DELMONICO’S
1902—New York
The boning of the new corset was digging into the soft flesh of Viola’s hip, but there wasn’t a thing she could do to adjust it, not so long as her brother’s scagnozzo had her by the arm. And also not so long as she was supposed to be playing the part of a lady. It had been four days since Viola had accepted her brother’s beating as the cost of using his protection. In four days, the split in her lip had healed itself enough for her to be presentable in public. In those four days, she’d bided her time and done everything her brother had asked of her, no matter how insulting. She’d played the part of the dutiful, penitent sister, but she’d kept her eyes and ears opened and she’d started to plan.
The maître d’ was checking over his ledger, searching for their reservation. Occasionally, he’d glance up at Viola and her escort with a questioning look, as though he knew that neither of them belonged. The longer they stood there, the more Viola felt the eyes of other people on them. She wished the stuffed-shirt fool would hurry up. She was more than ready to have a table between her and her escort for the night. Already he’d been too free with his eyes . . . and his hands.
Paul didn’t fool her one bit, arranging all of this just so she could dispose of one stupid journalist for an important friend. There were a hundred ways to kill a man, maybe more, and not one of them required a fancy dress, with her tette pushed up to her chin and her breath pressed out of her lungs. Nor did they require her to have dinner at a fancy restaurant with John Torrio, the man all the Five Pointers called the Fox. No, her brother had set this up because he didn’t trust her yet. Torrio, or John, as he’d introduced himself, was nothing more than a nursemaid—though she doubted he’d appreciate being thought of as such. He was only there to keep an eye on her and to make sure she did what Paul had asked of her.
So what if a lady needed an escort to dine at a restaurant like Delmonico’s? Killing a man in the middle of a crowded restaurant was a fool’s errand. She could have killed him in the streets just as easily.
But Paul didn’t want this Reynolds killed easily. Her brother was making a point. With so many witnesses, Viola would be forced to use her affinity—and in doing so, she would have to break the vow she had made to herself years ago. As long as she could get a clear view of this man, it would be easy enough to make it look like he’d died naturally, and with no obvious attack, it would be impossible for anyone to see the man’s death as anything but a tragic misfortune. In the blink of an eye, Paul’s friend would be rid of his little problem and Viola’s soul would bear another black mark that could never be erased.
Even so, the act didn’t require a fancy restaurant. Viola knew exactly what Paul was up to. It was no accident that he’d sent Torrio with her—her brother was matchmaking. His plan to marry her off had been the last straw to drive her away before. Now that she was back in the bosom of the family’s control, he was testing her. The old goat he’d tried to tie her to the last time was probably dead by now, so it only made sense for Paul to try shackling her to the man he was grooming to be his second—all the better to keep them both under his control.
Out of the corner of her eye, Viola studied Torrio as they were shown to their table. He wasn’t bad looking—a tall, striking boy from just outside Napoli with dark eyes and dark hair combed straight back from his face. He didn’t have the characteristic crook in his nose that most who ran in the gangs wore as a badge of honor, but even dressed in a fancy dinner jacket, he didn’t have Paul’s polish. Torrio still looked like the streets.
And like all men, he walked through the world as though what he had in his pants was enough to make him a king. But then, she thought, watching Torrio snap out orders to the waitstaff, who all jumped to meet his demands, maybe it is.
Dinner was interminable. Viola tried to keep her mouth drawn into what she hoped was more smile than snarl as her escort droned on about all his accomplishments, but the task wore on her. He didn’t stop his bragging to eat the first two courses. Instead he talked around the food in his mouth. When the steaks came, huge slices of meat that were dressed with herbed butter and creamed spinach, Torrio finally—thankfully—shut up.
Better he focus on his steak than continue to imagine that he had a chance with her. Men never took that news well, and she couldn’t afford to maim or kill the guy when she was trying to convince Paul she could be trusted. He and Nibsy were planning something, and gaining Paul’s trust was the first step in finding out what it was.
Viola shifted in her seat as she picked at her bloody steak and the gelatinous oysters, hating the entire situation she’d found herself in. The food was too rich for her, right along with everything else in the restaurant. Her whole life, she’d stuck close to what she knew—first her mother’s kitchen and then the Strega, where she worked behind the bar, serving people of her own class and station. She had never really gone much farther than the streets of the Bowery, even when she left her family. But all around her, the dining room was filled with brilliantly white linen and gleaming crystal, candlelight and brightly polished silver. Delmonico’s, with its gilded opulence, was evidence of how big the divide was between what she was and what the rest of the world held.
And the people . . . The men who could signal a waiter with a look instead of the roughly barked orders Torrio used and the ladies with their pretty manners and their tinkling, girlish voices all served to remind Viola of exactly who she was—and who she would never be. She hated them all almost as much as she hated the full corset biting into her skin and the ruffled flounce at her shoulders that pinned her arms down at her sides.
Worst of all, the longer they sat, the more she began to think that the entire evening had been pointless. Paul had been confident in the intelligence he had from his network of busboys and cooks that R. A. Reynolds dined at Delmonico’s on Thursday nights at seven thirty. Reynolds always sat at the same table, a private corner booth, and Paul had arranged for Viola and Torrio to be seated at a table across the room with a clear view of the booth.
But seven thirty had come and gone, and there had been no sign of R. A. Reynolds or anyone else. The whole fiasco had been an absolute waste of time. As Torrio downed another glass of the expensive scotch that Paul was paying for and cut large pieces of beefsteak to shovel into his mouth, Viola picked at her food and counted the moments until she could go home and take off the ridiculous dress.
It was close to eight when a flurry of commotion erupted behind them. Viola turned to look and saw that a young couple had just arrived. They weren’t much older than Viola herself, but they were clearly favorites. The girl, especially, seemed to know almost everyone, because she stopped and chatted at nearly every table they passed.
In a sea of lavish gowns, the girl stood out like a peacock among pigeons. She was dressed in a gown that looked, even to Viola, who knew very little about such trivial things, expensive. It was perfectly tailored to the girl’s lithe body, and its color—a light blush that matched the flush of the girl’s cheeks—would have looked ridiculously frivolous on anyone with less confidence. Instead, the pink hue only served to accent the glow of the girl’s creamy skin and the dark fringe of lashes around her eyes.
She was as slender and delicate looking as a reed, with polished fingertips that had clearly never seen a day’s worth of work. Her blond hair had just a touch of copper when the candlelight hit it, and the long, graceful column of her neck was ringed with a simple strand of pearls that lay against the fragile notch at the base of her throat.
Her skin would be soft there, fragile and fragrant with whatever scent she wears. Lilies, maybe . . . or roses . . . something floral and as pink as she is.
Viola’s cheeks felt warm suddenly, as she realized the direction her thoughts had gone. She’d been staring openly. She glanced at Torrio to make sure he hadn’t noticed, but he was still busy shoveling the last of his potatoes into his mouth. Confident he wasn’t paying her any attention, she allowed herself one more peek at the girl. At the very moment Viola looked up, the girl’s eyes met hers. Dark blue, the color the sea had been in the middle of the Atlantic, and just as dangerous.
Viola looked away as a wave of shame crashed over her—it had been only a few weeks since she had lost Tilly, and there she was, so easily distracted by a girl whose every breath screamed of wealth that Viola could never begin to dream of. And to be distracted here, of all places, when she was clearly being watched by her brother’s escort?
Merda. If Paul heard of it . . .
She knew exactly what would happen if Paul heard of it. He’d make sure Viola was either married or dead, because everyone knew her soul was already too blackened for the convent.
But Torrio hadn’t noticed the entrance of the couple or the direction of Viola’s thoughts. As he signaled the waiter for yet another drink, Viola couldn’t help herself. She chanced one more peek at the girl just in time to see the maître d’ pull back the curtain to open a private booth—the Reynolds booth—and let the couple in. The girl had already disappeared behind the velvet curtains, but her escort had stopped to speak with the maître d’.
Viola didn’t allow herself to wonder about the way her heart sank the moment the girl was out of sight. Her focus was on the girl’s escort, R. A. Reynolds. The man she was supposed to kill.
Viola pulled on her affinity and sent it outward, searching for the link to this R. A. Reynolds across the room. She found him easily, his heartbeat steady like the ticking of a clock, pulsing nearly in time with her own.
She could do this. It would be so easy to simply slow the flow of blood, to call to that living part of him and command it, to stop it.
Why should she care that Reynolds was so young?
Why should she care that he looked the maître d’ in the eye when he spoke to him—as though they were old friends? Or that the girl in the booth would have to witness her escort crumpling into a lifeless heap?
She shouldn’t care. She didn’t.
Who was this Reynolds to her? Un pezzo grosso. A rich boy living off his father’s money and name who had never worked—had never slaved—a day in his life. His hands would not have calluses beneath the gloves he wore. His stomach had never known the carving pain of true hunger. There were a hundred more like him, each less important than the one before. The world wouldn’t miss this one.
Still, Viola hesitated.
She’d killed many times before, and her soul was, surely, already stained beyond reckoning with the blood of her victims. It shouldn’t have mattered.
Viola was still staring at the velvet curtain of the booth long after the man had disappeared behind it and the tether she’d had to the steady beating of his heart went slack.
Torrio’s foot nudged hers beneath the table. “That’s them, ain’t it?” Torrio asked. “Why didn’t you . . . ?” He waggled his fingers at her.
Yes . . . why didn’t I? Viola realized that Torrio was looking at her, his dark eyes sharp and far too suspicious. She’d just done exactly what Paul had been afraid of—she’d missed her opportunity to take out Reynolds when she could have. Now he was behind the velvet curtain, hidden from her sight and out of reach of her affinity.
“Paul didn’t tell me Reynolds dined with other people,” she told him, trying to pull herself back together. It was a feeble excuse, and the look on Torrio’s face told her that he suspected what had happened. “I was thrown off by the other one.”
“The girl?” Torrio’s brows drew together.
“She’s a witness,” Viola said, knowing that the excuse was ridiculous. A witness to what? It wasn’t like her magic could be seen.
“So take her out too,” Torrio said with a shrug. “What do you care?”
“I don’t,” she lied. “But Paul might. We don’t know who she is. What if she’s the daughter of someone important? It could cause a lot of problems for Paul, killing the wrong person.”
“It’ll cause more problems if you don’t take care of the right person. You had a clear shot there.”
“It’s not so simple.”
He frowned as though he could see straight through the lie to the truth of her, and for a moment Viola wondered if he knew what she’d been thinking—if he understood the real reason for her hesitation.
Torrio leaned forward, his elbows on the table and his expression menacing. “Well, what are we supposed to do now?”
“We wait?” she offered, even though the last thing she wanted to do was spend another minute sitting across from Torrio in that oppressive restaurant. “Maybe the girl will leave. Or maybe it would be better to go.”
“You want to go?” Torrio’s brows flew up. “That ain’t happening. This gets done tonight. We can do it your way and make your brother happy, or we can do it mine, and you can deal with Paul later,” he told Viola, his tone sharp.
“No,” she said, backtracking. She knew full well what was at risk if Paul was unhappy. “I only meant that we could wait and catch them outside. We don’t know when they’ll come out of there, and if we stay too much longer, we’re gonna draw attention.”
Torrio frowned. “We’ll wait a little while longer.” Then he barked at a passing waiter to get him another drink, and as he waited for it, he studied her from across the table. For most of the dinner, he’d ignored her, but now Viola felt the full weight of his perceptiveness. She could see exactly why Paul had selected Torrio and why Paul was also stupid for trusting him. It didn’t matter that fancy ladies uptown prized the soft fur of the fox—Viola knew well enough that foxes were just overgrown rats.
“It must sting,” Torrio said, leaning back in his chair.
Viola didn’t take the bait his comment was intended to be.
“Being back under your brother’s thumb, I mean.”
“I know what you meant,” she said, leveling her gaze at him so he would know she didn’t care.
Amusement flickered across his expression, but on Torrio it only made him look like he was up to something. “What was it like working for the zoppo?”
Viola’s skin felt hot, and she was struggling to keep her temper from erupting. But Torrio kept pushing.
“I hear Dolph let you lead him around like a dog on a chain.”
“You mean like Paul leads you?” she retorted, keeping her voice flat, bored.
Her words hit their mark. Torrio’s mouth twisted with a look of utter disgust.
“At least I wouldn’t let a boy get the best of me.”
“What boy?” Viola said.
“You didn’t know?” Torrio laughed. “The one with the occhiali.”
“Nibsy?” she said, and the moment the boy’s name was past her lips, it felt like the first time she’d cut herself on Libitina’s blade. At first she’d felt nothing at all, and then the bite of pain began to throb and ache. It was like that now. Numbness followed by a sharp, cutting pain.
But it made sense—the way Nibsy had taken over the Strega when the rest of them had been too shocked, too broken, to do more than make it through the next day. The way he’d attacked Esta on the bridge. Of course it had been Nibsy.
Dolph couldn’t have known, and yet Viola didn’t doubt that he had suspected. He’d been even more guarded in the weeks before the Khafre Hall job. He’d pulled away from her, but she hadn’t been the one to betray him. If Torrio spoke the truth, it had been Nibsy.
“Face it, Viola. You chose the wrong man to follow. Dolph was as weak as his leg. Or maybe it wasn’t only his leg that was weak, eh?” He leaned toward her as he laughed.
Her temper snapping, Viola reached for her steak knife, but Torrio didn’t notice. His attention had been drawn by something else, and he jerked his chin, signaling her to look. “She’s leaving.”
The girl in the blush-colored gown had just exited the booth. “Where’s she going?” Viola asked, balling her hand into a fist so she wouldn’t take the knife and teach him the lesson he deserved.
“How should I know? But this is your chance,” Torrio told her.
“My chance for what? Reynolds is still behind the curtains,” she told him.
“Then you should get your pretty little ass behind the curtains too,” he said, the impatience clear in his voice.
“You think nobody’s gonna notice if I just walk into a private booth and leave a dead man when I walk out? You’re pazzo, Johnny. Stupid and crazy.”
Torrio ignored her use of the nickname. “I’ve been called worse, cara. Too bad I’m also the one in charge right now. I’ll create a diversion,” he told her. “I’ll make sure nobody in this room is looking at you when you get close to Reynolds’ booth.”
“That is a terrible idea,” Viola said through clenched teeth.
“It’s not an idea. It’s an order.” John Torrio leaned over the table again. “Unless you want me to tell Paul that you aren’t going to work out, you don’t really have a choice in the matter. Now go.”
Viola wanted nothing more than to spit at him. But she was dressed as a lady, so she decided to act the part. Letting her affinity unfurl, she found the slow beating of his heart, and she tugged—just a little. Torrio gasped, and Viola answered his strangled breath with a sharp-toothed smile.
“We need to get something clear, Johnny.” She lowered her voice until it was the throaty purr that she knew men liked. “I always have a choice. For instance, I could choose to take your life right now, you miserable excuse for a man, but I won’t because I promised my brother, and I’ve chosen my family. Now, I’m gonna do what you say, but not because I have to. Not because you talk to me like I’m no better than some dog. I’m gonna go take care of Reynolds because right now I don’t want to look at your ugly face no more. And once I’m done, I’m gonna tell my brother to keep you the hell away from me.”
With a swish of her silken skirts, she released her hold on Torrio’s life and started to walk toward the booth. It was a risk, she knew, turning her back on a rat like Torrio, especially after she’d embarrassed him. She wasn’t so stupid as to think that he wasn’t carrying a gun or to believe that he wasn’t crazy enough to shoot her here, in front of the entire world and the reporter they were supposed to kill, just to prove what a man he was. But even if she had to lower herself to wallow in the muck of her brother’s dealings, she wasn’t ever going to crawl. Not for someone as pathetic as Johnny the Fox.
She took her time making her way past the white-topped tables glowing with candlelight and filled with the stomach-turning scents of roasted meat. But the sight of the rare beefsteaks only reminded her of flesh and of the life she was about to take. Of the promise to herself she was about to break.