Page 7 of Mistletoe & Mayhem
Laura
The dead man’s mouth is open, tongue pressed to his teeth as if he’d tried last-second to beg for his life. Maybe he thought I’d show mercy, being a petite girl in a pencil skirt and fake eyelashes. I consider closing his jaws to make him look less surprised, but I decide to leave him like that. It’s good for the world to know surprise is possible. In this business, too many people think they know how everything ends.
I snap apart the Glock, muscle memory dictating the sequence: slide off, barrel out, magazine to the gutter, each piece swallowed in the dark behind the club. A river of bass shivers through the alley, all drum and teeth. My boots scuff through a sticky bloom of alcohol and urine. The air smells metallic and animal, and beneath the neon haze, the corpse’s blood pools out in slow, polite bulbs. I don’t savor the sight or recoil. I just look down, counting beats until the backup arrives—a pair of my father’s men with faces as featureless as milk.
“Gloves,” I say.
One of them, the shorter, scrapes at his pocket as if he’s been caught without pants. His latex-covered fingers fumble the dead man’s wallet, phone, wristwatch. The other leans on the cement wall, staring up at the fluorescents, as though he’s somekind of philosopher. I give him a look, and he straightens, eyes flickering. They’re both new. They’ll be gone by winter.
I toss the gun parts at their feet. “Dumpster diet. You know the drill.” My voice sounds wrong in my ears, brittle as old glass.
They scatter, leaving the body in its slow sprawl, half-hidden by the shadow of the overhanging HVAC duct. I walk back toward the street, passing the line for the club. Girls in velvet and sequins, boys flexing jawbones and entitlement; none have seen anything, or won’t remember it in the morning. I keep my chin up, tucking loose hair behind my ear. The bouncer flicks his eyes at me, makes a note somewhere in those ape-lidded thoughts, and then looks away.
A black Impala idles at the curb. Gino’s behind the wheel, eyes on the mirror, nose red from the cold or the coke. He’s been with our family since my christening, always lurking at the edges, doing the shit jobs that didn’t need finesse. His head jerks as I slide into the backseat, leather sticky beneath my thighs, the city’s warmth still seeping from my skin.
“The Don says Brooklyn. As soon as possible.” Gino doesn’t look back, doesn’t need to. He knows I’m not in the mood for his half-assed jokes.
“Is that why you sent two toddlers to mop up?” I fish a cigarette from my purse, spark it, suck a long drag until the dizziness bites. It’s a childish habit, but some nights I want to remember what it feels like to break rules.
Gino’s laugh is a cough in the dark. “They’re not Stasio, what do you care?” He glances up again at the rearview, then softens. “You could’ve said no.”
“I never can,” I say, smoke curling from my lips to the backseat dome. “That’s the point. What’s he want?”
“Didn’t say. Just said Brooklyn. Now. And bring you ‘in one piece, no more, no less.’” He shrugs. “Probably means you fucked something up.”
I snort. “Then he can go fuck himself.”
“Princess, I’ll drive you myself.” Gino grins, a little too wide, and then the city slips sideways, passing in a rinse of sodium lights and hollow-eyed pedestrians. Manhattan pulses past, indifferent. I let my mind go numb.
I stare at my reflection in the window, the city bent and stretched over my face. For a moment, I see the ghost of my old self: hair wild, lipstick smudged, smile that meant something. Gone, all of it. I’ve been at this too long—peeling back the world’s skin, poking at its nerves—waiting for something to make me feel alive. Or maybe just feel.
Everything fails.
We cut over the bridge and into Brooklyn, the streets getting meaner, corners tight with old men muttering in Sicilian. Gino parks outside the brownstone like he’s the Queen’s chauffeur, then cracks his knuckles. “Sure you don’t want me to?—?”
“Wait in the car.” I stub out the smoke, step into the night. My heels echo up the stoop.
Inside, the house is too quiet, the kind of hush that signals everyone knows about the bomb before you do. The walls sweat the scent of cigar ash and lemon polish. Jessa, our housekeeper, scuttles past without meeting my eyes. I don’t blame her; the last girl who tried to talk to me about her sick kid ended up with a new job in Ohio, all expenses paid. Dominic never liked distractions.
In the front parlor, the soldiers pretend not to watch me. I pretend not to see the pity in their eyes—sly little glances, then look away. Something’s wrong. I scan the faces, looking for a tell, but all I get are hard jaws and hands folded like choirboys. Nothing new there.
I open the door to my father’s office. He’s at his desk, rolling a cigar with hands knotted like driftwood. His silver hair gleams in the lamp’s amber pool. He doesn’t look up.
“Sit,” he says, not a question but a knell.
I fold myself into the leather wingback, back straight, palms in my lap. Years ago, he taught me: never lean, never curl, never look smaller than you are.
“Messy job tonight. Not your best.” My father sparks his cigar. The smoke spirals into a black halo. “Three cameras, two witnesses, one with a badge. You slipping?”
“Give me something worth my time and I’ll try harder.” I let it land, ugly and true.
He smiles thinly. “You want a vacation, Laura? Maybe you want to run away to the circus.”
I don’t blink. “Something like that. Anywhere is better than here.”
My father’s eyes sharpen, and he stares at me with disdain. “I have a real job for you.”
“That’s all I ever do.”
