Return to Poughkeepsie (17 page)

He stopped and let Jared cough out the burger to get a deep, wet breath. After he gasped back to life, Beckett tilted his head. “I’m curious how fucking hardheaded you are. Now tell me how you’re going to treat Chery and Vere.” Beckett readjusted his weight to dig the rifle harder into the soft parts of Jared’s arms.

“You’re insane. I love Chery and…”

Beckett pulled off the second layer of the burger and looked at Jared. He clamped down his jaws and tried to lock them in place. But when Beckett found the soft tissue near Jared’s ear and pressed, the man’s jaw popped open. When the food was crammed in place and he started with the soda again, the man grew frantic.

“Can you see Jesus yet?” Beckett allowed the man to cough up the burger again. He turned Jared’s head to the side just as he puked up the contents of his stomach. “You’re disgusting. Now tell me again how you’re going to treat Chery and Vere.” Beckett sat back on his haunches a bit, compressing Jared’s legs enough to likely render them numb.

“Chery’s my queen and the retard is my king. Right, right? Wait, no. I’m Chery’s queen?”

Beckett looked into the night and exhaled. He began muttering, “I will not kill him. I will not kill him. I will not kill him. Aww, fuck.”

Beckett took the last layer of burger and fought Jared until he’d inserted it into his windpipe. “I
hate
the word retard,” he told him. “If that word was a person I’d kill him.”

Jared’s eyes tried to apologize. Beckett picked up the soda, which had just a few mouthfuls left, and brought the cup to Jared’s nose.

“You know, they say fast food’s not good for you.”

13

Rose-Petal Soap

E
VE
G
OT
O
UT
O
F
T
HE
M
INIVAN
in front of a strangely nondescript building and put her hands up. The armed men frisked her and took both her knife and the gun she’d tucked into the top of her dress. The driver was disarmed as well. Then they were hustled into the entry area, where one of the men handed Mary Ellen a pair of sweatpants. She slipped them on under the driver’s jacket.

“Follow her,” a guard instructed.

Eve nodded, and she and the driver trailed after Mary Ellen. As they passed through a few different sets of doors, it became apparent that Mary Ellen’s father owned the whole building and he was using it as his residence. This man had the kind of money that ruled small countries.

“Mary Ellen! Is this you? You did this?” The man headed at them wore a velvet robe, monogrammed with PV. He pointed at an enormous television where a picture of the building that had hosted Mary Ellen’s gathering filled the screen. The place was a wreck.

“Primo, listen, it’s been a long night. I don’t want to talk about it.” Mary Ellen tried to brush past her brother.

Eve stood back and surveyed the scene. Primo was an incomplete kind of handsome. If his father had put in just three more thrusts, Primo would have been movie-star gorgeous. But instead he was just shy of getting laid like a rock star.

“Father is going to have
another
stroke when he finds out about this. What the hell were you trying to do? What did you think would happen?” Primo twirled and sat in an expensive, high-backed chair. He spread his legs enough for Eve to shift her gaze away. Dude did not have pants on.

“He won’t find out about it,
Primo
. Why would you intentionally upset him that way? And anyway, who’s to say this wasn’t part of my plan? Please. I had an exit strategy. January and Leon are professionals, and I knew they’d get me out. Everything went according to design.” Mary Ellen went to the bar in the luxurious living room and poured a glass of wine.

Eve kept her face neutral, not letting on that Mary Ellen had been in a giant clusterfuck of crazy and barely gotten out by the skin of her tits.

“January? She looks like one of your showgirls. And I know Leon’s a good driver, but did you see the mess? That’s half of midtown shut down, and dad’s helicopter is ashes, twatness. What if they track that back to us? How many of your guys got arrested?” Primo stood and stomped over to grab her wine glass.

Panic ran across Mary Ellen’s face briefly, but she dug deep and recovered. “Since when do you care at all what I do, Primo? Since when do you care about anyone but yourself? While Daddy is ill, someone needs to be thinking about the future of our business.”

“Is that what you think you’re doing?” he countered. Mary Ellen gave him a curt nod and he opened his mouth to speak again, but then abruptly closed it. He appeared to think for a moment. “You know what? You want a whack at running dad’s business? Have at it. Go nuts. We all know who will carry on his legacy. That’d be me.
His son.
”

Having said his piece, Primo turned and looked Eve up and down like she might be a prospect for his evening.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Mary Ellen announced. “And I will not allow you to upset our father’s recovery by sharing your speculations. Just keep them to yourself and try not to piss Daddy’s money away in the casinos.” With that, she turned on her heel and waved everyone out of the room before stomping upstairs.

Eve nodded and followed Leon down the hall to the guest quarters. They walked into the suite—two bedrooms with an adjoining bathroom and shared living room—and Leon closed the door.

“You’re a decent driver.” He took his tie off.

Eve glanced around the room, seeing plenty of places where audio and video equipment could be hidden. “Back at you.”

Mary Ellen knocked on the door, still in her mismatched outfit. “I suggest you lock the door if you don’t want a visit from Primo later,” she told Eve. “I’ll expect to speak with you again first thing in the morning.”

Eve just waited. Mary Ellen was still putting on an act. Obviously she knew the place was wired.

“Thank you.” Eve would have said, “fuck you” with the same amount of venom. “But I’m leaving. Have one of those guys show me out. I have places to go. And I want my knife.”

Mary Ellen shook her head. “No, I want you to stay.”

“I’ve got some loose ends of
your plan
to tie up. I want to make sure none of your people turn on you.” Eve stepped around Mary Ellen and opened the door.

The woman whispered, now that Eve was so close. “I don’t trust you.”

Eve turned and looked her full in the face. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all night.”

As she anticipated, she was met in the hallway by guards. “Just get me to street level.”

“No, miss. We’re instructed to get you far from here before letting you out.” The two burly men escorted her to a much larger garage where an extremely convincing replica of a city cab waited with the door open, its windows treated with dark tinting. She slid in and one of the guards handed her back her knife before he closed the door. The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror.

“Can you take me to Poughkeepsie?” Eve closed her eyes and massaged her temples.

Mary Ellen stood in her room at her father’s house. She’d waited until this very moment to let the panic flow through her. She sank to the floor and almost convulsed with shivers as she ran through the close calls she’d endured tonight.

It was a good half hour before she got up off the floor and went into her bathroom to shower off the fear and adrenaline. The water was perfect, but as she lathered up with rose-petal soap, memories assaulted her. It had been months since she spent time in this house, and the last time she was here it was with him. Sevan: the love of her life and the man who’d torn her heart to shreds. It felt like just moments ago she’d been meeting him for dinner.

It always took her forever to decide what to wear when she knew she’d be seeing him. That night she’d settled on a pale purple pencil skirt. She’d tried on quite a few, but that one seemed to flatter her eyes the best. The maître d’ nodded and welcomed her warmly.

She touched his arm as he moved to place her menu on a center table, where she normally preferred to sit. “I’m expecting company.” She discreetly pointed instead to a secluded table in the corner.

He nodded and made the change, holding out her chair for her. She thanked him demurely.

Sevan was late. With any other man Mary Ellen would have left—and possibly asked Daddy to have the gentleman disciplined for her disappointment. But Sevan was different, so different he sounded every single alarm in her head. And his dark eyes and quick grin sounded all the alarms she had below the waist.

She forced herself not to look around the restaurant, searching for him. She didn’t want to appear eager. She slid her phone out of her purse and checked for texts. She had none. Sevan had turned her into a sniveling schoolgirl.

Her view of her phone was obscured by a single white rose. She recognized his strong forearm and inhaled her relief. The rose smelled wonderful. She felt him press his lips to her cheek, and she smiled.

“Mary Ellen.” His voice was perfection, so deep and inviting. He stepped around her and winked.

“Mr. Harmon.” She took the rose from him and nodded.

“So formal. What have I done?” He simultaneously took his seat and control of the table, signaling the waiter. “Two glasses of Dom Perignon and an order of calamari.” He turned his attention back to her. “Were you afraid I’d forgotten? That I found myself in the arms of another? Surely a woman as lovely as you would be so very confident.”

He bit his lip as he looked at her, as if he were admiring art. It was a practiced move, and she saw right through him, but found herself blushing just the same.

After the champagne was poured, Mary Ellen held up her glass for his toast.

“To your beauty.”

She tapped her glass to his, locking eyes.

Her father had warned her against falling in love. Her brother said he’d heard horrible things about Sevan. But Primo was always saying things like that, looking for ways to make her unhappy. Sevan couldn’t be all that different from her family, she told herself. After all, he’d come into her life through a business deal.

Based in South America, Sevan had approached her father with a request for weapons to be used by his personnel working in the United States. “Protection,” he explained simply. And he needed a professional like Rodolfo Vitullo because his employees had passports from every country under the sun. This made things…
complicated
, and he needed help…
streamlining
the process of getting them outfitted. Mary Ellen recalled how her father’s eyes had narrowed for a moment as he listened to Sevan’s request. But rather than ask any questions, he just nodded and escorted the man into another room, leaving her behind. As always.

Still, Mary Ellen found ways to cross Sevan’s path whenever she could. She arranged to bump into him after his meetings with Daddy. Sevan’s ardor was intense, and she fell hard for every bit of it. He was ambitious. She knew that from how hard he worked at courting her.

Sevan was tall enough that she’d had to crane her neck to look at him when they walked together, and he was young enough to know all the latest fashions and unheard of bands. He made her feel alive and naughty. They often walked the streets of Manhattan after their dinners with Sevan’s arm thrown around her shoulders, like the lovers they were. Like young lovers.

She didn’t miss his appreciative glances at other women. He sometimes turned his head to catch a particularly enchanting receding figure. He would notice her attention and always have a quick compliment.

“She has nothing on you, baby. Nothing on you.” He would brush his lips across her forehead.

She knew he’d marked her as his. He took her to event after event, paraded her around. Her father took notice and offered warnings. Her brother ignored her.

But with Sevan, her heart raced. In his bed he pleased her more than she’d known was possible. Just thinking about the orgasms she’d been treated to at his hands was distracting. It made her angry with the other lovers in her life, those who hadn’t known how her body worked. But he knew. How much she needed, how deep it had to be, the praise, the dirty talk—everything about him worked for her. Her love now mixed so completely with lust she knew she’d never tell them apart.