I JUST STARE at her. What the hell else am I supposed to do? It’s really her. Reina is sitting in front of me, looking more gorgeous than ever, and my mind just can’t handle it. I feel hot and prickly all over as her hand dangles in front of me with gold-painted nails and a black and silver bracelet dangling from her wrist. It only takes a millisecond for me to recognize it, and that recognition is confirmation that the person I’m looking at is, in fact, Reina Wilde from seven years ago. The bracelet is the one I bought for her when we went to Forman Mills Mall together. How could I ever forget that day? It’s the day she met my mother, and the day I asked her to help Nix and me rob Julia’s Jewels. The things that happened that day bonded us, and not even seven years apart can break that bond.
Or can it?
With her hand still frozen in mid-air in front of me, a million questions flood my brain as I stare at her, unblinking. What the hell is she doing with Dante Rossi? Where has she been this whole time? Has she been with him? Has she been in Philly for the past seven years, playing the role of Dante’s mistress? Does he know that she and I have a deep history? Is she in danger with him? Did she leave me to go be with him—the mobster who was running the city before I came up? And most importantly—why is she acting like she doesn’t know me? Is she trying to play me, or him? Is she protecting herself by acting like we’re strangers—like we didn’t have something serious when we were teenagers? Did any of that even matter to her? Was she playing me the entire time?
By the time the questions slow down, I’m furious, and I can feel heat climbing up my neck like the tattooed, demonic hands that are permanently inked there. I feel my lip quivering as the anger takes over and I want to lash out. I want to pull the gun from the holster dangling inside my jacket and start popping off rounds in every direction. How dare she show up here after all this time? With him! After what she made me feel for her, how dare she!
“Solomon,” I hear Nix’s muffled voice call to me, but it barely registers.
“Whoah there,” I hear Dante say next as his movement grabs my attention. He lifts his arm and grabs Reina’s hand, pulling it down. “Don’t worry about shaking hands with him. Solomon can be a little . . . aggressive, at times. Nice of you to try to be civil, though.”
Reina flashes a quick smirk and lets him take her hand down, but she holds eye contact with me, like she’s trying to force me to read her thoughts.
What is she doing?
“Solomon,” I hear Nix again. “You good?”
I don’t answer. I just sit there staring at Reina as Dante places her hand on top of the small table and wraps his fingers around her wrist. I want nothing more than to reach over and break every bone in his hand.
“He’s fine, I’m sure,” Dante answers for me, his Italian accent coating the words. “Now, I think we need to get back to business, if you two don’t mind. We were discussing the offer we made to you, Solomon. I think it’s important that we remember what happened in the very recent past. One of your friends was arrested for assaulting a police officer. Another one died. I’d hate to see anything else happen to anyone.”
“It’s not a good idea to issue threats,” Nix replies for me, because I’m doing nothing but looking back and forth between Dante and Reina.
“Of course not,” Dante says with a sly squint in his eyes. “I’m simply stating the facts and showing concern for everyone involved here. We made an offer, and I’m sure both of you know that’s not something everyone gets. We’re giving you a chance to get out without there being any hostile situations, and to be frank, I’m running out of patience. I’d like to get to dinner with my guests. So, you need to make a decision. If he can’t do it,” Dante gestures to me and then back to Nix, “then you need to make the right decision for him, Mr. Malone. We know he’s a little off his rocker. We know his reputation, and I can see it playing out in front of me right now. So, maybe you need to make the call for him, Nix.”
I see Nix look at me out of my peripheral vision, but I don’t care. Unbeknownst to every one of them, my mind is moving, working up a plan that’ll get me what I want. Everything I see is red.
“I don’t really know what’s going on with this situation here,” I hear Nix say as he gestures towards Reina. He’s got to be just as confused as I am, and I see Reina have a startled reaction to his movement. She glares at him, pleading with her eyes, and it’s that look in her eyes that finally snaps me back to the table.
“I have a counter-offer,” I blurt out. Everyone at the table turns their heads in my direction. All eyes are on me, and I know what I’m about to say is going to shock them all. That’s exactly what I want.
“A counter-offer?” Dante asks, as if to suggest that a counter-offer isn’t allowed, but he relents. “Alright, then. Let’s hear it?”
“I’ll quit,” I say with a straight face.
“What?” Nix asks beside me.
“Give me the Hyperion money, and I’ll walk away from this life altogether.”
Dante looks intrigued, but also suspicious, as I expected.
“Elaborate, please,” he says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.
“Is it confusing? You give me the money from the job you stole from me, and I’ll walk away from the life. No more robberies, no more deals, no more anything. I’ve made plenty of money over the years, and my club is one of the hottest in the city. I can go legit, like I’ve always wanted.”
“That’s not what we asked you to do—and do you think we’d trust you to just walk away, just like that?” Dante counters, but I have a quick reply.
“I don’t care what you think,” I snip. “Asking me to move away from my home is too much, and I won’t do that, but I give you my word that I’ll quit. I’ll leave all of this behind, and you can have the nice, quiet, little life you and Angelo have always wanted. Take it, I don’t care anymore. But I want the money from what would have been my last job. I think you owe me that much after all that’s happened.”
I can feel Nix staring at the side of my face, wondering what the hell I’m doing, and Reina is glaring at me from straight ahead, with a barely noticeable smirk on her mouth.
“You’re saying you’ll quit everything?” Dante asks, barely believing what I’ve just said.
“Everything,” I answer.
“That’s an interesting offer,” Dante says. “But we’ll need more than that. Any contacts you have, any payoffs you receive, every racket you have—I want them all. Since no one ever said this was a negotiation, you get no deal unless we come out on top. So, I want everything you’ve got. All you take is your little club. Nothing more. Agree to that, and I think we can work it out here and now.”
“Solomon,” Nix says, unable to read my thoughts.
“Deal,” I answer Dante before Nix can say another word. “I just need a few days to set it all up.”
“A few days?” Dante snips, suspiciously.
“Yeah, a few days. You want my contacts, my connections, my rackets? I need to contact everyone and tell them about the change. Otherwise, you’ll get nothing. You’ll get no loyalty from them without the okay from me. I have to set all of this in motion, Dante, and I’ll start by going to my club tomorrow and making sure everything is in order. Is that not reasonable?”
Dante eyes me with cynicism, considering my words. He lifts a hand and rubs his bearded chin before agreeing.
“Alright, Solomon,” he says. “I’ll give you a couple of days to get it all in line, but that’s all you get. I better hear from you and everyone that now owes me money. If I hear anything about you trying to setup another heist or anything of the sort, it’s gonna be buona notte, my friend. Capiche?”
I glance down at the table, knowing I just changed everything by doing this. I can feel Nix glaring at me, but I won’t look at him. I’m going with it.
“I got it,” I reply. “I’ll be in touch. Thank you, Dante.”
Dante doesn’t reply as I stand up to leave, followed by Nix whose got confusion weaved into his every movement. He doesn’t know what to think as I walk away from the table towards his vehicle, but he follows me all the same. Neither of us says a word as we climb into his SUV and he starts it up. Out the window, I see Dante and Tony glaring at me. I don’t trust them, and they don’t trust me, but it’s irrelevant now.
Next to them, I see Reina’s grinning face. With Dante and Tony giving us their attention as we get ready to drive away, she’s free to look at me. We lock eyes as Nix puts the SUV in gear, and just as we start to pull away, she reaches up with the arm adorned by the bracelet I bought her, silently kisses the palm of her hand, and blows the kiss to me.