Speak Low (Speak Easy 2)

“Hunh?” Angelo was as surprised as I was.

“You heard me. Let her go.”

The arm around my chest didn’t loosen. “What the fuck, Lupo?”

“Just do it.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Angelo released me and moved closer to Enzo, bringing his other hand to the gun.

“Tiny, bring me the pistol on the ground.” Joey’s voice was cool and steady, and he still didn’t look at me.

I hurried forward, scooping up Enzo’s gun from the cement floor and bringing it to Joey. As he took the gun from my hands, the moonlight shining through the high windows revealed the fury in his eyes.

I remembered a night not long ago when Joey and I had been alone in the boathouse, the night he’d kissed me on the lake…the night a storm raged outside and lightning had illuminated his features as he’d moved toward me in the dark, his voice teasing…I heard none of that levity now.

“So DiFiore, you can either agree to what we’re offering here, which is an even three-way split—more than anyone else would offer, by the fucking way—or you can kiss thousands of dollars goodbye like a goddamn fool.”

Enzo squared his shoulders. “I’m no fool.”

“Then make the deal.”

Unbearable silence followed. Finally he spoke. “How do I know you’ve really got the drugs? Could be anything in that trunk.”

Joey nodded at Angelo, who grabbed Enzo by the upper arm and put the gun under his chin. They were about the same height, but Angelo was meatier, with a thick neck and a beefy chest that bulged inside his shirt. By contrast, Enzo’s frame appeared slender. Angelo led him over to the trunk, which Joey opened. Tentatively, I tiptoed forward and peered inside too.

It was full of tin containers shaped like small bricks with rounded edges, and they were labeled, but I couldn’t read the words in the dark. Joey shut the lid. “Well?”

Enzo studied Joey. “What’s Sam paying you?”

“This is between us. Sam doesn’t know about it, and he’s not gonna find out about it, neither, understand?” Joey raised the gun a little higher.

Enzo’s lips twitched. “Lupo, you have no fucking idea what you’re doing.”

My heart skipped a beat—that was exactly what I was afraid of.

But Joey stood his ground. “Deal or no deal, asshole.”

Enzo stared at Joey for another few seconds, and then he glanced at Angelo. I might as well have been invisible. “Deal.”

To my astonishment, the two shook on it before Angelo marched us out to the Packard at gunpoint. I couldn’t even bring myself to glance back at Joey as we left.

#

Enzo was silent on the way back to my house, but he wore an eerily calm expression. He switched off the headlamps once he’d turned onto my street, and slowed the Packard to a crawl before pulling into the drive next to my house.

When the motor was silent, he looked at me. “Are you all right?”

“No.”

He smiled, the bastard. “I’d say I was sorry for taking you out tonight, but I’d be lying.”

“You enjoyed this?”

“Well…parts of it. Maybe even most of it.” He brushed a finger over my shoulder, but I leaned away from him.

“You could have been killed, Enzo!”

“Those guys were never going to kill