Page 34 of Lovely Venom

He shakes his head and mumbles tightly, “I can’t risk being spotted.”

I sit back, feeling like shit as I roughly twist my length into a low braid. “How much time do I have?”

Valdrin turns down a quieter street. “Connor is still at the fundraiser. And will probably go to an after-party at Gracie Mansion. Then go home to change and patrol his territory with the enforcer team.”

Hearing Valdrin say Connor’s name, all my guilt rushes back to me. Should I confess I’ve met him before? That I’ve slept with him? And that I’m struggling with the idea of killing him?

“Where are we going?” I ask and strap the knife that had been under the dress to the outside of my thigh.

“To the horrific underground tunnel I told you about.” Valdrin looks at me through the rearview mirror. “I have faith in you, but psychos are unpredictable. Before you draw your weapon, Quinlan can take you down. You need to memorize every corner of his black site. Figure out hiding spots. Places to take cover from gunfire. Secret exits to escape.”

I shudder at the description of the place. “And if I can’t escape?”

“The Quinlans value women. I will give them that.” He looks over his shoulder. “But you will no doubt be tortured for information, including who sent you. Something you can never divulge.”

My cheek twitches. Something isn’t sitting right about all this. “Okay.”

We drive for another ten minutes, heading south to the Lower East Side. A fairly dangerous area in Manhattan, but a perfect place for a crime family tooperate. It’s one of those neighborhoods where the cops turn a blind eye and let the Irish Mob and Greek Mafia rule the streets.

Valdrin slows the car. “Here.”

I glance at a rusted metal door wedged between two abandoned storefronts. There’s no address sticker or any other monikers. It’s so unassuming that the average Joe wouldn’t look twice at it.

“I don’t see any guards,” I say, only noticing a piece-of-shit car a few doors up.

“When Connor is here, there are plenty of his men around.” Valdrin shifts in his seat.

“And law enforcement has no idea?” From my experience, the Feds and local police know a lot about the mafia, but without solid evidence, they can do very little.

“This place is only whispered in dark circles among crime families and the few who made it out alive.” Valdrin turns to face me this time. “You sure you can handle this, Raina?”

I open my mouth to answer, but the tone of his voice saying my name strikes me in a way I’ve not felt before. Respect. The faint recollection of my mother’s voice knots grief low in my belly, and it won’t let go. I must be missing her. This unknown and surprising connection to a man she kept from me is fucking with my senses.

“A little late for second thoughts about my abilities, don’t you think?” I push out of the car without waiting for an answer.

A whooshing metallic sound makes me look at my feet. I’m standing over a subway grate. Beneath the city, there are miles of abandoned tunnels and maintenance rooms rotting away.

“Perfect place to kill people, Quinlan,” I mumble to myself. “And be killed.”

Valdrin pulls away, and I amble to the entry door. Icrouch down as soon as the shadow swallows me and pull out my tools to pick the lock. It gives way in less than twenty seconds. The door creaks open and I slip inside the rank-smelling vestibule, closing the rusty door behind me.

Three feet past the main entrance, another metal door greets me, but that oddly isn’t locked. Wearing gloves, I turn the metal handle. The pitch-blackness challenges my eyes. I slip on a headlamp and start a trail that leads in only one direction and ends with a hole in the floorboard. A ladder scales down into the kind of stunning darkness that makes even someone like me pause. I assume this connects to that tunnel I saw through the subway grate.

At the start of another long tunnel made of musty concrete, I amble forward. And take note of every structural metal stud, should I have to run back this way to get out after I’ve killed Connor.

I keep moving, my steps slowing. Do I really want to kill him?

Valdrin said he murdered my father. A man I never knew. A man my mother specifically kept me from. That was her choice. Was my father mean to her when she told him about me? Did he hit her? Mafia men are either long-toothed lap dogs to their women or brutal.

Valdrin seems tame and acts like he cares about me. Noel gave off the brutal asshole vibe. Will Valdrin let Noel hurt me?

Focus, Riot!

God, I miss Rage and Ruin. But they were probably told by Meyers that I fucked up so badly, I got kicked out. I’m not surprised they’d write me off. To protect themselves.

The thick air and the wretched smell of mold in this tunnel choke me back into the moment. Metallic-tinged dust and the coppery evidence of dried blood leave nodoubt about what goes on here.

Death. At Connor’s hands. Beautiful and tattooed, they held a champagne flute like a refined gentleman.