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God almighty, why did you give the man with the blackest soul the most heavenly eyes?
He turns those eyes on me, sparing a glance from the road. It feels like a spike driving into my chest. For just a second, I wish that I were beautiful, so he’d want to look at me the way I’m looking at him.
My heart is seizing up in my chest. My breath comes faster and more ragged. I feel like I’m dying.
I never imagined that Nero could have a gentle touch. I’ve seen him get in more fights than I can count. He’s like a walking weapon—violent, unpredictable, wreaking destruction on whatever he touches.
He’s touching me the way he’d touch a car engine—with a desire to fix it. He diagnosed me, and he’s making me run smooth again.
My head feels light, and I get a flush of honesty. Like I should just say what I’m thinking. I never do that, usually. I keep my thoughts locked down tight.
“Who cares?” he says angrily. “I don’t give a fuck about money.” I don’t ask him what he does care about. The answer is obvious—nothing.
He’s got a trail of scorned hearts a mile wide behind him. There isn’t a pretty girl in this city who hasn’t been caught up in the flame of his charm, only to burn like a paper flower.
I’m like a starving puppy in the street. He tossed me a scrap because it was easy, and it cost him nothing. “I don’t need your pity,” I tell him.
I have bitterness inside of me, too. I could be dangerous. If I wanted to be.
He kisses me wildly, like this is the last moment of our lives.
“Are you sober enough to drive?” I say. “Yes,” he says, putting the car in reverse. “I’d have to drink that whole bottle to feel anything at all.”
I wish I could blame this on being drunk. I wish I could blackout and forget it all in the morning.
Gray hairs are good for business,” Fergus says, smiling. “Nobody trusts a young man.”
The truth is that Camille isn’t my type at all. But I sort of felt like we might be becoming friends—a little bit. I kind of liked her. And I don’t like anybody. I barely like my own family.
here’s the weirdest part of all. The kiss was . . . good.
I want to get what I want out of them, as quickly as possible, so I can be alone again.
But in the end, they’re all the same, and I feel hollow afterward. Spent but not really satisfied.
The way she kissed was different, too. She seemed like she was exploring me, trying me out. At one point I saw that her eyes were open, looking at my face. Which should have been off-putting, but it wasn’t. Her eyes were big and dark and curious. Like we had invented something new, that nobody in the world had tried before, and she didn’t want to miss a moment of it. All of those things were odd and confusing to me.
“Oh, you’re a clean cop?” I say. “Kinda sounds like a friendly mosquito or a gourmet Twinkie. I’m not sure it exists; I’ve sure as shit never seen it.”
“To inform me that he suspects that our family may, at some point, have been involved in illegal activity. Apparently, the police frown on that.”
I’ve got no interest in trying to bring other investors on board. If we need money, we should get it the old-fashioned way—by stealing it. As that cop reminded me, we are gangsters after all.
There are no favors from Nero. He’s always a coin with two sides.
Yes, he can occasionally be the slightest bit helpful, when the whim catches him. But he’s a black hole of selfishness.
every minute I spend around him is likely to land me in jail, one way or another. I don’t need that. I’m doing a pretty good job of destroying my future all on my own.
nobody is as paranoid as a criminal.
there’s an edge of jealousy to his words. He’s handsome, fit. He thinks he deserves that kind of female attention himself.
He doesn’t give a shit what happens to me. I’m a tool. And not even a very valuable one. Not an air compressor or a fancy impact wrench—I’m just a cheap plastic funnel. Easily replaced.
“I don’t give a shit about minnows when I’m hunting for sharks.”
“These people are criminals and lowlifes,” he says. “Don’t try to protect them.” That pisses me off. What makes him think he’s better than them? I bet he’s done all kinds of shady shit in the line of duty. It’s not “moral” vs “immoral.” It’s just a bunch of people on two opposing teams.
He’s forty-six. There’s no way he has cancer. “Don’t worry, Dad,” I say to him. “It’s probably something else.” I’m forcing a smile. Meanwhile I’m sinking down, down, down into deep black water.
Usually this would be the point in the conversation where I’d tell her to knock herself out—literally. But today I don’t. I can see bright tears gleaming in the corner of Camille’s eyes. In all the years I’ve known her, in all the times I’ve seen her pissed off, agitated, or stressed, I’ve never seen her cry. Not once. There’s something seriously wrong with that sight. It’s like a lion with its mane shaved off. It makes me feel the one thing I don’t ever want to feel—pity.
I dodge the first punch. The second hits me across the jaw. The pain is shocking, blinding. I fucking love it. This is the only thing that feels real. The only thing that feels genuine. I hate this shithead, and he hates me. We want to tear each other apart. Beating him proves that I’m better than him—smarter, faster, stronger. I’ve killed men before, when I had to. That’s work, and I don’t enjoy it. Fighting is different. It’s pure fun. And I’m really fucking good at it. One-on-one I almost never lose.
Johnny is a big dude. A worthy adversary. When he hits me again, square in the chest, I could almost respect him. I’m still going to take him apart.
The quiet is broken by the patter of raindrops on the glass roof. I look up, watching each of the raindrops burst against the glass. Soon there’s too many to count. The patter turns into a steady drumming sound, that ebbs and flows in a soothing way. “I love summer rain,”
I look at Camille. Really look at her, in the dim, watery light. Her skin glows like it’s illuminated from the inside. The humidity has turned her hair into a wild halo of curls, all around her head. Her dark eyes look huge and tragically sad. I see the pain in them.
The time has no meaning, because it’s the only time that matters. If you could see my whole life laid out on a string, this would be the one bright bead. The one moment of happiness.
He’s an absolute mess. It’s almost like he wants to get his face caved in. Like he’s trying to destroy its beauty. It won’t work. The cuts and bruises can’t hide what’s underneath.
those light gray eyes—eyes that sometimes look bright as starlight, and sometimes as dark as the underside of a storm cloud.
He’s got a shock of black hair, without a hint of brown in it. It falls over his eyes, then he tosses it back again. It’s an impatient, angry gesture, like he’s annoyed at his own hair, or anything else that dares to touch his face.
We kiss for so long that I forgot who he is and who I am. I forgot that I swore to myself a hundred times that I would never, never, never let Nero Gallo get a hold of my heart so he could tear it into tiny pieces and stomp on them, like he does to everybody else.
Then he leaves. And I’m alone in my bed for hours, wondering why I let him kiss me. And why he wanted to at all.
Actually, it pisses me off. She had no right to look at a picture of me, when she couldn’t be bothered to come see her real, actual daughter, who was still living in the same damn neighborhood as her.
He’s a snake. I was a fool to let him slip his fangs into me for even an instant.
I want to tell her it’s not what it looks like. Which is the stupidest excuse in the world. Except for this one time, when it’s actually true.
“Don’t break the law while you’re breaking the law.” What he means by that is you should only commit one crime at a time. Otherwise you draw attention to yourself.
I’m impressed. My enterprising little brother has found a way to make money that actually sounds legal.
I’m really proud of him. I always knew my little brother was brilliant. He just needs to turn his attention in the right direction. To things that will help him out in life, instead of getting him in trouble.
I’m a fucking nobody. An embarrassment. Can you imagine Nero introducing me to his family? He’d never do it. My dad vacuumed out Enzo Gallo’s car for god’s sake. You might as well date your maid’s daughter.
“Not everybody chooses to be a rat. Some of us just happened to be born in the gutter.”
