Page 2 of Sinful Mafia Santa

“I’ve been to a feckin’ club.”

I don’t tell him it was three rooms in the dank basement of a Chicago brownstone. That I went with three girlfriends from high school, when we all decided to skip our tenth reunion at St. Boniface. That I had a couple of drinks, walked around in lingerie bought for the purpose, and decided I would never understand the appeal of butt plugs with animal tails attached. I was home, alone, asleep in my own bed by midnight—and that wasaftera session with my favorite hot pink vibrator.

Will is already on his feet, bouncing like arborio rice spilled onto a linoleum floor. I swear to God the man must be vaping pure adrenaline. “Let’s go, then!” He sniffs at his chef’s jacket. “Jesus. I reek. Thank God Kynk has showers.”

“Thank God,” I drawl.

I barely have time to switch out my shoes and pull on my sweater before he’s hustling me out the door. I’m still knottingthe belt on my sturdy winter overcoat when a cab glides to the curb in response to his raised hand.

I gaze out the windows as we make our way down Fifth Avenue. The city is decorated for Christmas, brilliantly colored lights reflecting off the fresh snow that fell during dinner service. Even though it’s late, there are still lots of people on the pavement, gawking at brightly lit store windows.

Will ignores the holiday finery. Instead, he fills me in on the menu he’s launching next month, twenty-one all-new courses. I make appropriate noises at all the right places, but by the time Will gets to his three desserts—each one-bite morsel more elaborate than the last—I finally interrupt. “Wait. Whereisthis club we’re going to?”

“Brooklyn,” he says, waving toward the bridge we’re about to cross.

I sigh. I wanted to avoid Brooklyn this trip. I wanted to steer clear of the memories.

“Down by the waterfront,” Will adds.

That’s even worse.

Will leans forward, concern carving lines between his eyebrows. He’s right. He reeks. “Change your mind?” he asks.

“No,” I say too quickly, shaking my head. “It’s just that…”

Will waits at least thirty seconds before he prompts, “Just that…”

I sigh. “Logan was going to open a club in Brooklyn.”

Will’s eyes go wide with horror-tinged pity. Or maybe that’s pity-tinged horror. I know both looks well.

I despise being Logan Reardon’s little sister. Even people who’ve never watched a minute of professional hockey have seen footage of my brother sprawled on the ice at Aces Arena, his arterial blood neon-red against the blue crease in front of the goal.

Logan died ten years ago Christmas Eve. It was a freak accident. A fight, like a dozen other line brawls across the league that night. Logan just happened to fall as another player’s skatecame up. One inch to the left or the right and he would have taken a stitch or two, been back on the ice before the end of the period. Instead, his carotid was dissected and he bled out in three minutes flat, in front of eighteen thousand fans. In the past decade, millions have watched the replay on social media.

Will finally whispers, his voice low with respect, “Logan planned to open a sex club?”

My laugh sounds shaky. I doubt my straitlaced brother ever said the wordfetishin his life, much less indulged in one. He was always an athlete, always in training.

Of course, growing up a Reardon, Logan knew his way around underground establishments. On his eighteenth birthday, he made his vows to the South Side Squad, taking his place in our Irish mob clan beside my da and our four older brothers.

But Logan’s future was always on the ice rink. Not in strip clubs and after-hours bars, not liberating “lost” trailers in night raids at Chicago’s trucking terminal, not stepping into some sweetheart job at Reardon Construction.

I tell Will, “He wanted to set up a sports bar in one of those abandoned subway tunnels. He was going into business with one of his teammates. They planned on getting athletes to drop by on the regular, keep the crowds coming, you know? I was going to do the food—wagyu sliders, heritage pork bratwurst, international beers, that sort of thing.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t happen.” Will sounds sincere.

“I am too.” I was frozen for nearly a year after Logan died, unable to accept that he was gone, unable to go back to culinary school, unable to do just about anything but haunt the Reardon family mansion in Chicago.

I’m Da’s only daughter. He indulged me. He always has.

Until now.

Da has given me one year to get married, and he’s pushing me hard toward one of the old Irish families. The only restaurant he’ll tolerate my running is a manky diner on the South Side, a place to launder his mob money. He’s already picked outthe location, promising to burn out the existing restaurant if the current owner doesn’t sign over the lease by New Year’s.

I’m lucky Da let me come to New York, let me say goodbye to the life I could have led. I’ve had one solid week of reservations at the city’s finest dining establishments, but every meal rubs salt in my wounds. Korean amethyst bamboo salt, yeah, but salt all the same.

My dreams will die Tuesday morning, when I climb into Da’s private jet and head back to Chicago for Christmas dinner with my clan. Once I set foot back on Squad territory, I’ll be a good little Reardon girl for the rest of my feckin’ life.