He slapped a palm down. The men behind the counters didn’t so much as look over, and Chen’s eyes went cold and terrible again.
“One day, and that day may never come, but I will ask you for something, and you will give it to me. Do you understand?”
I met his gaze and nodded once. “I understand.”
“Good.” He sat back. “I’ll see what I can dig up on my end. Perhaps I can at least get them to back off for the time being. I believe the man you’re ultimately dealing with is named Steven, and he’s one of the more reasonable capos in the city, believe it or not.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Don’t mistake being reasonable for being soft. Steven will gladly kill you if you prove to be a nuisance, which you already are. Fly low, Dr. Coarse, and keep your head down. I suspect you’ll deal with his men again sooner or later.”
I nodded to him then turned and left the deli. I felt eyes on me as I stepped into the street, and for one wild second I thought the whole city was alive with spies, staring at me, watching me and judging every movement I made, ready to jump out of the shadows, ready to come cut my throat.
It was paranoia, I knew, but not without reason. The city was in debt to these mobsters, and now I was in debt to their doctor.
I walked back to the car, got in, and drove back slowly, keeping an eye on my rearview mirror, watching to see if I was being followed, but finding nothing.19FionaThe more I thought about Dean’s hands on my skin, the more I wanted it—and the more it scared the hell out of me.
His curiosity made me want to push him away, but it also made me want to embrace him. He touched my scar and didn’t act like I was disfigured. If anything, he seemed like he thought it was beautiful, and wanted to know more, wanted to touch it more. His fingers lingering on my skin sent shivers down my spine, and I knew I’d want more, I’d want so much more sooner or later. I couldn’t hold back, not forever.
Unless I did something about it.
He found me in the hospital a day later, sitting behind the nurses’ station. Mary was in a patient room and I was trying to pretend that I wasn’t exhausted, emotionally and physically, when he leaned up against the desk and smiled at me.
“How’s your day going?” he asked.
I shrugged, playing it cool, even though my heart raced whenever he came around.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Are you sure you want to stand here talking to me? There’s going to be gossip.”
He laughed. “There’s already gossip. But, uh, we have to talk about something. Is there a private spot nearby?”
I hesitated the nodded and stood. I found Mary, told her I was ducking out for a second, then took Dean down the hall and into an empty room. He shut the door, pulled the privacy screen, and faced me.
“What’s going on?” I asked when I saw the look on his face.
“I met with Dr. Chen.”
I sucked in a breath. “What happened?”
“He gave me an idea for what we should do next.”
“He helped you, just like that?”
He paused then shook his head. “I owe him a favor now.”
I groaned. “So you’re involved with the mob.”
“Something like that. I’m not sure he’s technically in their family. More like a contractor.”
“That’s so much better.”
“Do you want to know the plan or not?”
I turned away and paced across the room, head spinning. I had so much I wanted to say to him, and most of it had nothing to do with the mafia and our little predicament. Still, that was the biggest problem we faced at the moment, and so I gestured. “Tell me,” I said.
“Accountants.” He held his chin up. “We’re going after the accountants.”
“Sounds exciting.”
He laughed. “Think about it. We need documentation that money’s going missing, right? The accountants will have it.”
“Dean, stop, this is insane. You want to break into their office? That has to be too far, even for you.”
“We have no choice.” He stepped closer. I stepped back, like we were doing some new dance. “The mob’s going to keep coming after us no matter what we do at this point. Our only hope is to discredit Maria, get her fired, and make it so that the family can’t come after us.”
“And you think you can do that by ruining their plans?”
His eyes narrowed. “I think that’s our only chance.”
“Come on, Dean, this is insane. You have to know that.”
“What’s wrong? You seem tense.”
I stopped pacing and faced him, arms down at my sides, hands curled into fists. I stared at him for a second, trying to understand how he could even say that—of course I was tense, this whole situation was tense and stressful. It felt like my life hung in the balance every second of every day and I didn’t know how to handle that.