Taken by Her Prince

“Privacy?” she asked.

“You were just getting to the good part.” I turned away. “Leaving in two minutes.”

I ran down the steps. There wasn’t enough time for coffee, so I settled for five Advil and a big glass of water to fight the hangover pounding away at my skull. Exactly two minutes later, Colleen came down the steps, her hair in a messy bun. She wore jean shorts and a big black hooded sweatshirt.

“Come on,” I said, and headed out the front door.

She followed then stopped on the sidewalk, gawping up at the smoke.

“It’s that close?” she asked.

“Around the corner.” I grabbed her hand and tugged her along. She barely kept up.

“What is it?” she asked. “I mean, what’s on fire?”

“It’s a new bar called the Endless Well,” I said. “My boys opened it as a sort of front for some of our business dealings.”

“It’s one of yours?”

“It’s mine,” I said. “Actually mine. Not just a place that pays me tribute, but mine.”

She bit her lip. “And it’s close to where you live.”

“I noticed.”

We turned left and hurried toward the smoke. There was a crowd ahead, people gathered on the sidewalk and in the street. I coughed and could smell the charred wood and thick, almost floral smell of the building turning to ash.

Luca peeled himself away from the crowd and jogged over as I approached.

“What the hell do we do?” he asked.

I shook my head and walked toward the group. Then I turned and stared at the building as flames licked up its facade.

Before the fire, the Endless Well was popular. It drew a good crowd and it was one of my few genuinely profitable businesses. There was outdoor seating in these metal chairs with little round wooden tables. The waitress would bring out bowls of tap water for dogs and pitchers of sparkling water for their owners. The windows were big, glass, and tinted dark with Endless Well painted in this old-fashioned script by this overpriced guy with a thick black beard and a face tattoo of one of those wiener dogs wearing sunglasses.

It was the kind of place people sat in grungy, ripped vinyl seats and talked about how authentic everything was, even though the rips were done by a girl with chunky black glasses and pink hair to purposefully look like they’d been cut naturally.

Now flames licked up the side of the building and burst out from the upper story windows.

“How?” I asked.

Luca shook his head. “I don’t know. I got a call from the manager, he came to open it and found the fire already started inside. Said the door was kicked open.”

My jaw tensed. “The Club,” I said.

“Looks like it.” Luca wrung his hands out in front of him then straightened. “I don’t know how they even knew about this place.”

I waved that away. “People know where our shit is. We don’t keep it secret.”

“Still, it’s too close to you.” Luca crossed his arms. “Come on, boss. We gotta do something about this.”

“We will.” I stared at the burning building and I felt Colleen press herself against my side. Sirens blared in the distance as the fire company raced through the streets. “Clear these people away,” I said.

Luca nodded and walked off. He started shouting at the gathered crowd, maybe thirty people in all. Most of them ignored him until my other boys joined in, and soon they made enough space for the fire company to park out front.

We watched them get to work. They sprayed great gushing hoses at the building, trying to soak it and keep the flames from spreading. The problem with a fire in a city like Philadelphia was it never stayed contained. If a fire sprang up in the middle of a city block, depending on the weather it could spread to every other house nearby.

“This is a message,” I said to Colleen. “Courtesy of your uncle.”

She stared up at me. “What’s the message?”

“He thinks we’re vulnerable.” I pulled her away from the crowd and we stood on the sidewalk a few feet from everyone else. “What do you think about this?”

She blinked at me and reached up to squeeze her bun. She didn’t move for a long moment then spread out her hands.

“I have no clue,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

“Is this something your uncle does? Start fires like this?” I let a frustrated growl escape my lips. “This shit is stupid. Might get some innocent person killed.”

“Like you got some innocent girl shot?”

I stare at her for a moment then turned closer. She took a step back but I caught her wrist and pulled her toward me. She looked surprised as I reached up and took her hair in my fist, grabbing her by the bun.

“How many times do I have to show you that I’m sorry?” I asked. “What more do I have to do?”