressure. I’d say or do something stupid and reveal the entire plan. All of my hard work would be for nothing, and Gary would certainly see to it that work was miserable, if he couldn’t manage to swing having me fired.
“Uhmm,” I stammered, scrambling for an excuse. I wracked my brain, but nothing came. I’d already told him I wasn’t busy, so now this was a simple yes or no question, but still, I couldn’t respond. “I’m not sure.”
Gary’s face fell, and I realized that he’d intended it as a date. No one looked that disappointed when their friend couldn’t hang out. No, the face he was making was reserved for the moment when you were turned down by someone you were interested in. I bounced back and forth between being flattered and horrified.
“No worries,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”
He said that, but we spent the remainder of the afternoon in a tense, awkward silence. Gary even left thirty minutes early, claiming he had a doctor’s appointment.
“You turned him down?” Zico asked, his green eyes wide and staring at me as if I were the dumbest person on planet earth. We’d just finished eating takeout from the Thai place down the road, and were two episodes into season one of Lost when I told him about Gary’s date proposal.
“Of course I did!” I shouted. “Did you expect me to say yes?”
Zico ran a hand down his face. “No, but you could have at least come up with an excuse. You just straight up told him ‘no.’ That’s harsh, and it is not going to make your next few weeks of work easy.”
“Technically,” I said, lifting a finger in the air. “I told him, ‘I don’t know.’”
Zico shook his head. “That’s worse.”
“How?!”
“Because it means that not only are you stunningly gorgeous, but you are too nice to flat-out refuse him. It makes you more likable.”
I heard what he said, but two words stuck out in my brain. “Stunningly gorgeous?”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t act like you don’t know how attractive you are. Obviously, you are beautiful. You even got Mr. Scrooge to show an interest in you. That’s an impressive feat.”
I tried to hide my smile but failed when I looked up, and he winked at me.
I shook my head, trying to refocus. “So, should I tell him I want to go?”
Zico groaned, and stretched out on the couch, laying his head in my lap. “Yes, but I really don’t want you to.”
“Why not? Just a second ago you were mad at me for turning him down.”
“No, I was mad at you for the way you turned him down. There is a difference,” he said. “But at this point, the damage has been done, and the only way to repair it is to have a drink with the guy.”
“You want me to go on a date with Gary?”
“No.” Zico looked up at me, his face oddly vulnerable at such an unusual angle. “I want you to go on a date with me. I want you to have a drink with Gary.”
I wanted to go on a date with Zico. I really did. But I also had to consider how that would look, especially after we busted Gary for dealing with the mafia. What would people think if Gary’s partner was suddenly dating the younger brother of the head of the Brancati crime ring? I wasn’t sure what to say, but that didn’t seem to matter. Zico was already moving on.
“Just tell him that you decided a drink would be fine. Go out, talk to him, be nice. But not too nice,” he warned, his eyebrows furrowing.
“What constitutes as ‘too nice?’” I asked.
Zico lifted himself off the couch, and slid to the floor, nestling himself between my knees. “Every single thing that is going to happen in the next hour is ‘too nice,’ ” he said, his smile devious and heart-stopping.
He unbuttoned my jeans, and I leaned back on the couch, wondering—between moans—whether there was any world in which Zico and I could have a future.
# # #
“This place is nicer than I thought it’d be,” Gary said, leaning in to speak over the sound of the live band. “I might be underdressed.”
“No way, you look great,” I said. Though, truthfully, he was right.
His dark wash jeans and steel gray button down were gym clothes compared to the guys sitting around us in ties and blazers. Luckily, I’d looked up the cocktail bar as soon as Gary had told me where we’d be going, so I came prepared in a black cocktail dress, a black lace shawl, and heels. I’d originally been wearing only the dress and my red pumps, but when Zico saw me, he said I looked like I was asking for it.
“What if I am?” I said, jokingly, which had only resulted in me needing to re-curl the back of my hair and being ten minutes late to meet Gary.
The bar was definitely nice, easily one of the nicest date spots I’d ever been taken to. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling in intervals, casting the room in a golden, romantic glow, and every table was a mismatch of velvet and delicately carved wooden chairs, which rather than looking tacky and eclectic, looked chic and modern.
The jazz band positioned in the corner gave the entire place a vintage feel, as if we’d stepped into a piece of history. If I’d been there with anyone else, it would have been easy to find myself completely swept off my feet.
“I’m glad you changed your mind,” Gary said, being unusually vulnerable. I was used to him being curt and short; never saying more than he had to and never ever showing his hand. His honesty was endearing. He wanted me to know how excited he was to be out with me.
“So am I,” I replied, nearly shouting so he’d hear me over the sound of the soloing saxophonist.
Gary smiled at me, and I tried to remember whether I’d ever seen his teeth before. I honestly couldn’t remember a time that I’d seen him smile with his whole face. It was actually quite shocking.
“How’s your Manhattan?” he asked, pointing to my glass.
It was still almost entirely full. I wanted to remain clear-headed throughout the night, lest I get a little too drunk and let any sensitive information slip.
“It’s great.” I picked it up and took a sip. “And your Old Fashioned?”
“Delicious,” he said, gesturing to his empty glass. “I’m actually going to order another. Do you want anything?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
He winked at me and then waved over the waitress. The woman was tall, leggy, and wearing a black knee-length skirt with a white blouse tucked in. She was any girl’s worst nightmare. Even in her uniform, she looked better than half the women in the room. Still, Gary barely looked at her. He stared at me while he ordered, a coy smile pulling at the side of his mouth.
I met his eyes, but quickly shifted my gaze back to my drink. How long had Gary liked me? Had it been from day one? Even when he was surly and mean and quick to insult me? Or had it happened over time? Gradually? Perhaps after I hadn’t turned him in for working with the mafia? Or maybe when we went with Johnson and his wife to the baseball game?
I wanted to ask him but knew I never would. Not only would it be embarrassing, but it would hint that I was potentially interested in him. Which I, in fact, was not. Also, what was the protocol on partners dating? Surely there was a rule against it, right? It wasn’t as if Gary cared about the rules, though.
Then, a thought occurred to me that hadn’t before. What if Gary suspected I was going to turn him in? What if he sensed my disloyalty? I had proof he was a dirty cop, but was he dirty enough to hurt someone who threatened his business dealings? Was I in danger?
Suddenly, the entire night took on an ominous tone. Before, it had merely been awkward, but now I had even more reason to wish for the time to pass more quickly. Zico said I had to stay for at least an hour and a half for it to constitute as a proper date. So far, it had only been half an hour.
The waitress left, and Gary turned back to me, his head resting in his hand. “I know this was probably a rather large surprise to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly the most welcoming partner,” he said, giving me an embarrassed, knowing smile. “I know I was a bit hard on you at the start, but I want you to know that my attitude wasn’t about you or towards you in any way. I was under a lot of stress.”
“I understand,” I replied, though I actually didn’t know what he meant. Was his stress work related? Personal? Because of the mafia?
He took a large gulp of his cocktail and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Yeah, I had just gotten out of a rather long relationship, and, if we’re being honest…”
He paused, and I understood he was asking me whether he could be open and honest with me. As much as I wanted to tell him to keep his private life to himself, I nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“If we’re being honest with one another, my ex looked a lot like you. Well, she looks a lot like you,” he said, laughing. “Just because we aren’t dating doesn’t mean she has ceased to exist, no matter how hard I may have wished for just that.”
Under different circumstances, the joke may have been funny, harmless. But with his ties to the mafia and my morally precarious position between the force and the Brancatis, his joke sounded more like a threat of violence. Against another woman, sure, but still. What would he be willing to do to me if I embarrassed him? If I refused his advances?
“Oh, really?” I said, not knowing what else to say.
I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want to know about Gary’s home life or his family or his relationships. I didn’t want to know what he did outside of work hours or where he hung out. All I wanted to know about Gary was that he’d taken the same oath I had to protect and serve, yet he was doing under the table deals with crime families all over the city. That was the only pertinent information I needed to know about Gary.
“Yeah. So, when you waltzed in, and the sergeant announced you’d be my partner, I was less than thrilled. Again, it had nothing to do with you, but everything to do with my lousy ex. She cheated on me before she ended things. Can you believe that?”
I shook my head, feeling like a hostage, saying whatever I needed to say to keep my captor happy.
“We weren’t married or engaged or anything, but a relationship is like a vow, and cheating is going back on that vow,” he said.
If he hadn’t been staring at me so hard, I might have smirked at his comment. He’d taken a vow of his own. He swore to protect and uphold the law, yet that hadn’t stopped him from dealing with the mafia.
“I tend to believe that every relationship is a kind of contract, whether it is romantic or otherwise. You should be able to trust those closest to you.” His eyes had become less dreamy, more focused. Suddenly, I felt as though he were peering into my soul, but not in the romantic way people talk about in books and movies. It felt like he was trying to cut me open to see what was inside. “Do you agree?”
I was beginning to sense Gary was trying to tell me something. In not so many words, he wanted to know whether or not he could trust me. I, as his partner, had the knowledge and the position and the opportunity to take him down, and he knew it. As much as Gary had tried to pretend he was the alpha in our relationship, he was now admitting that to continue with his side business, he’d need my loyalty. Of course, that ship had long ago set sail, but I would never tell him that.
“I absolutely agree,” I said, smiling at him as I took another sip of my drink.
He reached out and brushed his finger across the back of my hand, making the hair on my arm stand up. He drew a small circle on the skin there. “That’s great to hear,” he said.
“I’m going to use the lady’s room,” I said, slowly extracting my hand from beneath his and sliding out of my seat.
I felt like running through the bar, straight out the front door, and not stopping until I was safely back inside my apartment, but I still had another thirty minutes until I’d reached Zico’s recommend hour and a half. So, I could at least kill a few minutes in the bathroom.
The bar was small, so there was only one single stall restroom for both men and women. Luckily, there was no line, and the door was unlocked, so I slipped inside and leaned against the cold tile wall.
Did Gary actually like me? In the beginning, I’d thought so, but then he mentioned the loyalty stuff, and everything had gone a bit fuzzy. Maybe he’d just brought me here to make me vulnerable, to judge whether or not he could trust me. Or, even worse, maybe he had gotten wind of a plan to have him arrested, and he wanted to make sure I wasn’t involved, or scare me into staying quiet. He hadn’t been overtly threatening yet, but the night was still young.
I pulled out my phone and texted Zico.
A: Thirty more minutes… Please tell me you’ll be at my apartment when I get home. I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.
Z: I’m already here. But why? Did he threaten you?
A: No. I’m just being paranoid.
Z: I’ll help you forget your worries (;
I smiled, biting my lower lip. I knew I shouldn’t let myself get so attached to Zico. I couldn’t allow myself to depend on him to be there for me, because, soon enough, he wouldn’t be. I put my phone back in my small clutch and was checking my lipstick in the mirror when the bathroom door opened. I had forgotten to lock it.
“Someone is in here,” I said.
“I know.”
I spun around at the sound of Gary’s voice, eyes wide. He had what was meant to be a playful smile stretched across his face, but it came across as dark, predatory. He locked the door and moved closer to me, and I swear I saw the light glint off his teeth.
“I thought maybe you were trying to tell me something when you left,” he said, winking.
Oh, God. He thought I wanted to hook up with him in a public restroom?
I laughed nervously, my legs beginning to shake. “I actually just forgot to lock the door,” I said.
Gary cocked his head to the side, raising one eyebrow. “You don’t have to pretend. I like a woman who knows what she wants.”
Before I could even move, his hands were gripping my waist, his fingers digging through my dress and into my flesh, his hips pressed against mine. I felt him, hard and eager, against my thigh.
“Gary,” I said, pushing gently on his chest, trying to make it clear that I was not going to have sex with him in a room where tens of thousands had peed.
“Anna,” he whispered back, his breath hot on my neck. He trailed kisses from my shoulder to my jawbone. My skin turned to ice at his touch, and panic began to build up in my chest, making it hard to breathe.
Suddenly, he lifted me up and set me on the countertop, then ran his hands roughly down to my knees and back up, his fingers sliding beneath the hem of my dress.
“Gary, I’m not so sure—”
“Relax—no one will hear us. The band is too loud.”
His thumb played at the waistband of my panties, and I immediately regretted wearing my black lacy thong. I’d put it on for Zico, having no intention of letting Gary anywhere near my undergarments, but of course, Gary wouldn’t see it that way. As his fingers brushed across the fabric and worked their way to the back, he grabbed two handfuls of my bare backside and released a small groan.
“Don’t you think this is a little fast?” I said, pushing a bit harder on his chest. I wanted him to stop. I wanted all of this to stop, but I was also in a locked room with a man I was currently plotting to imprison. The last thing I wanted to do was make him angry.
“There’s no such thing as too fast, baby,” he said, spreading my knees apart with his body and sliding into the space, grinding against me. His right hand slid back over my hip and across my lower stomach before his thumb slipped under the waistband of my panties and began massaging me.
My breathing sped up, but it wasn’t because of pleasure. I was terrified. I had no idea how to stop this.
Gary pressed harder into me, his entire hand slipping inside my panties, his fingers searching for my entrance as his thumb continued drawing small circles. I felt his fingers pressing against me, and knew that in a matter of seconds things would have gone permanently too far. There would be no way to stop it.
Quickly, I slid my hips back on the counter, and his hand slipped out of my panties. He pulled back and stared at me, his forehead creased in confusion.
“I changed my mind,” I said, leaning towards him, bringing my lips as close to his face as I comfortably could. “I don’t want our first time to be in a public restroom.”
Gary smiled, but I could see disappointment behind it. “Then let’s go back to my place. It isn’t far from here.”
I leaned forward and pressed my lips lightly to his, all the while bile was crawling up my esophagus. “Not tonight,” I whispered, biting softly at his lower lip.
He groaned. “You can’t do this to me. You can’t look like this and kiss me like that and then leave me with nothing.”
I kissed him again, hoping it would be the very last time. “Sorry, but I guess you’ll just have to take me out again.”
Then, sliding off the counter, I walked past him, offered him a final wink, and slipped out of the bathroom.
As soon as I was out of the small space, I felt safer, but I didn’t feel truly at ease until I was back in my car and headed for home. I needed to put as much space between Gary and myself as possible. I needed to get out of my clothes and shower. And, more than I wanted to admit, I needed to see Zico.