by that type of stillness that only exists after three-am. Outside, the first flakes of snow settle on the bonnet, and frost spreads like spider veins along the windshield. But inside, heat blooms from Penelope’s sleeping body and fills the space with a drowsy warmth.
When I flashed my headlights against her living room window at one a.m., it was with a vengeance. I’d spent the entire evening with a throbbing cock, and all I could think about was what I’d started in my office, and if there was enough room to finish it on my back seat. Now I know what her pussy tastes like, the urge to taste it again was maddening. Her wet thong around my cock wasn’t going to cut it, because that shit she said about always being wet just pissed me off. I’d planned on punishing her for making me dwell on it all night, but then she emerged from her apartment building holding two cups of hot cocoa, her pajamas peeking out from underneath her puffer jacket. She slid into my car, handed me a cup in silence, then drank hers while staring sleepily at the dash.
The ache moved from my groin to my chest and filled the black hole there. It was heavy with a perverse satisfaction, and for once, it didn’t stem from winning a petty bet. She was comfortable here, in my car, beside me, her hair piled on top of her head and her face make-up free. It was with a sickening sweetness that I realized she sought out the warmth of my car to do the most vulnerable thing a human can do: sleep.
My satisfaction was tinged with unease, but still, I drove around Devil’s Dip with the heater on full blast until she was snoring under the blanket I’d bought her. I went down to the port to check on reconstruction efforts, before driving over to Hollow to discuss New Year’s Eve plans with Cas and Benny. Now, I’m parked in front of my father’s old church, fighting fires over email. The brightness of my MacBook screen is turned down as far as it goes and I’m trying not to slam on the keys.
I’d laugh in disbelief if I was certain it wouldn’t wake Penelope up. If my business partners could see me now, running my multi-billion-dollar company hunched over my steering wheel, they’d think I’d lost the plot.
I have.
My cell buzzes on the center console, disrupting the silence. With a cautious glance in Penelope’s direction, I snatch it up to mute it, but freeze when I see the name on the screen.
Gabe.
My brother never calls me. He doesn’t text me, either. Our iMessage history is all blue boxes and read receipts. I text, he turns up, and that’s the way it’s always been.
Despite my heart racing, I slow my movements to get out of the car. I shut the door behind myself with a soft click, and crunch over fresh snow to get to the edge of the cliff.
“What have you done?”
“Why are you whispering?”
I roll my eyes at the Pacific. “It’s four a.m., brother. People whisper at this time of night. What’s wrong with you?”
The line goes quiet for a moment. I turn around and, through the sleet, see Griffin slipping out of his armored Sedan. He creeps toward me and jerks his chin, silently asking if there’s an issue. I dismiss him with a shake of my head.
“What do you need, Gabe? Medical attention? A lawyer? A shoulder to cry on?” I run my hand through my hair. “Fuck, please don’t let it be a shoulder to cry on.”
“Meet me where we strung up Old MacDonald.”
The line goes dead.
I stare down at my cell until it locks itself due to inactivity. Is he serious? Growing up, Old MacDonald was our nickname for the creepy groundskeeper at Devil’s Coast Academy. We always thought there was something off about him, but it was confirmed when, one Sunday, he slid into our father’s confession box and admitted he’d touched up one of the school girls underneath the bleachers. Naturally, we chose him as our sinner of the month. We strung him up from an old oak tree in Hollow, but only after Angelo had snapped his neck.
He’d wanted to know what it felt like.
Glancing through Griffin’s windshield, I jab a finger in the direction of Hollow. He nods, and his car engine comes to life.
I drive slowly, only taking my hand off Penelope’s blanket-clad thigh when we reach Grim Reaper road. Little more than a strip of asphalt cut into the curve of the cliff, it’s a bastard of a route in optimal conditions, let alone during the first snow of the season. I curse Gabe under my breath for making me descend it in the middle of the night with Penelope in the car. The road tapers off into rocky terrain and ravines, and as the oak tree comes into view, I kill the engine and let out a quiet hiss.
What the fuck are you playing at, Gabe? I’m just about to ask him via text when a shadow shifting between the thick brush lining the road catches my eye.
Gabe strolls into the beam of my headlights, shirtless and covered in blood.
Unease quickens my pulse, and I grab the Glock from my side door pocket and jump out the car.
“Dio mio, cazzo. Cosa è successo?” What happened?
His lazy gaze drops to my gun. “Not mine,” is all he grunts, before disappearing back into the bushes.
My breath of annoyance comes out in a white puff and mingles with the falling snow. Keeping my eyes trained on Penelope sleeping on the other side of the windshield, I walk back to my car. I left the door open, because I knew if I shut it, I’d slam it. I drop to my haunches in the driver’s seat and study her.
The red strands have escaped her hair tie and fan over the pillow like a copper halo. My gaze sweeps over her pale skin—the perfect pink from the warmth of her heater—and then drops to her plump pout, parted in sweet serenity.
Fuck’s sake. A tug-of-war plays out inside my chest, a tussle between logic and superstition.
Logic tells me a million dollars is nothing.
Superstition tells me to kick her out to the curb and drive off.
I settle for wiping the hot cocoa stain off her chin with my thumb and tucking the blanket tighter around her.
Cranking up her heated seat another notch, I close the door quietly and move on to the car behind. Griff’s unamused expression comes into view as he rolls down the glass.
“Are we filming the new Blair Witch Project?”
I ignore his smart-ass mouth and toss my keys into his lap. “Watch my car.”
He stares at me for a few beats. It’s the type of stare that conveys he’s sick of my shit and wishes I’d move back to Vegas, where the only things he had to worry about were white-collared criminals and the occasional opportunistic idiot.
But it’s the dick in the passenger seat that speaks first. “Watch your car, or your girl?”
My eyes slide up to meet Blake’s shit-eating grin. You know what? The kid’s been strumming on my last nerve far too long. I round the car, tug open the door and grab his collar. His gasp skitters over my sleeve, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the fear in his eyes.
“Breathe near the girl and it’ll be the last breath you take,” I say calmly.
Griffin’s bewildered stare burns into my back as I follow my wayward brother into the bushes.
He’s waiting in a clearing, puffing on a cigarette. I shoot a look of disgust at his torso, with hard muscle and ink painted red. I take a step to the side, not wanting to get that shit on my new wool car coat. “Clothes just really don’t appeal to you, huh?”
He doesn’t reply. We walk under snowfall and heavy silence, the light from my phone and Gabe’s occasional gruff warning, “Tree stump. Root. Ditch,” guiding me. When the trees taper off on the lip of a steep ravine, my wingtips come to a slow stop.
“I’m not going down there.”
“Worried you’ll ruin your suit?”
“Yes, in fact.”
Gabe’s gaze flashes black. “You’ll walk down it, or I’ll sling you over my shoulder and carry you down like a little bitch.”
“Remind me how we’re related again?”
He grunts in amusement, and, probably knowing he’d get a swift punch to the nuts if he tried to fire-man carry me down the side of the bank, he starts his descent.
Italian tailoring be damned. My leather shoes sink into icy slush, and my coat pills as it catches on branches on the way down. At the bottom, we turn right, following the frozen ravine up-stream. Straight ahead of us, the mouth of a cave grows wider with every step until its black void engulfs us.
The darkness comes with a new damp chill. I turn the brightness up on my phone light and follow the sound of Gabe’s heavy footsteps as he plows ahead of me. We duck under a low dip in the ceiling, and when I straighten up on the other side, heavy rock music floats through the darkness and touches the frozen shells of my ears.
“If you’ve decided to get into the quirky entertainment space without consulting me, I’m going to be pissed, brother.”
A turn of a corner, then a warm glow washes away the darkness. There’s a heat to it, and an ominous flicker as it dances against the walls of the cave. As we cross into a cavernous space, I realize it’s coming from a bonfire.
Despite the heat, my blood runs cold.
“What the fuck, Gabe?”
Wordlessly, my brother strolls around the bonfire and drops down on a battered sofa pressed up against a craggy wall.
“It’s technically Dip. The entrance is just in Hollow.”
My lids fall shut. The man is out of his mind if he thinks I’m talking about territory lines and not the dude gagged and bound to a chair on the other side of the fire.
Unbuttoning my jacket, I sweep the surprise from my mind and flip into fix-it mode. I’m well-versed in damage control, especially when it comes to my idiot brothers. Only last month did I have to fly back from Vegas to sort out the mess Angelo made when he blew up Uncle Al’s car.
Step one—assess the damage. I run a finger over my collar pin and rake an objective eye over the cave. The cracked leather sofa my brother is sitting on. The towering metal locker with a lock and chain securing its handles. The sweaty man withering in ropes.
His gaze meets mine, desperation tinging the fear within it. That’s the thing about my nice suits and fresh shaves. They do exactly what they are meant to: fool people into believing I’m a gentleman.
I look away.
“It’s too late to pay him off. Just put a bullet in his head; the bears will have his body by morning.”
With a lazy smirk, Gabe leans back and lights up another cigarette. “Not done with him.”
“What the fuck do you need me for, then?” We stare at each other, the rock music bouncing off the walls and pounding in my ears. “Turn that shit off,” I snap. “Can’t hear myself think.”
Gabe kicks the subwoofer at his feet, and the din crackles to a stop. “That’s your problem. You think.”
I ignore his usual jibe about me sitting behind a desk for forty-percent of my day, and sweep a hand over the cave. “Why here?”
With a grunt, Gabe tucks the cigarette into the crook of his mouth and moves toward his captive. I don’t know how long he’s been at my brother’s mercy, but judging by the limp hang of his head and the amount of blood on my brother’s torso, it won’t be much longer.
He flinches when Gabe’s body casts a black shadow over his shoulders, but he doesn’t have the energy to do much else. That changes when Gabe yanks his head back, pulls the cigarette from his lips, and sticks it into the man’s eye. Suddenly, he musters up the energy to fill the cave with a deafening scream.
My brother’s crazed gaze comes to mine. “I like the acoustics.”
Christ.
I’ve never wondered where he gets his darkness from; it runs through all three of us like an extra strand of DNA. No, I’ve only wondered why it is that I conceal the sadism. Angelo tried to run from it, but Gabe decided a few years ago he’d dive head first into his, as if desperate to find out what’s at the bottom.
“Who is he?”
“One of us.”
I frown. “A made man?”
“A Visconti. One of our distant cousins from Sicily. Dante shipped over a boatload of them to help him out.”
I run my tongue over my teeth, annoyance flaring inside of me. “You’re not sticking to the plan, Gabe. We said subtle. This doesn’t feel like a chess move.”
His face is expressionless as he stares into the fire. “Chess bores me, and bad things happen when I’m bored.”
I let out a sardonic huff. With my mind drifting out of the cave and up to Penelope in the car, I smooth a hand down my shirt and cut to the point. “I thought you needed help. Did you only bring me down here for a family reunion?”
“No, for some relief.”
“What?”
He nods to the back of the man’s head. “Your perfect life has gone to shit. Knock yourself out.”
We look at each other over angry flames and a sweat-drenched forehead as realization fills me.
“You’re serious.”
He only stares back.
Amusement and disbelief tilt the corners of my lips; I wipe both off with my palm. “You’re deranged, but you already knew that.” When he doesn’t reply, I hold up my hands, flaunting my unblemished knuckles; the only part of my facade I can’t peel off at the end of the day. “Not really my thing, brother.”
He nods. “I haven’t forgotten, pretty boy.” His footsteps echo off the craggy ceiling as he crosses over to the chest, yanks a key from the back pocket of his jeans, and cracks it open.
Torn between disgust and morbid fascination, I walk over and assess the rows of tools. At first glance, it appears to be a pretty standard torture kit, but when I pick things up to feel the weight of them in my palm, I notice…modifications.
Axes with three blades. Nunchucks wrapped in electrical wire. With a small shake of my head, I look up at my brother. “Really?”
He doesn’t respond.
I run my finger over the blade of the meat cleaver. Its handle has been removed and replaced by the body of an electrical screwdriver. As my mind works to piece together the mechanics of it, something sour and venomous seeps out from underneath the disbelief, rising to the surface of my skin and settling there.
I can’t lie; it’d be refreshing to feel a tortured scream in my ears. And throwing some weight around would release some of the tension knotting my back, I’m sure. Besides, our Sinners Anonymous game isn’t going to be as satisfying this month, now that Angelo went and got his PETA-preaching wife involved.
Licking my lips, I replace the weird butcher’s contraption and pick up something more timeless—a hammer. It’s always been my weapon of choice. Not only does the handle fit comfortably in my palm, but the length of it has a nice way of detaching me from whatever is breaking underneath it.
I drop it on the worktop and snap off my collar pin. Unbutton my shirt and fold it neatly over the armrest of the sofa.
“Best we don’t tell Vicious about this.”
Gabe leans against the work bench and lights up another cigarette. “Best we don’t.”
Metal scrapes metal as I pick up the hammer and turn to the bonfire. Heat, sweat, and pre-emptive whimpers dance over the top of it. Its flames brush my bicep as I round it, and before those whimpers turn into screams, AC-DC fills the cave again.
Gabe’s music taste may be obnoxious but it sure is fitting.
Daybreak is seeping into the mouth of the cave by the time we depart it. Cold light fights through the trees and birds chirp overhead. It’s disorientating, and suddenly, I get why Gabe disappears for weeks at a time. Cracking bones and gurgled pleas seem to swallow hours whole.
The icy wind chills the sweat under my shirt. My eyes fall to my brother’s naked torso beside me, the blood caking it now a rusty brown. His appearance looks even more obscene in the cold light of day, and it won’t bode well for the family aesthetics if any locals driving their morning commute see him in all of his violent, naked glory.
“You look like the villain from a nineties slasher movie,” I grumble, straightening my collar pin. “Don’t follow me out to the road.”
There’s an easy saunter to his step, like he hikes through snow-coated ravines in his sleep. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation as a gentleman,” he says dryly.
“One of us has to keep up the appearance.”
“Mm. But anyone with half a brain would realize if you lie with dogs, you wake up with fleas.”
I grind out a laugh. “Good thing no one on this Coast has half a brain, then.”
He slows to a stop a few feet from the brush that lines the road and runs an indifferent eye down the buttons of my shirt and the sharp front pleat of my slacks.
“If it’s any consolation, you don’t look like you’ve just cracked open a man’s brain with a hammer claw and then donkey-kicked him into a fire.”
I bite back a smirk. “I think that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, brother. Maybe we’re bonding.”
“Maybe you have smoke inhalation.” He watches me for a moment. “Feel better?”
Fuck yeah, I do. There’s a buzz in my blood and a lightness in my chest. Despite the ache between my shoulder blades and the thin veil of sweat cloaking my skin, my suit fits a little better now. Like the monster underneath has lost some bulk and is easier to conceal.
Of course, Gabe gets a much simpler response. “Feel all right.”
His gaze slides behind my head and darkens. “What’s in your car?”
It’s a simple question, but because I know the answer, it pulls my muscles taut.
Penelope.
I turn around and the buzz in my blood instantly falls stagnant.
Violence, impulsion. Poisonous traits that belong in my brothers’ bones and not mine blinker my vision. I cut through the bushes toward Blake.
The cunt doesn’t see me coming. He’s too busy stooping at the passenger side window, his hands cupping his eyes against the glass.
Rage. Resolve. A swish of my coat and my fingertips are brushing over the grip of my gun, but they don’t find purchase. Instead, they curl into my palm and form a fist that draws back and severs the last thread of my composure.
Pain. Satisfaction. My punch connects with his cheekbone and as he falls, he falls in slow motion, giving that small voice in the shadows of my brain time to whisper, one punch is enough. I can bounce back from one punch. It’s just pebbles underfoot scattering over the edge of the cliff; no need to throw my body over it, too.
But tell that to my left fist. It meets his jaw on the way down, snapping his neck back and giving me a full view of the panic in his eyes.
Gratification. Delirium. The way his skull bounces off the icy road only spurs me on. I hold him up by the scruff of his polyester shirt. Another punch splits the skin on my knuckles, and, well, I know there’s no point turning back now. The next blow causes a crack that sounds irreparable, and any man with an ounce of sportsmanship would leave it at that—it’s not a fair fight. Never was. But under the serene dawn sky, I’m not a man. I’m an animal in a very nice suit, protecting what’s his.
Blake’s defense fell when he did, and it’s not Griffin’s roars of protests that stop me, or the chorus of my men muttering expletives, but my brother’s strong grip on my shoulder.
“Basta,” is all he says. Enough.
I let the lifeless body fall and stare down at my knuckles.
Irreversible. Remorseless.
My ragged breaths burn my lungs and I tilt my chin up to the pearl-gray sky. If mama could see me now, her silver-tongued son using his fists and not his words. And for what?
As my gaze falls, it lands on another.
Blue. Fathomless.
“Go,” my brother says. “I’ll finish this.”
I don’t take my eyes off Penelope. Can’t. Not when I step over a puddle of fresh blood, nor when Griffin’s hushed “what have you done?” touches my ears as I yank on the car door and slam it shut behind me.
Six pairs of eyes stare at me through the windshield. None of them are hers, so none of them matter. I slam the car into gear and don’t bother looking over my shoulder as I reverse.
Her gaze stings my bloodied hands curled around the steering wheel. “What the fuck, Rafe?”
Rafe. It’s the first time she’s called me by my nickname. I like the way she says it, too. With shock marred by a breathless edge. It makes my lids shut for longer than safe when driving at eighty-miles an hour down a country road.
I don’t reply. Instead, I stare through the road ahead and think about the moment I first thought the red-head in the stolen dress might be the Queen of Hearts. It was my brother’s wedding night, and the explosion at the port had just lit night’s sky orange. I’d wondered, albeit not seriously—if this was the start of my fall, what it’d be like at the bottom. Turns out, it’s full of Penelope’s heavy breathing, her citrus perfume, and the sound of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.
Tranquility. Acceptance. A calmness washes over me and I breathe out easy. It’s comforting, I suppose, knowing I’ve fallen to the bottom and can fall no further.
Penelope’s eyes trail the river of red trickling down the back of my hand until it disappears under the cuff of my shirt.
“Where are we going?” she murmurs.
My hand slides off the steering wheel and finds her knee.
“Home, Queenie.”
