Fool's Gold: A Kisses and Crimes Novel (19 page)

I want more than just his kiss. I want him to bury himself so deeply within me that our souls interconnect.

With my submission, I place the entirety of who I am (and everything I want to be) onto his strong shoulders.

And I become this new Dani. I become
that
girl.

A girl… who possesses more shoes than the law should allow, to whom roast beef is a delicacy, and who’d rather be lost in some bookstore than anywhere else in the world.

A girl who always washes her hair twice in the shower, has a birthmark below the nape of her neck, and, according to him, has the
silkiest
fucking skin
in the world.

And then in that moment, I let him hold this… roast-beef loving, book-reading, non-cooking, unable-to-handle-her-booze, dancing queen of a girl.

And she becomes his.

She becomes someone better.

She lets the Dani she once was completely go… and a new Dani awakens in his arms, when, abruptly…
Bishop pulls back
.

He takes a step away, sporting a hard-on that could slice through steel, and I have to keep myself from touching him.

“
Stop,”
he grunts. “
We have to stop.
If we don’t, I will take you in the middle of this floor and by the time we’re done, the police will be knocking down the door ‘cause of all the noise.”

He looks at me.

“The last thing we need are boys in blue showing up. And I never underestimate the FBI. If I found you, then so will they…”

He drops his hands from my face. I let a shaky, frustrated breath go at the absence of his touch.

I know Bishop is right.

“I guess we’re both running from our own versions of Mafia, huh?” I ask slowly.

Bishop scoffs. “
Turf war
… just like you said.”

“More like a cock-swinging contest.”

“Trust me.
Ain’t no contest if I’m in it.”

I don’t miss the wicked glint that shines in Bishop’s hazel eyes, despite his small frown.

He reaches for his jeans. His small hiss of pain doesn’t escape my ears.

“Look at you.” I nearly reach out. “You’re almost ready to collapse.
Sit down and…
”

“No,” he stands his ground, his chest heaving as he breathes heavily. “I don’t.
We
need to get out of here.
Right now.”

“Right now?
How?
Where…?”

Bishop climbs back into his jeans.

“Back to the States. I need to find that fucking Jackson.”

“
The States?”
I rush after Bishop, grabbing him. “No…
No.
We’d be flagged at the gate the minute we picked up our tickets. What’s to stop us from getting picked up by the FBI the second we land?”

“Nothing, really.” Bishop drills me with a hard stare. “Our fake passports, a higher power and maybe a
whole lot
of fucking luck…”

He grunts, cradling his hurting arm.

“And why the States?” I balk. “The only place we’d even go would be…?”

The realization stops me.

“
No,
Bishop,” I snap. “We could get
killed
. We could be walking into a trap. I mean, I only have like two friends I can remember in the goddamned city… New York is the
last
fucking place we can be safe…”

“You still don’t understand, Dani.
Nowhere is safe.
And at least in New York, we still have a chance to get to the truth. Be grateful you have two friends.”

He hesitates.

“That might be more than what I have right now,” Bishop answers ominously.

He walks past me, trying to hide a limp, a slight hobble as he makes his way to the bedroom.

“We’d be taking the
biggest risk of our lives
, Bishop…” I stop. “Are you sure we’re ready for that?”

He turns on me.

“We fucking have to be… because Isaac Duvall didn’t have a panic button stuck up his asshole. Those weren’t
his
men that shot at us.

And only
two people
knew we were at that hotel, Dani.

Duvall and Jax.”

He puts his jacket back on.

“Evil has many faces, kitten…” He scans my face. “But betrayal only has one.”

DANI

It’s said that the road back is always better than the road going.

I think the person who said that has never been to New York…

It’s a city that was the beginning of so much of me.

The site of my upbringing. My youth. My joy.

And now my nightmares.

Scared to death, my suitcase packed full of false identification secured by Bishop, I hand over a passport to TSA that isn’t even mine.

I pass through the metal detectors sweating like a whore in church, and by the time we make it to our gate, I need a new layer of deodorant, new layer of lipstick and a new thumbnail because I’ve chewed it down to a freakin’ nub.

But our section is called quickly to board, and I breathe a gigantic sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, the boarding process runs slow, our section is particularly crowded, and every fifteen minutes my eyes wander over to Bishop.

I check to make sure his new bandages are still clean.

I slyly try to feel his skin for a fever.

His body is fighting, struggling relentlessly beneath the skin and bone to keep his health intact. His breaths are slightly labored, his hand hot to the touch.

He needs a hospital.

But what hospital could possibly hide him from
them
? The second he checked in, provided his information, he would undoubtedly be flagged.

Or at least that’s our fear…

Would the fake social, the fake ID hold up in an E.R.?

Probably not…

The FBI would swarm to the location like locusts the way Acel Martelle, that pudgy bastard cop, and Delaney, the salt-and-peppery dickhead, had in Spain.

And they wouldn’t just bring the locusts; they’d bring the
plague
. A plague that Bishop likely wouldn’t survive.

I hold onto his hand the entire flight.

We touch down at LaGuardia at about noon Eastern Time, and it feels like a dream that we’re even back in the States.

Past the air-conditioned terminals, through the baggage claim, we walk until a hot and humid New York air welcomes us right at the door.

Horns are honking loud. The air is thick with car fumes and F-bombs.

And even amidst the mini-chaos in the “Public Transportation” pick-up, I feel an abnormal sense of nostalgia just to be back home.

Back home where the street construction is loud, and the people are louder.

Where a passerby can stop and the smell hotdogs and hot pretzels in the air.

France was fantastic. Barcelona could be tons of fun.

But amidst all the bullshit and bullets, the danger and double-dealings, it felt good to be back where I belonged.

And I belonged to New York…. even if certain parts didn’t want me back.

Bishop and I hail a taxi going through Lower East side of Manhattan via Delancey Street.

Heading towards the northwest corner, we find ourselves in the East Village, newly gentrified…
freshly
expensive… and home to the man whose absence has brought us here.

Jackson Reed.

I can feel the tension in Bishop as we approach Jax’s apartment and before the taxi can even come to a complete stop, he is nearly throwing the money at the cabbie, his physical pain giving him an impatience that is hard to watch.

Wanting to help, I attempt to help with our luggage, but my dark knight won’t have any of it.

Injured, practically half-dead, he lugs our belongings from the trunk and to the curbside. We exit the sidewalk and find ourselves hiking it up to the front desk of Jax’s newly minted apartment.

Spare key in tow, we are lifted out of the lobby and to Jax’s place with dirt on our skin, grime in our hair and a grimace on our lips.

Our fear, palpable and pressing, weighs us down as we rise past each nondescript floor.

And I can’t put my finger on it.

I can’t tell if I’m afraid that we’ll find Jax… or more afraid that we
won’t
.

I don’t have much time to think about it… because the second the fear becomes real, the elevator lift stops.

Bishop urges me forward, his hand on the small of my back, his halted breaths on my neck.

And though he is hauling our entire luggage, I suddenly feel
heavy
.

It is as if the stress, the fear, the anticipation between France and here has all combined into this moment, been doused in gasoline… and
set on fire.

My palms are sweaty. My head and chest are tight by the time Bishop brandishes the key and begins unlocking the door.

He has one hand on the small metal handle. The other is hovering over his gun.

He pushes inside, his hand at his hip, and as soon he takes a step forward, he levels the weapon, aiming it at nothing… and
everything
at the same time.

He sweeps it over the small expanse.

And I have to
force
myself to breathe.

In the living room, to the kitchen, over towards the bedroom and bath, I follow Bishop cautiously.

Just fifty-six hours ago, I’d sought Jax’s help for protection. Now it seemed as if he were the one I needed protection
against
.

We find the apartment clear, and Bishop stows away his gun.

“What are we going to do?” I ask Bishop.

He winces.

“I don’t know… I just—I don’t know. He’s not here… but I know he
will be
. We can’t go back to my place…”

“And we can’t go back to mine,” I chime in.

“So I guess we’ll stay here. Wait for him to come us.”

“And for the
Feds
to come to us?” I raise my eyebrows. “What about Delaney? That disgusting Agent Carlson?”

“Forget about Delaney, kitten. I escaped, ” he grunts. “We need to worry about
Jax
.”

“
Escaped,
Bishop…? Or did he let you go?”

I grab Bishop’s arm.

“He sent me away, Bishop. He allowed you to escape. His mission was to take down my father. And until very recently, so was yours. And on top of that… I dreamt about him last night.”

I swallow.

“Except it wasn’t a dream.
It was a memory.
And at that curbside when he motioned over to me outside the party, he had mentioned my father, Bishop. Hinted at whether or not I still wanted to be under my dad’s thumb and offered me his ‘help’.”

I make Bishop face me, looking into his eyes.

“Even as a kid, I
knew
what kind of
help
he was offering… Was that the kind of help he offered
you
?”

I step in, touching him.

“Think about it, Bishop… Why would he find us only to let us go again?”

***

BISHOP

Violence got me further than money ever did.

Money was nothing. I’d made enough in the mafia to swim in it.

I don’t use money to bribe; I have plenty of it.

My bribes always were a little more
personal
.

A threat… a flash of a gun, and the people I talked to just
handed
over the answers.

A mention of an important
name
? Well, that would get you even
better
answers… and, in some cases, the possibility of getting your cock sucked off.

Thank God I never took some of
those
offers.

As
the Crow
, I could walk into any bar and make information appear out of thin air.

As plain old Christian Donovan Bischetti, I’m just a regular Joe Shmoe… and information is now much,
much
harder to come by.

My money’s tighter, the connections are gone, and, in New York, in a place like this bar,
La Roma
, even
I’m
not Italian enough for some of these guys.

Good thing violence is a universal language.

I take a seat at the bar at La Roma and watch a T.V. in the corner of the room blast a soccer game for all to see.

It’s an empty night, the patrons are bored, and the bartender is all too happy to see a new customer.

A typical full-blooded Sicilian through and through, when he sees the American dollars in my hands, however, it puts a new pep in his serious and solid step.

These type of Sicilians went out their way to
prove
they weren’t born American…
but they sure did like American money.

I order a whiskey—neat. No water added.

I sip on the brown drink slower than I should. The bartender watches the game… and I watch him.

He tries to make small conversation as I drink.

“Yup,” he says in broken English. “Algeria try take down Germany, but Germany fuck dem ass. Two points to none!”

He points at the screen. I nod, not pretending to be interested, in the least, but he keeps talking.

He seems starved for conversation. I just wish that we could actually make some. I can’t understand
half
of what he’s saying.

But it’s going to have to be enough.

I have questions for this lanky, loud-mouthed barkeep, and with the way I’m feeling tonight, he’d better pray he has the right answers for them.

I tilt my drink, draining it in one gulp.

“I’ll have another,” I demand.

He looks from the game to me and then to the bar.

“Dat was some of my best whiskey,” he comments, pouring a second drink. “If I not know any better, I would say you are officer.”

One eyebrow involuntarily rises, and I take the drink from his hands before it even touches the bar.

“What would make you say something like that?”

My question is innocent enough, but there’s an underlining threat in my serious tone. The barkeep pauses, clearing his throat while he stashes the bottle.

He’s offended me, he knows, but he doesn’t know how or why.

So, I keep him guessing.

I prod even further.

“This a place where a lot of officers, private investigators come in?”

He’s unsure how to answer my question. He hesitates.

“Uh, at times. In an’ out…” he stops. “It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

He shifts on his feet. “What day, ‘zee time…”

“What kind of investigators?” I ask the question without prompt.

“I don’t… u-understand,” he stutters.

“Good ones? Bad ones?” I shoot out. “
Ones that nobody’s seen in a while
?”

“Sir, I…”

“
Listen up, Luigi,
” I condescend, feeling irritable and at the end of my fucking rope. “I want to know what kind of officers are coming in here. I want to know
who
the fuck they are, and
when
they’ve been here.”

I lean in over the bar.

“Look, I’ll cut through the bullshit. I know your name,
Alfonso
. I know
who you are
, and I know that you provide these guys some form of ‘
refreshment
.’ The kind you have sex with, the kind you shoot up, the kind you snort up your nose…”

I talk quickly.

I know the bartender can understand me by the crazed, wide look in his eyes, but he’s barely holding it together. He looks around as if he needs a drink himself… or maybe even help.

He’s not going to get either if I have anything to say about it.

I toss back the second glass.

“So I want to know who comes in here the
most
and I want their names.” I set the empty glass down. “
Right now.
”

“MIster,” he starts. “I not quite sure…”

I’m not here for fucking excuses.

I’d rather use the universal tongue I know he’ll understand. I stand, grabbing his shirtfront over the bar so it looks like we’re speaking closely.

I hiss into his face.

“You see
this
?”

I open my jacket flap and point to the gun located on the inside of my hip.

“This is Mister Pistol. Now, I don’t like to talk a lot, but Mister Pistol
sure
likes to make a lot of noise. So,
we
can have a conversation or… you and he can have a little chat?”