Chapter 0005

I scream again, covering my head and ducking down as low as I can go, my feet drifting over the back seat and kicking the Mafia King in the thigh –

“Fucking go, Frankie!” the Mafia King shouts, “they’re on our god damn tail!”

“Get down!” the Mafia King shouts, ducking and throwing his body over mine as Frankie pulls the car hard to the right, our tires squealing on the road.

I scream then, I think, curl back up into my ball, muttering prayers I haven’t said since I was a kid in Catholic grade school, and which I didn’t really believe then. But now I’m begging anyone who might be out there listening to please, please save my life.

The bullets stop, and I feel the Mafia King’s weight lift off of me. I start to raise my own head, but suddenly our whole car wrenches to the side and I can tell, somehow, that we’ve been hit from behind.

“Fucking turn, Frankie!” the Mafia King shouts, frantic, pulsing more bullets out of the broken window.

“I can’t – there’s no place to –“

“Onto 42(nd) street!” the guy in the passenger seat shouts, his voice frustrated and sharp with fear.

“On it!” Frankie shouts now, wrenching the wheel to the side so sharply that the whole car bends to the right –

The car turns up on two wheels and I shout in fear as my body slides across the back seat. Lights flash across the windows and horns blare, because Frankie is cutting off a whole line of traffic to make the turn.

My shout turns to a scream as I go completely airborne, but suddenly hands snatch me, one grabbing my waist, the other flying to my head and covering my skull the moment before it smacks into the glass of the window –

I gasp, my eyes flying open as I’m pulled into the Mafia King’s lap, and as my eyes meet his I realize that if his hand hadn’t been there to take the impact against the glass, my brains would be all over this car right now.

I stare into wide-eyed into his face, which is suddenly so close to mine.

Our SUV rights itself onto four wheels and flies down the street, weaving madly between traffic. The Mafia King as he curses fluidly, ripping his gaze from mine and towards Frankie. He shakes his hand out to get rid of the pain.

“Did we lose them!?”

“You tell me, boss!” Frankie calls over his shoulder, and – with me still in his lap – the King twists, looking out the back window. I look too but…

All I see are taxis, sedans.

No sign of them.

“For now,” the King growls, tense. “We’ve lost them for now.”

He looks for a few more moments but then his body relaxes, just a little bit. He exhales sharply and turns back to the front of the car. “Brown Street apartment, Frank,” he says, cooler now than he was before. “We’ve got to lay low for a while.”

“You got it,” Frankie says, still driving quickly but blending into traffic a little bit more now. After all, nothing screams criminal activity like flying through the city with a broken back window and a kidnapped stripper.

It makes sense that they want to blend, now, so that we can disappear. So that we won’t be found by whoever was chasing us, for whatever reason.

“Please,” I breathe, my voice shaky – and I surprise myself when I hear the word come from my lips. I said it without thinking.

The Mafia King immediately turns his attention to me.

“You can – you can have it all –“ I say, gesturing towards the cash scattered all over the back seat now, blowing lightly in the wind coming through the back window. “Just…let me go…”

The Mafia King studies me for a long moment and the he smirks. “A third of that money was mine not long ago,” he says, his voice cold, calculating. “And I gave it up readily enough for a dance. What makes you think that that,” he says, nodding to the money on the seat and the floor, “is going to be enough to buy your freedom?”

I hesitate, not knowing what the answer should be.

“I’ll – I’ll get you more,” I mumble, desperate. “I can work –“

His smirk deepens and he stares at me, starting to shake his head a little, almost in…disbelief? I don’t know – I don’t get it. I can’t read his expression.

“Please,” I beg, my voice soft as my eyes fill with tears. “Please don’t give me to Don Bonetti…don’t sell me to the cat house…”

The Mafia King’s arm tightens around me as his face falls with sadness, pity even. And suddenly he’s cradling me against him, raising his hand and softly running his knuckles down my cheek, staring into my eyes.

“Iris,” he murmurs, and I go still when I hear my name on his lips.

And suddenly, I remember something. I was too distracted then, but he called me Iris before, didn’t he? After I finished dancing…

Is he somehow connected to Bonetti too?

“How…” I whisper, shaking my head at him in confusion, “how do you know my name?”

“Iris…” he whispers, “don’t you recognize me?”

I pull back a little, studying him, taking in the strong line of his lightly stubbled jaw, his straight nose, the blue-grey eyes under dark brows…. And as I stare at him I realize that there really is something familiar about him, especially about his eyes. I’m not just imagining it. But I can’t put together what…

“You’re the Mafia King,” I murmur, frowning at him, willing my mind to put the pieces together. Because I’m missing something here, I just know it.

“Yes, and?” he says, raising an eyebrow at me in a way that strikes some sort of memory. How – how the hell did I know he was going to raise his eyebrow like that?

“And you…kidnapped me? To get…revenge? On Bonetti? Or because I saw someone get shot? Or…”

He smiles at me, more broadly now, letting his eyes flick over my features. “I kidnapped you to protect you, Daisy.”

My eyes widen as I hear my childhood nickname on his lips and everything snaps into place.

Memories come flooding back to me in an instant.

Late-summer twilights spent running through the back fields with the boy who called me Daisy, after my favorite flower.

Sneaking out at midnight with my brother to go to the house next door, to play board games until dawn with the boy who lived there – where he taught me to play poker.

A thousand winter afternoons building snow forts with my brother and with his laughing, blue-eyed best friend…

“Christian,” I breathe, my fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt. I stare at him unblinking, like he’ll disappear if I take my eyes off him for a second – like I’ll lose him again, forever this time.

“Hey, my little one,” he murmurs, softly stroking my cheek. “I will never take my eyes off you. ”