Speak Easy (Speak Easy 1)

“Not too friendly, are ya, kid?” Harry reached out and traced a line from my neck down one shoulder.

Recoiling with a scowl, I threw my drink in his face. While he sputtered in shock, a hand came down on his arm and spun him around.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Enzo growled.

Harry mopped his face with his sleeve. “Enzo. I didn’t realize.” He scowled at me before backing up and losing himself in the crowd.

Enzo took the empty glass from my hand. “Can I get you another drink?”

“No, thank you.” Between the whisky I’d imbibed at the table and the difficulty I had walking in these high heels, I was impaired enough. Not to mention the way Enzo’s dark eyes and slow smiles threw me off balance. I leaned against the bar for support. “Did you speak to my friend?”

“It’s all taken care of.”

I found it hard to believe Joey had let him off so easily. “What did he say?”

“Oh, he threatened my general well-being, as well as some specific body parts, if any harm should come to you.” He took my arm, more gently this time, and led me around the bar. “I promised to return you to him in twenty minutes, unmolested.”

Our eyes met. I was beginning to regret turning down a drink.

He pushed open a door behind the bar, and we entered a room filled with crates, boxes and sacks of alcohol. “Is all this yours?” I asked, impressed.

“Yes.” He guided me to the back and opened another door, which led into what looked like a tunnel.

I hesitated before entering the dark, narrow space. “What’s this?”

“It’s the quickest way to the office.”

“Whose office?”

“My father’s.”

“Will he be there too?”

Enzo looked at me sideways. “I’m a grown man, Tiny. My father doesn’t need to know everything I do.” He pulled me into the tunnel, closing the door behind us. Gasping at the complete darkness, I grabbed his arm.

He laughed, and a second later, I heard the flick of his lighter. The little flame created a small sphere of light, illuminating his sculpted features from below. “Better?”

No. You’re too handsome. And too close. “Yes.” I released his arm. Stepping gingerly on the balls of my feet, I walked beside him down the long, narrow passageway. The walls were raw planks of wood, and the ground was hard-packed dirt. Our footsteps made no sound. No one knows where I am.

“So what’s your real name, anyway?” His tone was friendly and curious, as if we were out for an evening stroll in the park and not sneaking through a subterranean passage beneath an illegal club.

“Uh, it’s Frances, but I’ve always been called Tiny.” Pay attention to your surroundings. Keep it friendly. “When I was born, I was so small I fit into a cigar box.”

He chuckled again, chipping away at my antagonism. “Really?”

I nodded as we veered left. Another tunnel snaked to the right. They must run beneath the entire building. “These tunnels must come in handy.”

“Always good to have more than one way out these days. Do you supply any clubs?”

“A few. Mostly Al Murphy’s places. But his speaks don’t have this kind of hidden access. I wish they did. It would make deliveries a lot easier.”

“I imagine so. Watch your step here.” Enzo’s voice was steady as he took my arm, guiding me through a door into a narrow stairwell. From there I followed him up rough-hewn steps on shaky legs

, wishing there was a rail to hold onto.

At the top of the stairs we emerged into a dimly lit wood-paneled hallway. “This way.” Enzo tugged my arm to the right. A quick look behind me revealed that the door we’d come through blended into the wall so well, I wasn’t sure I could find it again. At the end of the hall, Enzo unlocked a door and stood back so I could enter. He locked it again behind us, and my skin tingled when he brushed by me. A moment later, he switched on a lamp across the room.

The office looked like any businessman’s—a large mahogany desk with two red leather chairs in front of it, thick gold velvet curtains over the windows, and a sideboard along the back wall functioning as a bar.