Clothes. The word takes a minute to register. Once it does, she nods and stoops for the bag before scurrying into the bedroom. The door slams shut behind her, and I hear the lock engage once again.
“Look...” Darcy pauses, an egg in one hand and a spatula in theother. She doesn’t look up right away, but I know that her eyes are the color of steel. “I may know about Mack’s...business, but there are rules. I don’t allow it. Not around me.” She’s implying something. Hinting at it. “I don’t know who that woman is, but if you’re hurting her...”
“I’m not.”
She glances up and holds my gaze for a second longer than necessary. Then she nods just once. “Okay, then.”
I say nothing else while she scrapes food from the pan and eventually hands me a plate of scrambled eggs and pancakes. I eat with my hands, ignoring the gritty taste of dirt and salt. When I’m done, I stand and reach past Darcy to dump my plate into the sink just as the bedroom door opens and Stacatto’s woman finally tiptoes out of it.
Darcy must have given her the plain, white shirt with long sleeves that reach her fingertips and hide the cut in her palm. She’s wearing the jeans I gave her, but there are socks on her feet and a pair of baby-blue sneakers that fit her better than the boots did. She’s pulled her hair back as well, but the style only serves to reveal the mess of her ear. I don’t miss the way Darcy’s eyes cut over to me when she notices.
I ignore her as I push my way past the woman scrambling against the doorjamb to enter the bedroom. Inside the duffel, I find a few men’s T-shirts and jeans. I grab one of each and enter the bathroom, where I take my turn washing the bitch off my skin.
Twenty minutes later, I return to the main room of the apartment and find her and Darcy watching each other. If they spoke at all, they apparently didn’t have much to say. Neither woman’s gaze reveals anything when they turn to watch me shove my feet into my boots and head for the door. Before descending the stairs, I glance back at Darcy, my voice cold, my temper honed and ready.
“Take me to Mack.”
The bastard isin the bar again. Like Arno, he seems to enjoy rising before the ass crack of dawn, but he apparently isn’t as fond of sampling his own merchandise. He’s nursing a glass of water instead and a handful of what I assume is beef jerky, the package on the bar in front of him. Arno sits on the stool closest to the wall. He may have come crawling to Mack, but he has enough sense to always guard his back, at least.
Mack always has liked sticking his knives there, after all.
“Eh, Kitty!” The bastard tears off a chunk of meat with his teeth and noisily washes it down with a chug of the water. “Out of your litter box so soon? I gave you a day.” His eyes narrow in suspicion even as he flashes a grin. “I expected you to let me sweat it out down to the last fucking hour.”
And, any other time, I would have. “I want this over,” I admit through clenched teeth. I know without even having to turn and see for myself that Darcy and the woman followed me inside. I raise my fist and force it to open to jab my thumb toward the bar. “Sit.”
I don’t expect her to comply so easily, but she shuffles past me, her head down, and takes the stool as far away from Mack as physically possible. If I’m surprised by the obedient little show, Mack isn’t. He merely watches, taking another sip of water; it’s the perfect display of captor and captive.
Once he swallows, however, he rubs at his chin. “I’ve been thinking...”
I cut my gaze over to him and feel my stance automatically open up. “About what?”
“Now now, Kitty. Don’t look so grumpy. I won’t renege on our bargain. But, if she’s really willing to play dirty, then I need tosee it for myself.” He fishes into the pocket of his jeans and pulls a cell phone out. “Call him,” he says to her, shoving the phone in her direction. “If you’re so willing to turn on your master, then I want to see it—and hear it—for myself.” He looks at me, and his expression isn’t mocking for once. “After all, it’s easy to claim that you’d bite at your own leash but a bit harder to put into practice. You know that better than anyone, eh, Kitty?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I mull the request over. It makes sense in theory—but Mack doesn’t do shit without some other motive. Not that I really give a damn. The itch to just get this over with is too irritating to resist. “How do we know that he can’t fucking trace the call?”
Mack actually seems pissed off by the question. “As if I’d be that fucking stupid. Sammy programmed this baby himself. It’s a burner. Jesus fucking Christ wouldn’t be able to trace it.”
“Okay, then.” My eyes home in on the girl. “Do it.”
She keeps her face blank when she reaches for the cell phone—though I’m sure I’m the only one who notices how her fingers shake, and now, it makes fucking sense. Mackwantsto see her break. He wants to see how she holds up when forced to confront Stacatto directly. Hell, maybe I do too.
Things rarely end well when a wild dog confronts its owner while off its leash. One or the other has to assert their dominance: either the leash is wrapped back around the dog’s neck or the owner gets bitten. Stacatto’s girl wrestles with her choice, her eyes wide, her soul hovering on the edge of flying away or staying to face her old master.
Before she can decide, I take a step toward her, coming just within the line of her peripheral vision. “Do it,” I grunt. “Call him.”
Her fingers tremble even more, but she curls them into fists. Just when I think she’ll refuse, she finally lets her thumb strike the call button on the contact Mack already pulled up.
The phone must be rigged to automatically turn the speaker on, because the sound of the dial tone echoes throughout the room and she doesn’t even need to lift the receiver to her ear. When a man’s gruff voice finally answers, he sounds crystal clear.
“Hello?”
The woman inhales. “G-Gino.” There’s a smattering of static from the other end as if the person holding the phone is adjusting it. “Can...can I talk to Vinny?” Her voice wavers slightly, but there’s a hardness to her expression. She doesn’t let it flicker, not even when the man, Gino, replies.
“Just one moment, Miss Manzano.”
All noise from the other end suddenly cuts off as if someone has placed their hand over the receiver right before they go to fetch the recipient of the call. Stacatto’s woman waits patiently, her hands neatly folded. Only her feet give her away; they aren’t primly crossed at the ankles now. She’s grinding her toes into the bottom rung of her stool, balancing on the edge of control and terror.
“Lynn.” The newer voice carries an edge that makes even Arno and Mack sit straighter.
