Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

“Another?” the bartender at the Red Hook dive bar asked me. He had a t-shirt on with the sleeves cut out. I could see his armpit hair. It was revolting. And fascinating.

“No, thank you,” I said, thinking I needed to be on top of my game. Whatever game that was. One very cheap Pinot Grigio was all I was going to have before meeting my sister’s mysterious Morelli.

This was a bad idea. I could see that from my vantage spot on this hard stool in this shabby bar. But since the second I decided to find out what I could about Ronan, I’d been obsessed. What happened the night of the gala had been running through my mind on a loop, forcing me to live in this sort of anguished, disbelieving and constantly turned-on place.

And I didn’t know a single thing about the guy other than how his hand felt against my throat. What his voice sounded like in my ear. How his wrist felt against the bare skin of my belly.

Sex wasn’t something I thought about. Not for a long, long time. And now, the brush of my clothes against my skin put me on edge. The seam of my jeans between my legs had me halfway to orgasm. I wanted to forget everything he did to me. But I replayed every moment like my sister played Pink’s Greatest Hits when she was eleven. Nonstop.

“You want food or something?” the bartender asked, sliding a plastic menu at me. He could not seem less invested in me wanting food.

“I’m fine. I’m just meeting someone.”

“Whatever,” he said and turned back to the baseball game playing on the television over the bar.

I’d never been in a bar like this. Sticky floor. Neon signs. There were bowls of peanuts, and people just threw the shells on the floor. It was unhygienic, disrespectful, and dangerous for people with allergies and . . . amazing.

All these people who just did not give a shit? I mean . . . I didn’t want to know them, but it was fun to see it happening.

Zilla had told me to dress down. To try and not stand out, so I wore jeans I hadn’t worn in years and a sweatshirt from Union College, my alma mater. My hair was back in a ponytail, and I had no makeup on my face. Not even mascara. I found an old pair of Converse tennis shoes in the back of my closet from my days before Jim, and they fit just like they used to.

I felt like a kid doing something really wrong.

And I kind of liked it.

The bell over the door rang out, and the bartender looked over and threw his hands up in the air.

“No way, man,” he said. “Again?”

I turned as a man walked in wearing a suit and a do-not-fuck-with-me expression. His silence was seriously the most threatening thing I’d ever experienced, and he just stared at the bartender and his armpit hair.

“Everyone clear out,” the bartender finally shouted. People ignored him until he brought his fingers to his lips and split the air with a whistle that got everyone’s attention. “I said get out.”

I’d already paid my bill, so I grabbed my purse and went to walk out with everyone else. Was it some political thing? Was the president coming in? Oh my god, was it the mob? It hardly mattered, I was just happy to get out of this suddenly tense bar. But the silent man at the door stopped me. “Not you,” he said and pointed me back towards the bar stool I’d just left.

“But—” I looked up at his face and shut up. This unassuming man was nothing but dark inside. Dead. His eyes were reptilian. A chill ran down my spine.

I turned and sat back down on my stool.

“You know every time this shit happens, I lose thousands of dollars,” the bartender said.

“Abe,” a woman said as she came walking in the door. If I was dressed down, she was dressed to the nines. A fur coat and long dark brown hair. Diamonds in her ears, more on her fingers. Leopard print Louboutins. “Every time this shit happens, I pay you more than this place makes in a year.”

“It’s the principal, Eden.”

“It’s a shithole, Abe.”

“Well, it’s my shithole. And I’ve got some pride.”

“Here.” Eden made her way over to the bar and pulled from her Coach+Billy Reid Crocodile Tote a stack of bills and put it on his bar. “That should help with the pride. And bring me a bottle of whatever passes for vodka back there.”

Abe rolled his eyes but pocketed the bills and brought over to where I was sitting a bottle of Grey Goose and two rocks glasses filled with ice. He set them on the bar, and I sat back like they were alive and going to bite.

So, clearly, I’d made a few mistakes in asking for this meeting.

“Thank you, Abe,” she said in a sing song voice as she walked across the bar to me. Prowled really. I felt like I was being stalked by some jungle cat.

This was my sister’s Morelli. She had the signature dark looks and the same frantic energy just under her skin. The same fuck-you-world way of moving through a place. The fur coat parted as she walked, sliding down over a shoulder. The mink grazing across the floor, through the peanut shells.

I winced on the mink’s behalf.

“You look like a tourist,” the woman said. Eden? That was what the bartender called her.

“I’ve never been here,” I said with a shrug.

“No shit.” The skintight black dress poured over her impressive Morelli curves and ended at the very tops of her legs. She was sex walking, and I felt stupid in my jeans. In my body.

She walked past me to the jukebox in the corner, and I swivelled on my stool to watch her. It felt dangerous to take my eyes off her.

She held out her hand towards me.

“Quarter?” she said, still looking at the jukebox.

“I . . . ah . . . I don’t have any change.”

“Jacob?” Eden said, and the man standing at the door put a hand in his pocket and pulled out some change. He walked across the room and put a quarter in her palm. “You like Dolly?” she asked.

I glanced at dead-inside Jacob and then looked for Abe who wasn’t behind the bar.

“Are you talking to me?”

“Oh my god, honey, yes. I am talking to you. And now you don’t get a vote.”

Eden punched the buttons with a lot of enthusiasm, and within minutes Jolene was coming through the speakers.

“You know, if I wrote music,” Eden said turning away from the jukebox. “I would write a song called Dolly entirely from Jolene’s point of view and it would be like, why do you want such a shit guy? If I can take him, just because I can, don’t you think it’s worth looking for some other dude?”

Eden sat on the chair next to me. Her knee hitting mine. Her fur slipping over my leg.

“I don’t honestly understand why no one has done that yet,” she said, looking at me with her eyebrows up.

“Me neither,” I said, having given this question zero thought.

“You must be Poppy,” she said, filling each glass with Grey Goose. She picked hers up and held it out for a cheers. But I didn’t pick mine up. This was all moving a little too fast. She tapped the edge of her glass against mine before draining hers. “You don’t look at all like those pictures of you in the news.”

“No?” I asked, oddly curious if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

“You look like a human. In the news you looked like a paper doll.”

I laughed.

“Did I say something funny?”

“I was a paper doll. Exactly a paper doll.”

“What can I say? I’ve got a way with words. You going to drink with me, or what?” She picked up my glass and all but put it in my hands. “Cheers Big Ears,” she said and touched her glass to mine and shot down another glass full of vodka. I took a sip and attempted to set down my glass, but she put her fingers against the bottom of it. Tipping the glass so I had to drink or it would spill all over.

“Good girl,” she said as I gasped and wiped my face.

“In any case,” she refilled our glasses. “I’m sorry for your loss. I always thought the senator seemed like a good guy.”

“He wasn’t,” I said without thinking. The vodka and her boldness making a mess of me. Immediately I regretted giving her that information.

“No?” She smiled at me. Like a snake. “In what way?”

“In every way,” I said.

“Isn’t that interesting? Though, probably not so much for you. How long were you married?”

“Two years. But we’re not here to talk—”

“You had two miscarriages? Sorry. That’s not easy.”

“How do you know that?” The first miscarriage was pretty public. The second one not so much.

“You think I’m going to show up without knowing who I’m meeting?” she asked like I was stupid, and maybe I was. Because I knew nothing about her.

“You’re Eden Morelli?” I asked, trying to somehow get on the offensive in this strange conversation.

“In the flesh.” She did a flourish with her hand. The diamonds on her fingers flashing in the low light.

“Who . . . who is that guy?” I asked, turning to look at the bodyguard at the door. Watching us with his dead eyes.

“Jacob?” she said. “You don’t need to worry about him. Former military.” Eden leaned in conspiratorially. “Secret ops. After the last Morelli Constantine dustup, I got myself the best bodyguard available on the dark web.”

Every single word in that sentence was terrifying.

“I’m not . . . a threat . . . to you,” I said, because I was scared of Jacob. And Eden, frankly. “I just wanted some information.”

Eden flipped her dark hair over her shoulder, her green eyes glittering. “Like you don’t know information is the most dangerous threat there is.” She lifted her glass again. “One more. Your sister was right about you.”

“What did she say?”

“That you used to be fun. Now you act like you’re allergic.”

“I’m not allergic,” I said, wounded. “Just out of practice.”

“Well, I’m a hell of a coach, let’s go.”

With the last shot of vodka warming me up from the inside, I picked up my glass and took a sip, which seemed to be enough for Eden Morelli.

“Your sister said you wanted some dirt on one of Caroline’s employees?”

“Yeah. A guy named Ronan.”

“You know. You’re pretty tight with the Constantines, seems that maybe just asking Caroline might be easier.”

“That’s not a good idea,” I said, trying to keep it vague, but it felt like I was spilling my guts about everything. This woman was watching me so carefully it was like she could see the things I wasn’t saying. “I don’t even know his last name.”

“Byrne,” she said. Ronan Byrne. Yeah. That felt . . . right.

“You know him?”

“Only by reputation and what I’ve been able to find out. Which isn’t much.”

“What is his reputation?” I asked.

“Well, no one would ever confuse him for a good guy.”

I did. That night at my engagement. And perhaps . . . perhaps at the fundraiser. Before he said all those things to me. Before he pushed me away like I was trash. Before he made me feel like trash.

“Well, his childhood is a whole Charles Dickens thing. Mom wasn’t around. Dad was in and out the army and jail. Died when he was about ten. Ronan grew up in a protestant boarding school. He has more hospital records than anything else.”

“Hospital?”

“Someone liked beating the shit out of him.”

I took a sip of vodka, the glass cold against my lips as that information sunk in.

“How did Caroline find him?”

Eden shrugged. “The Constantines have had their fingers in the oil drilling off the coast of the UK for a couple of decades. She could have met him at any point.”

“But why is he here? Now?”

“A good junkyard dog can be hard to find,” Eden said, tilting her head back towards Jacob by the door. I flinched at her language. “Too real for you, Poppy?” She said my name with all the p sounds.

“Ronan’s not a bodyguard,” I said. I really didn’t think he was. Caroline still had the same armed guards she always had. With the earpieces and the triangle formation around her.

No, Ronan was something else. Something closer. Something more trusted. He had an office outside her door. He was in her home on the weekend.

“And why would he come here?” I was thinking out loud. That night I met him. He’d been beaten up and slightly baffled. He didn’t know why he was there. At that party. In the States.

I haven’t been invited in yet.

“Money talks,” Eden said. “And some guys like having a reason to be . . . unleashed. The Constantines and Morellis don’t have much in common, but they can offer a certain kind of person a . . . certain kind of pleasure.”

That whole sentence made my skin crawl. But part of it rang me like a bell. The truth could be so undeniable.

“How do you know Zilla?” I asked. Behind Eden, Jacob’s head snapped our way, and something awful curled in my stomach. Oh, Zilla. What have you been up to?

My sister wanted to be unleashed. That was what her manic side craved. A lawless state where she was judge, jury, and executioner. And something sparked in Jacob’s dead eyes at the mention of my sister’s name.

“Zilla and I go way back,” Eden said. She drained the last of the vodka and stood up, the fur coat slipping off her shoulder. And that was suddenly the end of the conversation. “I’m sorry that’s all I know. Ronan Byrne is a bit of a ghost.” And if she was drunk from the half a bottle Grey Goose she’d just shot down, she didn’t show it. “So? About my payment?”

“How much?” I asked, reaching for my bag. Zilla had not mentioned payment, but nothing was free. I knew that better than most.

“Oh honey. Money is so Constantine. The Morellis deal in something else entirely.”

She stepped forward, far too close. We’d shifted while talking, and I’d turned towards her. Suddenly, she was between my thighs. Her bare skin pressed up against my jeans. I could smell the vodka. The Jardin d’Amalfi she wore. A cigarette she might have smoked before coming in. Her eyes were dilated, and I wondered what else was in her system outside the vodka.

“What do you want?” I asked. “If not money.”

“Lots of things,” she said, and her finger lightly touched the side of my face. I could not mistake her intent.

“I won’t . . . have sex with you.”

“Well, that’s too bad. You were growing on me.” She stepped back, tugged her fur coat up around her body. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way, I guess. You owe me one.”

“One what?”

“Favor.” She picked her purse up from the bar. “Relax. I’m not going to ask you to kill anyone. Probably.” She winked and turned for the door. “But if you want my advice, stay away from Ronan Byrne. The ones who have spent their life fighting don’t know when to stop.”

A favor?I thought in the car on the way back from Red Hook to Bishop’s Landing. What in the world could I offer a person like Eden Morelli? I didn’t know anything. I had no political secrets. And I didn’t know anything about the Constantines that she didn’t know. What if she wanted me to spy?

Well, she would be disappointed, in the end.

Theo pulled up to the front of the house, and I opened the door before he got there to open it for me. Stepping out of the car, I caught his rather stunned expression.

“I think I’d like to learn how to drive,” I said. For the brief period of time between my father’s death and the evaporation of all our money and resources and my marriage to the senator, I rode a bike around campus or took Ubers.

Not being able to drive had kept me captive, in a way. Relying on Theo, when if I’d been able to drive, maybe I would have made a break for it on my own.

No. I wouldn’t have.

But driving would be part of my new independence.

“Ma’am?” Theo said.

“Will you teach me?” I asked, and the poor guy blanched, looking around like he had to check with someone before saying anything. And maybe it was the vodka, or maybe it was brushing up against Eden Morelli who so clearly lived her life on her own terms, but I was done living my life like the senator was still alive.

I wasn’t a paper doll. Not anymore.

“The senator is dead. He doesn’t decide what happens in this house anymore.”

Theo blinked like I’d said something he wasn’t expecting. Well, he’d better get used to it. I was just starting to be unexpected.

“I can teach you,” Theo said.

“Good.” I walked past him into my dark house.

I opened the front door and punched in the code to the alarm to make it stop beeping. In the dark, I walked down the hallway past the rooms I never used and was never going to, the sitting room and the study with the fireplace that had not seen a fire once in the two years I lived here. In the kitchen, I got a glass of water and drank it down.

Did Eden Morelli really hit on me? Did that actually happen?

Laughing, I filled up my empty glass and took it up the stairs to my bedroom. My bedroom was all white, as per the senator’s request. Floors, ceiling, linens. The furniture was mahogany and dark in the shadows.

I hated all white.

I should change it.

“I should move,” I said out loud.

“And go where, Princess?”

I screamed, dropped the glass and fumbled for the light, but he crept out of the shadows before I could turn it on.

“Leave it,” Ronan said. “This is a conversation better suited to the dark.”