Page 4

"So we cashed out the frozen food stock this morning," Ray says right away, lounging in his seat. "Almost a quarter million profit."

"That's great," I say, relaxing in the chair. "I take it my drinks are on you tonight then?"

"You know it," Ray says, holding his glass up—scotch, on the rocks—to clink it against the side of my bottle. "You keep it up and I'll buy you an entire brewery."

Laughing, I take a sip of my beer. "I'll hold you to that."

"I know you will."

Spirits are high and alcohol flows freely. Ray laughs and jokes, his mood infectious. I humor him, smiling, trying to relax and push everything else from my mind, but thoughts of Karissa keep seeping back in.

It looks like we're just hanging out, but this is work for men like us. Plotting, scheming, talking, socializing… it's the part of the job I hate. It's not that I hate people in general. I don't. Not really. I'm just happier when they're not around.

Except for her.

Goddamn Karissa.

Always my exception these days.

She never should have been.

It's past midnight when the women arrive. They're not usually invited, not allowed inside Cobalt, but when Ray gets a hankering to celebrate, everyone indulges him.

Prostitutes. They call themselves escorts. I call them whores. Most are nothing more than girls with too much make-up and not enough brains.

Brandy, Ray's meddlesome blonde girlfriend, shows up and squeezes into the seat with him, draping across his lap as she nuzzles into his neck. She once sold herself like the others, but Ray took a liking to her and kept her for himself.

His own little baby doll, he calls her.

Everyone else starts to loosen up, while my muscles grow tenser, the alcohol in my system doing nothing to quell my growing unease.

It doesn't help that Brandy's little friend perches herself on the arm of my chair. She's new, obviously, a first timer around here. She looks down at me, smiling, her pupils like black marbles. Stoned. "Hey, handsome, you looking to party tonight?"

I stare at her, my expression blank, as her leg brushes against mine, her foot rubbing my calf. Brandy takes notice and scrambles to stop her friend, drunkenly stammering, but Ray clamps his hand down on her mouth to silence her, his gaze fixed on me, that grin back on his face.

He wants to see my reaction.

Sometimes the man makes me feel like one of his play toys.

I finish my beer—my fourth, as it is—and set the empty bottle down on the table beside me. Sitting up, I motion for the girl to come closer. She leans down, smiling seductively, thinking I'm going to kiss her collagen-infected lips, but I bring my mouth to her ear instead. "I'll slit your throat if you ever touch me again."

Her expression must be horrified, based on the way Ray wildly laughs. I don't care. I stand up and head for the exit, not looking back. "See you later, Ray."

"Bye, Naz."

This time I do flinch.

It's not the name itself that bothers me. I've always preferred it to Ignazio. But hearing it reminds me of the man I used to be, the man I was before. Naz had hope. Naz was full of love.

Naz died a cruel death.

I told Karissa to call me Naz. I said it in a brief moment of weakness, because she looked at me with so much light in her eyes, so much innocence in her expression, that I thought for the moment it might've been a reflection of the old me.

Blissfully ignorant.

I lost my way then, forgot who I was, and I still don't know how the hell to get back from there.

It's after one o'clock in the morning when I get home. The house is dark and quiet. I pull my jacket off when I step in the door and loosen the knot of my tie, sighing. The den is empty, television off, remote control sitting on the small table on top of Karissa's notebook. I push the remote away and grab the notebook, picking it up to read the top page. A recipe for some sort of potato dish with notes on the bottom: how to cook the perfect steak.

I toss the notebook back down when an envelope peeks out of the side of it. Curiously, I pull it out, seeing it's addressed to Karissa from NYU.

It's wrong of me, but I look; I pull out the paper and read through the letter.

Dear Ms. Reed, yada yada, whatever whatever, you lost your scholarship so we're going to need you to pay.

A bill for damn near twenty-five thousand dollars.

I let out a low whistle as I shove the paper back into the envelope, returning it where I found it in the notebook.

No wonder she was in a bad mood.

"Do you want—?"

"Nope."

I stall, mid-question, and stare at where Karissa sits on the couch, notebook on her lap as she watches yet another cooking show. Same shit, different day. I can faintly hear music playing from the earbuds draped around her neck, making it possible to talk to her for the moment.

"Can I at least finish my question before you answer?"

She says nothing, jotting something down that she sees on the screen, acting once again like I don't exist.

Taking a deep breath, I ask, "Do you want to go with me to—?"

"Nope."

I try to push back my frustration, but it comes pouring out of me in a groan.

The woman is unbelievably infuriating.

Shaking my head, I walk out of the den, not bothering to ask for the third time. Grabbing my keys, I head out of the house, slamming the door behind me.

She got to me.

I try not to let her.

I try to stay calm and collected. I'm trained to keep my emotions from showing. But she alone knows how to get under my skin.

Once again, she's my exception.

Always a goddamn exception.

The drive into Manhattan seems to crawl by this afternoon. I crack my knuckles and my neck as I sit in the busy traffic, trying to work the stiffness from my body, tension that seems to grow more and more every day. Instead of getting better, instead of things settling down, it feels like we're stalled at the starting line.

Patience has always been a strong suit of mine—I spent almost two decades tracking down Carmela, waited years to try to get back at Johnny—but I'm nearing my tolerance limit with their daughter.

I head to Greenwich Village, parking the car in a garage near Washington Square, before making my way around the block. NYU student services, on the first floor of the building: Office of the Bursar.

The building is brightly lit, surprisingly busy for it being summertime. I wait a few minutes to be acknowledged, stepping up to a middle-aged woman sitting behind a large desk in the lobby of the office.

"I need to speak to somebody about paying a tuition bill."

The woman starts rambling about how the student can make payment arrangements online, giving me the usual spiel, but I cut her off. "No, I need to make a payment, and I'd like to pay it all. Today."