47. Why you should never go on a boat

FORTY-SEVEN

#4 nothing good in movies ever hapens on a boat!

They didn't remove the blindfold until the van came to a stop, I was yanked back out somewhere I could hear seagulls calling through the air, towed down a distinctly unstable walkway, then thrown into a room that smelled like body odor and hot dogs. The door slammed shut over the voices of men barking in an Eastern European language. Then and only then did Shawn rip the blindfold off right before he tossed me onto an old plaid couch in the corner.

The room was small and had no windows in the concrete walls. The couch was the only piece of furniture in it, and it was lit by a single bulb dangling from the ceiling and connected to a pull string.

"What am I doing here?" I demanded. "Where am I?"

My knee throbbed. This was the opposite of treating it gently.

Shawn leered at me like a contractor might assess a wall he was about to demo. I'd seen that look on Matthew and Mike's faces a few times. Some people found something immensely satisfying about destruction. An outlet for their rage. Or in this case, maybe just because Shawn was an asshole who liked to fuck shit up.

"You know, when I first met you, you were a little firefly," Shawn said. "You buzzed around in everybody's faces, and they all thought you were so beautiful. I'll admit, you dazzled me too in the beginning. If I'm being honest, I sort of hated you for it."

"No one told you to keep looking," I said. "No one told you to chase after a fucking child."

The smirk on Shawn's face twisted into something uglier. "You think you were a child at fourteen, sunshine? You were asking for it the second I saw you. You didn't even know, but you were."

"You're disgusting."

His snarl deepened like it was etched with a knife but relaxed as he went on. "After a while, you reminded me of something else, though. You weren't a firefly. Just the fire. A living flame that ‘danced.'"

His eyes lit up when he said the last word, almost as if he was making fun of me at the same time as he was lusting over me. I remembered that expression. It always confused me when I was younger.

Sometimes he'd even bring me back to, well, not his apartment. Never that. When I was in high school, it never struck me as odd that Shawn wouldn't take me to where he actually lived. I couldn't do that either.

Instead, he'd take me to a motel—usually one of the ones that rent by the hour. His favorite had mirrors on the ceiling. Sometimes it was a random (and usually seamy) apartment. Often just the back seat of his car.

There, he'd look at me and tell me he wanted me to do…something…for him. And I would perform.

Sometimes it was actually dancing. I'd be so eager to show him the things I was learning because I wanted his approval. I wanted Shawn to look at me like he had the first day we'd met. I wanted him to tell me again that I was talented. That I was extraordinary. Sometimes he would, but not without some undercutting remark.

"You'd be incredible if your ankles weren't so wobbly."

"You'd be as beautiful as a model if you were only a few inches taller."

"You'd be gorgeous if you had bigger tits."

Then he'd tell me what to do to make it up to him. Get on my knees. Give him a kiss. Offer him something else, and eventually, that's what I would do.

I'd been chasing my self-esteem through this man's eyes for a decade. If I hadn't met someone else who gave me the gift of loving me exactly as I was, I might have stayed in this nasty cycle for another ten years or more.

But now Shawn's expression, a clear dare to perform and become something new to please him, held zero appeal.

In fact, it made me sick.

"A flame," he went on. "But you know what the best part of a flame is? That little dancing light on the end of a candle?"

"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me along with the rest of this boring as fuck lecture," I said.

It was the wrong thing to say.

I was rewarded for my sass with a sharp slap across the face that sent me flying back into the couch.

"What the fuck?" I shouted, even though I was scrambling backward. "Since when do you do that?"

"You think you can just run off with another man like that, Sunshine? You think you can make a fool of me that way, huh?"

"I didn't do anything but move on, Shawn. Please." It was a shaky retort but also a plea to stop. My cheek was burning, probably from his handprint.

It was to no avail.

"The best part of a flame," Shawn went on in a voice shaking with rage, "is snuffing the bitch out."

He loomed over me, a sweaty mass huffing, looking very much like he wanted to continue his assault.

But before he could, the door opened, and a man I didn't recognize poked his head inside.

"Lis wants you," said the man with a brief glance my way.

Shawn nodded and turned back to me. "I look forward to putting out your fire later, Sunshine."

Then he turned out the light, and I was eclipsed by the dark.

I wasn't exactly sure how much time passed. I knew I slept a lot. I woke up hungry, and someone came in and brought me a bit of bread and a piece of meat I really couldn't identify. Another man dragged me to a mildew-covered bathroom, where, through a tiny window, lights bounced against a horizon, but nothing else was visible in the dark. I still had no idea where I was, though occasionally, it did feel like the room was moving around me. Bobbing, even.

Sometime after my second "nap," I woke to find I had company. The overhead light had been turned on, and I was able to identify the person currently either asleep or, from the looks of him, knocked out at the far end of the couch.

"Mike?" My eyes popped open. "Michael?"

The hunched shoulders of my brother-in-law moved with a groan as he pushed himself up to seated, revealing a face full of bruises, an eye almost swollen shut, and a fat lip with a bad cut.

"Joni?" He mumbled, peeking at me through his one good eye. "What are you doing here? Fuck, Lea's gonna kill me."

"Kill you? She bit my head off already just because she thought I got you involved with these assholes. What are you doing here?"

Mike shook his head but stopped quickly, as it seemed to cause him pain. "Not now."

"What the hell?" I ignored him completely. "You're wrapped up with the Antonis? Lea already blames all of this on me and is never going speak to me again, so I think I should at least know why."

"If she does that, then she hasn't been fuckin' listening to me for the past two months," Mike said grimly. "The Antonis were always coming back for me. It was just a matter of time. Every so often, they sniff around, and after meeting you, he decided this was it."

"Why?" I asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, Mike, but why you?"

He somehow looked even grimmer as his sooty black eyes narrowed at me. "It happened when you were just a kid. When Lea and I first met, and before then. Even before I went away."

I pressed my mouth together. It wasn't a secret that Lea had met Mike right after he had gotten out of prison. At the time, he was the charity case our grandfather had taken in as a favor to the local priest.

But beyond my conversation with Lea, I didn't know anything else about his connection with the Antoni organization. And I still had no idea why someone like him—a mechanic, sometimes driver, reformed bad boy, and home-centered family man—would earn the attention of a boss like Lis Antoni.

"Because I'm loyal. And because I'm smarter than most of the jackasses who work for him," Mike said. "Before I went to prison, I had a deal with Mancuso, the old head of the organization. Three cars in exchange for them paying my little brother's hospital bills."

"You had a brother?" More information I never knew.

Mike nodded. "He died while I was in prison. Cerebral palsy."

"Jesus." I reached out to pat his shoulder, the only part of him that didn't seem in pain. "I had no idea. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, well. They didn't pay his bills, which is why he died. So, when I got out and one of the lower soldiers tried to call in the rest of my debt, I told him to fuck off. They brought me to another safe house and threatened your family. I was going to get sucked back in before Lea tracked me down. Reckless woman put herself in danger to protect me. Could have gotten herself killed too."

Mike shook his head like he still couldn't believe it even though it had happened almost twenty years ago. I couldn't either. Lea had been involved?

"Lis took a shine to her and to me. Admired her guts, I think. And my integrity. He said a man whose woman would stand up for him that way must be worth having a second shot. It was Ares who did it."

"Ares?" I wondered.

"His son," Mike clarified. "But now Lis wants his due. He wants me. And apparently, he wants you too."

"Me?" I wondered. "What do I have to do with it? Why would he want me?"

"Because he fuckin' does, Joni!" Mike burst out, though it looked like it pained him to do so. "Because it sounded like fun. Because he thought you were hot. Because he's trying to control your ex. The fuck if I know, honestly. Guys like these don't do things for the regular reasons everyone else uses. They operate on a different kind of logic. You get me?"

I bit my lip, willing tears—big hopeless ones—not to fall. If what he was saying was true, then we were really fucked.

"Or maybe you just gave him the excuse," Mike said a little more softly now. "But don't beat yourself up over it. He would have found another reason to track me down anyway. Like I said, it was just a matter of time."

He looked tired. He looked angry. But he also looked resigned, and that was probably the scariest part of all.

"Do you know where we are?" I wondered, looking around the dingy little room with its bare walls, cement floor, and the odd couch with its faded tartan that was straight out of the seventies.

"No fuckin' clue. Lis used to have a headquarters in a building in Morrisania. I doubt it's the same place—organizations like these always move around—but could be somewhere similar. I'm guessing it took them maybe fifteen minutes or so to move me here, so we're local. Other than that, I don't know."

"If Lea knows, will she come here?" I hated the idea of my sister getting involved, but she might know where to send the police.

Mike shook his head. "She took the kids up to Boston to see your brother."

I processed that for a moment. It meant we were still in New York. Probably still in the Bronx. But in a city of eight million people, that could be anywhere.

More importantly, there was no one left who cared where either of us were.

Again, I felt that odd bobbing sensation. But a building wouldn't move. Would it?

"Fuck," I muttered.

"You said it," Mike agreed. "Bad news, they won't be back for a week. Good news, once they are, Lea will raise holy hell until she finds us."

"What are we going to do?" I was having a hard time breathing.

"That's easy," Mike replied as he draped a heavy, tattooed arm over his eyes to block out the light. The guy looked like he was in so much pain. I would have gotten up to turn it off, but I wanted to see his face. I wanted to see period. "You're gonna do what he says. You're gonna do what he says until they get lazy. And they will get lazy because none of these assholes would be doing what they're doing if they had it in them to make an honest living. So when they do, you're gonna run, Joni. And you'll let me take the blame."

I reared back. "I can't do that. I can't leave you here."

"You can, and you will." Mike moved his arm to peer at me through his one good eye. "Joni, listen to me. You're gonna get the hell out of the city and go straight to your brother's. Matt has friends in the NYPD and in other high places. Those de Vries people. Xavier too—he knows some heavies. They'll know what to do to keep you safe."

Eric de Vries. Xavier Parker.

He didn't have to add Nathan Hunt—or at least his family—but he belonged in that category of the ultra-powerful too.

"But what about you?—"

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"You will not be fine," I argued back. "You're already not fine. I'm not exactly part of ‘the life' or anything, but even I know this was probably just an appetizer if they wanted to keep you here. What do they want from you, anyway?"

Mike sighed. "Same thing they want from you. Obedience. This is what happens to people who make deals with the Antonis and don't follow through. I told them they could have me if they left my girl and her family alone—that was twenty years ago, and Lis never forgot. What did you offer?"

"Nothing," I said. "I swear to God, I never promised them anything."

"Not a thing? An extra lap dance at that party, maybe? A wink and a smile? You didn't accidentally agree to something he wanted, even if it was just to get him off your back?"

Mentally, I tried to review that night. Had I done that? Maybe smiled a little too brightly in response to one of his jokes? Given a perfunctory "You betcha, babe!" or maybe a "Can't wait!" to a casual invitation or something equally inane?

I didn't think so. But if I was being honest, I'd been too focused on avoiding my ex's hands and Carrick's disapproving glares to notice anything else.

There was one other thing, though.

"He wanted me to serve drinks at a party on a boat," I said. "My boss—the guy who ran the gaming event—told me about it. But I said no. Or maybe. I don't remember."

"And he was okay with that?" Mike didn't sound convinced.

My silence told him everything he needed to know.

There was another dip again. The feeling of my stomach being in one place while the rest of me was in another.

I didn't think it was only because I was scared.

"It was months ago," I whispered. "Kyle never called me back about it, and I was in Paris, then the surgery and Virginia. There's no way that's what this is about."

Mike's good eye closed, and his grim scowl told me that's exactly what this was about. At least for me. Dread pooled in another dip, mixed with the knowledge that we were almost certainly not in the Bronx anymore. And if that was true, then no one was going to find us ever.

"You're going to do what I said," he told me again. "Give him what he wants, and leave when they give you an opening."

"But—"

"Joni. Just do it."

I opened my mouth to argue with him but found I couldn't.

And it was a good thing, too. Because right then, the door opened, and Shawn walked in, followed by Kyle, another man with slicked, dark hair, and lastly, Lis Antoni himself.