Chapter Two
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I wake up on a gasp, sweat drenching my body. I push back damp hair and check the clock. It’s seven o’clock in the morning, which means I’ve been sleeping for oh, about half a second.
No rest for the wicked, I guess.
Another round of raucous knocking at the door is joined by the angry stomps of my upstairs neighbor. “Sorry,” I mutter, pushing the comforter off my legs and standing. The cold immediately settles into my bones, the air in here probably colder than outside.
I take a detour to the kitchen and grab a knife, because West was right. My apartment is not safe, and not only because of the location.
“Who is it?” I yell through the heavy door. The peephole was cracked to hell when I moved in—by an angry ex-boyfriend with a baseball bat, the landlord told me.
“It’s Maisie.” My mother.
I use my foot to push the chair away from the door and unlock the dead bolt. A girl can’t be too careful, especially when there are mobster types who think I have their money.
Maisie holds up a white paper bag gone translucent with grease. “I brought breakfast.”
I step back to let her inside, my stomach growling, my whole body tight with hunger. It doesn’t want whatever dollar taco is in that bag. It wants gnocchi and garlic bread. It wants West.
She slides two hot dogs in cardboard containers onto the counter, the meat shiny and brown. “Voila.”
I make a face. “Are those from yesterday?”
“Don’t get picky,” she says, sliding one over to me and taking the other for herself. “We have bigger problems to worry about.”
Dread sinks in my empty stomach. “Jeb?”
I’ve called my parents Maisie and Jeb for as long as I can remember. They’re more like an aunt and uncle who sweep in on a whirlwind with greasy food and cheap presents—and then leave when they’re ready to go back to their own lives. We’ve spent more Christmases apart than together. I’m eighteen now, so the state thinks I’m old enough to take care of myself. The truth is I’ve been doing that since I turned twelve.
Maisie looks down, but not before a rare flash of emotion crosses her petite features. “They took him.”
I stand up, shoving the stale hot dog away. “You said we had until next week.”
Her face is pale, matching the white-blonde hair I inherited from her. “They moved up the timetable.”
“Christ.” I run my hands over my face, trying to wipe away the exhaustion. It takes a long time to set up a con this big. Next week was already pushing it. “Why didn’t you tell me about this mess sooner? Maybe we could have worked out a payment plan or, hell, I don’t know.”
She hesitates. “We didn’t want to scare you.”
“You didn’t want to scare me,” I repeat dully. I’d told them I wanted to go straight. I’d told them I’d never steal from the Grand, when they’d first suggested it months ago. Then they’d showed up last week, cowed and terrified—and I’d had to help. “You need me to steal fifty thousand dollars from my dangerous, violent boss or Jeb’s fingers will get cut off. I think we’re past being scared.”
She bites her lip, giving me the pouty look that has gotten her out of so many tight spots. Well, that and her body. Jeb and Maisie are both good-looking, and they don’t consider anything done in pursuit of a con to be cheating. “We knew you’d get mad,” she said, her eyes going wide.
I hate that I look so much like her. I used that same look on the customers at the Grand to milk them out of their money. It’s nothing like what she does, though. They gave me their money fair and square. Maisie only ever lies and steals.
“Who took him, Maisie?” I know they owe money to someone, but not who. “You need to tell me.”
They’ve been cagey about the whole thing. Of course, that’s standard operating procedure for Jeb and Maisie. Still, I didn’t expected Jeb to be abducted over this—and not so fast.
We should have had more time.
She sighs, her eyes falling shut. “The Caivano family.”
“The mob? You stole money from the goddamn mafia?” God, no wonder Maisie and Jeb are terrified. The Caivano family isn’t likely to work out a payment plan.
Her voice takes on a whining quality. “I knew you’d get angry.”
“Oh no. Don’t try to turn this around. You stole fifty thousand dollars from the mafia. And they aren’t just going to cut off a finger, are they?”
The fear in her eyes proves my point. “They have him, Bee.”
“They’re going to kill him. And then they’re going to kill you. And then they’re going to kill me for being related to you, along with anyone else you’ve ever spoken to or known.”
She shivers, and at least now I know she understands the situation. She understood it before she knocked on my door. She understood it when she stole these day-old hot dogs, but hell. This is all she knows how to do. Smile and pout and wheedle her way to getting what she wants.
Trade up. That’s what she used to tell me. Other parents taught their kids to tell the truth, to be nice. Maisie taught me that the only thing that matters is trading up, even if you piss off some of the most dangerous men in the city.
Even if it means betraying people who trust me.
Her hands turn palm up, helpless. “Now you understand why we needed you to do the job.”
The job. Bitterness is sharp on my tongue. This job that will cost me my job. More than that, it will cost me people I’d begun to think of as friends. It will cost me West.
“I told you I’ll do it.”
“We have to do it now.”
She says we, but of course she means that I have to do it now. Not her. “When then?”
“The night after tomorrow.”
An incredulous laugh bursts out of me. “Christmas Eve?”
I’m not sure why I thought that would be sacred to her when nothing else is.
She looks earnest. “The club will be closed. We have to do it soon.”
I shake my head, frustrated. “It’s too soon. We aren’t even sure we can get into the security system. We haven’t worked out all the kinks and—”
“We don’t have a choice.” She takes my hand, her blue eyes startling in their honesty. I’ve never seen her this focused on me before, not in eighteen years as her daughter. She’s the flighty one, while I had to negotiate with the landlord for an extension on our rent. Now she looks dead serious—and worried. “They said they’ll kill him if we don’t bring the money soon. They…they sent me this.”
She pulls something from her pocket and sets it on the counter. I’ve seen that plain silver band before.
They once hocked my bike with the ribbons in the handles. They’ve gone for days without food. They’ve traded their last dime for a security code to use on the next score. They give up anything and everything in pursuit of the game, but I’ve never seen Jeb not wearing this ring.
Now it’s on my cracked kitchen counter, tarnished and coated in dried blood.
My throat tightens at the threat contained in that small band of silver. It tightens further at the thought of stealing from Candy and Ivan. Candy, because I’d started to respect her, even like her. And Ivan, because everyone in the city knows well enough to fear him. Stealing from him is as bad as stealing from the Caivanos.
The only difference is that I won’t get caught. I can’t get caught.