2

Rocello

Ron Keeler and Simon Portis had made a grave error.

A very serious one. As I dragged them through the dimly lit alley, I wondered if they had grasped the message delivered to them.

About two months ago, they had mugged an elderly woman three blocks away. They had been fortunate I wasn't in the vicinity at the time. If I had been, I would have given them a beating they wouldn't forget. Maybe then tonight wouldn't have unfolded the way it did. Margo would have closed up and gone home, without these two idiots trying to prove themselves.

Keeler and Portis were desperate to gain entry into the Gambini family. They felt entitled to join a crew, believing themselves tough and formidable. Yeah, right. I was pretty certain I had shown them otherwise tonight. Hell, Margo was well on her way to proving it too. I never imagined I'd see the pretty bartender wielding a shotgun, but she looked like she knew how to handle it.

At the very least, she had put fear into those two idiots. Well, that was if they could see past my fists connecting with their faces. Ultimately, those two were just small-time. Not in stature—they both stood around six feet tall. But they lacked the essential quality to survive in this world.

Guts.

It takes guts to challenge some of New York's most hardened criminals. Robbing an eighty-year-old woman? Holding up a bartender? That was anything but brave. Even a high schooler with a gun could pull off such stunts alone, without backup.

Yet somehow, these two assholes thought it would impress Michael Gambini. If that wasn’t fucked up, I didn’t know what was. Don Gambini had been running the family for almost thirty years. During that time, he had had a lot of people working for him, tough bastards who would eat those two for lunch.

Keeler clawed at my hand, trying to break the iron grip I had on my shirt, but I wasn’t letting go unless it was to drop him off a cliff. And I had to admit, I liked having their blood on my knuckles. Dishing out brutal beatings was part of my job. They had to know this was my turf. That the Rusty Bucket was my favorite place to relax. To drink whiskey. Catch a game. And to enjoy the sight of the sweet young thing behind the bar.

The image of Margo swinging that shotgun around was still inside my head. She didn’t seem the type. Sure, she could shoot the shit like any good bartender, and she poured a mean drink. Still, there was something about her. She was always kind of… delicate. Yeah, that was the word. Even though she shoved her hair in a messy ponytail and wore flannel shirts, there was no getting around that she was a petite, feminine woman.

Except tonight I’d seen a different side of her. Growing up in the foster care system, I’d met plenty of girls who were tough as nails. They’d had to be. We’d all had to be.

It made me wonder what in Margo’s past had made her develop that steely streak.

As I contemplated it, I smashed Keeler and Porter’s heads together for good measure and then released them. They collapsed on the trash-covered pavement with a groan. Or, one was groaning. The other appeared to be unconscious.

Served them right. They couldn’t just walk into a moderately respectable dive like the Rusty Bucket and think they can do whatever the hell they wanted, especially mess with a working girl like Margo. Her life couldn’t be the price for their admission into the Gambini family. She had to be left alone, or else Keeler and Portis would soon find out what staring down the barrel of a gun was like. Either mine, or shit, maybe I should sic Margo on them.

Instead, I lifted each man, one by one, into a grimy dumpster. The sharp odor that arose as their bodies collided with the refuse assaulted my senses, but I could at least say I'd cleaned up, playing the role of the exemplary citizen.

My mind drifted momentarily towards returning to the Rusty Bucket. The aroma of greasy burgers mingling with the sweat of a hard day's work would have been a welcome relief compared to the dumpster's stench.

But before that, I needed to locate my friends.

Jumaine and Slade were supposed to join me at the Rusty Bucket, yet they hadn't appeared, which was unusual for them. In another scenario, I might have been concerned, but they were resilient men who knew how to handle themselves.

This meant any delay on their part was likely due to their own choices, not due to someone else's actions.

They were my best friends, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be fuck-ups sometimes.

So it was time to find them and figure out what the fuck was going on. And if that meant knocking their heads together the way I had to those two punks, so be it. At least I wouldn’t toss them in the dumpster.

Jumaine had texted a few times, saying that they were stuck in traffic and that they’d be there soon. The last text had been over an hour ago.

The day before, Slade had sounded pretty excited on the phone. He’d hinted that something big was going on. Something life-changing, even.

I’d believe that when I saw it, and maybe not even then. Slade was too goddamn reckless sometimes. Not so long ago, he suggested sneaking into the police impound to “liberate” his old Charger. That Dodge was a fucking sweet car, but we’d still have to take care of the eight cops on shift in that impound. I wasn’t that crazy to start a shootout with all those cops, just because Slade had missed the feel of roaring down the interstate in his Charger.

I walked into Bella Marina’s, a dive bar that made the Rusty Bucket look like a five-star hotel. As I scanned the dark room for my buddies, I was almost ready for a second tonight. I hated being stood up—those two should have known better than to keep me waiting like some chump. Two waiters were wiping down ripped tablecloths that looked only marginally cleaner than the dumpster I’d just left. Marina herself walked toward me. Though bella wasn’t the right word to describe her plain, pock-marked face, she was another tough woman. As opposite of Margo as you could get, but tough as nails.

Our eyes met. “Men’s room!” she said, giving me the information I needed. Striding past the tables, my ears picked up a weird sound. The sound of someone gagging. Unless my cock was stuffed down a pretty woman’s throat, it wasn’t a sound I enjoyed hearing.

I barged into the men’s room, already pretty sure of what I was going to find. Jumaine’s tall figure outside one of the stalls, and he looked apologetic as I glared.

The groans were coming from the stall, and it didn’t take a genius to know who was in there.

“Where the fuck have you two been?” I demanded, closing the gap between us.

“Sorry, Rock.” He looked away and gestured toward the closed door of the stall. “It’s Slade. He, uh…” He faltered. “He got a little fucked up while we went over his little plan.”

The sound of a flushing toilet didn’t allow me to speak. Once it had faded, I rolled my eyes at him. “He’s drunk off his ass? Again?”

“You know Slade, man,” Jumaine’s tone calm and steady, not frustrated as fuck like I was. But then again, nothing ever rattled Jumaine. “Every time he gets excited about something, he can’t get enough tequila in his system.”

“I already know that he doesn’t use his head,” I snapped, flashing him a nasty glare. “But you’re supposed to. Why the hell did you let him get like this?”

“I’m not his fucking babysitter,” Jumaine said, but again, without heat.

The creaking of the stall door turned our heads in its direction. Slade staggered out, eyes red, his brownish hair a huge mess and stinking like a distillery. I almost preferred the dumpster smell.

“Sorry about tonight, babe,” he spoke in a wobbly voice, his body swaying back. “I didn’t mean to stand you up.”

I took a few moments to figure out if the “babe” part was worth wiping the floor with him, but it wasn’t like he was in his right mind at the moment. Though he did sometimes enjoy trying to get a rise out of me.

“So much for being stuck in traffic,” I shook my head in disapproval, turning back to Jumaine. He was the only one sober enough to yell at. “You should have told me Slade was getting shitfaced. Or strapped on a pair and stopped him.”