Page 3 of Where Dark Hearts Devour
“If you were from this city, you’d be sitting in a different bar.”
I knock back half the whiskey. “Why’s that?”
He stares at me like he’s trying to figure me out. “You know this part of the city is owned by the Di Santos ... right?”
“Is it?” I decide to play dumb. People give up more information that way.
His eyes light up. Finally, new blood he can bestow his wisdom on. “Only a few businesses have managed to slip out from their greasy fingers. This is one of them.”
“Greasy fingers, huh?”
He leans toward me with a slightly curled lip. “Italian Mafia scum,” he says, low and quiet.
I bite back a smile. If only he knew who he was talking to. I may not be involved in the crime side of our family anymore, but the blood still runs through my veins, and the gun in my waistband is loaded. But I’ll spare him this one time.
“Why don’t they want this place?”
“Nothing in it for them.”
He’s right about that.
“What do you mean?”
A smirk crosses his cocky lips. “It’s a backstreet dive you’re sitting in, buddy. The only people who come here are those who don’t want to be seen. And in a city like New York, there aren’t too many of those, you know?The Di Santos wouldn’t get a cent out of this place. Not worth their time.”
I knock back the rest of the whiskey and push the glass toward him for a refill.
While the dickwad pours another two fingers my gaze is pulled to the right. The Castellano girl is chatting quietly to two of the men. There’s nothing suggestive in any of their body language, but the sight still stiffens my spine. The bartender’s words ring in my ears.“The only people who come here are those who don’t want to be seen.”
“What’s her story?” I ask as he refills my glass.
“Who—Tril?”
The way he says her name makes my shoulders tense.
He picks up a glass and starts to polish it with a dirty cloth. “You won’t see her in here again for another year.”
“What?”
“Only comes in once every twelve months,” he repeats. “Has done for the past five years.” When I don’t respond, he looks up. “It’s the anniversary of her mom’s death.”
Something heavy settles in my chest as I look back at her. She’s swaying gently on the stool while the two men have a conversation across her.
“Don’t expect her to talk to you about it,” the bartender warns. “I only know because I asked around. She was real young the first time she came in here, but she looked so broken. She needed to forget something, so I served her.” He glances at me, perhaps expecting some kind of reprimand because she must have been a young teenager then. He sighs. “She was fifteen.”
I don’t say anything.
“Like I said, she needed something, and to be frank, we needed her money.”
My brows draw together, and I feel the familiar dark desire to put a bullet between another man’s eyes.His. There were other ways he could’ve helped her that didn’t involve serving her alcohol or greedily taking the small amount of money she’d have spent to escape her demons. It sounds suspiciously like he took advantage of a grieving underage girl.
He places the dirty glass on a shelf and lifts another one to polish.
My thoughts begin to roam the different ways I could punish him for being a prize dick, but they’re quickly interrupted by a warm sensation caressing my right side. I turn to see the girl zigzagging past me. She averts her gaze and walks off to the restroom.
Turning my back to the bartender, I lean my elbows on the bar and slowly sip my whiskey while I watch the restroom door. When it opens again, I don’t look up, but as she passes, something possesses me to push out a foot. She stumbles over it,and I catch her from falling. Breath gushes from her lungs, and her eyes fly open in shock.
With my arm wrapped around her torso, she makes no more of an attempt to wriggle free than I do to release her. She’s surprisingly small and warm. Her pert breasts press teasingly into my forearm.
