Page 40 of The Killer Cupcake (Poison Cherry #3)

K athy stepped into the thick, mosquito-heavy Memphis night, and the Douglass Hotel's stuttering neon sign cast a sickly green halo over the weathered awning.

"Kathy! Baby!" Janey sang out as she fast walked out of the darkness toward her like a vision in silk and pearls. She rushed into her aunt’s eager arms, their embrace fierce and warm. Janey kissed both of Kathy's cheeks before holding her at arm's length.

“Why are you here? Where is Carmine? You aren’t supposed to be here, remember? This is a colored hotel,” Kathy stuttered through the hug. Janey’s beauty and melanin-deficient skin was alarming to anyone who would see her in the late hour at the hotel.

"Let me look at you properly, ma chère ." Janey said.

Kathy grinned, feeling the familiar comfort of her aunt's undivided attention.

"I know it's only been two months since I saw you, but I swear it's like having Brenda standing before me every time you visit. Put on a little weight, eh? Never mind it—you look exactly like your mother when she was your age. Same eyes, same stubborn chin."

Kathy blushed at the comparison and the fact that Janey noticed her weight change.

"Mama had to go back home earlier than planned to see about Daddy.

She'd been with me, taking care of Big Mama.

But Aunt Claire called and said there's trouble brewing with Bumpy and his men.

Not sure what exactly, but Mama's never far from Daddy's side when danger comes. "

"Ain't that the gospel," Janey said with a knowing roll of her eyes. "Go in and get settled. Need to work out something with Deion. Think I got us a plan."

"A plan?" Kathy asked.

"Go," she said and shooed her away.

Kathy did as she was told. Inside, she was greeted by an old man and a young girl who settled her into the process and gave her a quick tour of the hotel—an old-fashioned house turned into a boarding place.

All the families were asleep, and within thirty minutes she was settled in her room.

She looked out the window to see Deion speaking with some men, then getting in a car and driving off with them. There was no sign of Janey.

She waited another twenty minutes for her aunt to appear, then realized Janey probably wouldn't risk stepping into the hotel and revealing her identity. So she sat alone on the narrow bed, thinking of how she and Carmelo would connect with this new obstacle between them.

Nearly an hour later, Janey sent for her. Already in bed and half asleep, Kathy had to dress hurriedly to run downstairs into the night to meet her. And Janey was right where she left her.

Janey grinned and met her half the distance with a joyful hug.

Listen, my husband is... misbehaving again.

He’s parked in the back of the hotel, waiting and pouting.

But don't you worry none. I've arranged a place for you and your Melo to be together.

Dieon's gonna take you to see him tonight, and we'll figure out the rest as we go. "

"Wait, what do you mean?—?”

Janey gently turned Kathy to face the hearse waiting like a patient shadow. She leaned close and whispered conspiratorially in her ear, her breath warm against Kathy's skin: “Auntie always delivers, ma petite ."

Dieon leaned against an idling black 1948 Cadillac Superior hearse from Percy & Sons Funeral Home .

"Mr. Percy's doin' a midnight embalmin'," Dieon murmured, opening the rear door with practiced discretion. "Said you could use the old building and stay in the 'arrangements parlor' 'til the coast clears. I’ll take ya.”

Kathy grinned. She gave Janey another hug. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Auntie. For helping us, for being there for me. I love you so much.”

Janey’s eyes teared as she hugged her tightly. “I love you more.”

Kathy slid onto cool velvet seats originally designed for mourners, the cloying scent of funeral lilies and formaldehyde thick in the air.

A funeral home hearse. Of course. In Memphis, the dead were sometimes granted more dignity than the living.

Funeral homes were among the few businesses that crossed color lines out of necessity.

Still, this felt more macabre than romantic.

She and Carmelo had devised countless creative ways to meet over the past two years, but nothing quite as unsettling as romance among the tools of death and grief.

The hearse glided silently through backstreets lined with shotgun shacks and porches, past Beale Street's shuttered blues clubs where B.B.

King and Muddy Waters had played just hours before.

It finally came to a stop behind a red-brick building with drawn blinds and the discreet respectability that only funeral homes possess.

A single bulb cast harsh shadows above a door marked "PRIVATE - BEREAVEMENT SERVICES. "

Dieon tapped the horn twice as the agreed signal.

The door opened immediately. Silhouetted against the amber light stood Matteo Ricci. He jerked his head sharply— inside, fast, before anyone sees.

Who would see? The ghosts? There was nothing but graves and trees around them.

Kathy hurried from the hearse, but despite the urgency, she couldn't help throwing her arms around Matteo's neck in a fierce embrace. "Did you bring pictures of Junior? How big is he now?" she asked, squeezing him tight.

"Inside first! Later! I'll show you everything later, I promise," he said with a grin that reminded her so much of Debbie’s happiness the last time he saw her cousin and the baby, her heart ached.

She nodded and followed him into the shadows, no longer able to contain her joy at seeing family again after so many careful months apart.

This part of the funeral home had been closed for two years.

Every room was emptied or repurposed for storage by the Percys.

Still, Kathy could guess their original purpose, especially when she descended into the basement.

White tiles. Steel embalming tables. The sour-sweet stench of preservatives hung in the air like a chemical shroud.

Kathy hugged herself, shivering despite the claustrophobic Memphis heat now trapped inside.

When she turned around, she was alone. Somehow, Matteo hadn't followed her down.

"Matteo?" she called to the shadows. "Matteo!"

"Boo!"

Kathy screamed and whirled with a wild swing. Her fist connected hard with the side of Carmelo's head, knocking him backward. He stumbled, more startled than hurt, while she gasped and covered her mouth in horror.

Carmelo laughed, rubbing his head. "Damn, Kat! You pack a punch!"

"You scared the living daylights out of me!

" She rushed into his arms, squealing with joy despite her embarrassment.

Carmelo's kiss consumed her completely, desperate and hungry.

The times between their meetings were shorter now—just a few months instead of the agonizing year-long separations—but it still left them both starved for each other's touch.

"Slow down, slow... down," she pushed him back gently, breathing hard. "Let me catch my breath."

Carmelo licked his lips as if they tasted like salvation itself. She blushed at the raw desire in his dark eyes. "I missed you too, amore ."

"Why are we meeting in a morgue?" he asked, shaking his head with incredulous laughter.

"It's weird as heck, isn't it?" she giggled.

"Come here," he pulled her into a proper embrace—one that soothed instead of consumed.

The world stopped spinning when she listened to his heartbeat.

She wondered if it matched the rhythm of the baby growing inside her.

When should she tell him? How? What would happen?

Her father was in the midst of a consuming drug war with Italian families.

This baby could either blow their world apart or bring it together. They had to decide their future soon.

"I have a surprise—a good one. A final one," he whispered against her ear.

"Final?" She looked up, alarmed.

He nodded solemnly.

"Tell me! Tell me right now!" she demanded.

He cupped her face in his calloused hands and looked into her eyes. "Vegas."

She frowned in confusion. "What's a Vegas?"

"A city in Nevada, out in the desert. Where we can be together as man and wife, live our lives freely.

It's where I can box professionally and run a legitimate business.

Where I can set us up properly." His voice grew excited.

"Carmine's got connections there, great opportunities.

Matteo's making moves—something I can't tell you about yet, but if his plans work, he'll be head of the family soon.

He'll run everything. And he wants to take Debbie and the baby with him.

We'll go too. All four of us, finally together. "

Her eyes widened until they watered. "Are you absolutely sure? Is it really possible?"

He nodded slowly, his expression serious. "It's for real, Kat. This is our way out."

She released the deepest sigh of her life and hugged him so tightly she thought she might break his ribs, weeping tears of pure joy.

She almost confessed her secret then, but something held her back.

She'd save that news for after he won his fight, set it up perfectly.

There was no way she'd tell him about their baby in a funeral home basement.

"I wish we could stay the night together. I really miss touching you," he sighed, his forehead pressed against hers.

"I miss you too, desperately. But absolutely not—I don't care if this place has been closed for business, I am not sleeping in a funeral home next to a graveyard," she chuckled, despite the heat in her cheeks.

He nodded with understanding. "How's Big Mama doing?"

Kathy's smile dimmed like a candle in the wind.

"Not good at all. She's taken to bed permanently.

Her feet... the doctors say they may need to amputate one or both.

And she's so heartbroken she can't get around anymore.

" Her voice caught. "I've left the classroom to take care of her.

Mama came down like I wrote you, and some church ladies are with her this week while I'm here.

But I don't know... this isn't going to get better. "

He nodded gravely. "She's strong, though. She has to be—she made you and Debbie."

The comment brought fresh tears to her eyes, but these were tears of happiness.

It was true. Although Kathy knew her lineage traced back to the formidable Elliott women, it was Big Mama who was the source of her true grit.

Big Mama had given her the backbone to survive her exile from Harlem these past two years.

The mere thought of losing her always sent Kathy spiraling into grief—a fear she never mentioned to Debbie, knowing her cousin would dissolve into inconsolable fits.

Everyone just prayed and planned for the best recovery.

"Hey," Carmelo lifted her chin with gentle fingers. "Look at me."

She did.

"You've done so much for me, Kathy, for us.

You've been patient. You've given up family, given up everything for me.

" His voice grew thick with emotion. "You're my girl, but what you've sacrificed goes deeper than anything I can replace with my love. I’m sorry. I stay up at night, every night, thinking about how I can ever make it all up to you. Wishing I had power, I don’t.

You're my family. Other than Nino, Matteo, and Debbie, you're the only family I have left.

I can't move forward or backward without you. "

"You've done just as much for me. Surviving that hammer, boxing, risking your life to get us free. I see it, Carmelo. You're my hero—honest, kind, fundamentally good, and I?—"

"I'm no saint," he mumbled, pulling away slightly.

She caught his hand, stopping his retreat. "You're still my hero. The bravest man I know besides Daddy. I'll wait forever for us. And even longer than that, if I have to. I will never love anyone but you." Her smile was radiant with certainty.

They embraced again, then walked through the abandoned funeral home, talking about the Mafia and Vegas.

He shared how his father despised the idea of expansion with the Marcellos and secretly envied how wealthy Marcello had become in the segregated South.

But Carmelo had done his research. He'd learned from Matteo that Meyer Lansky, a Jewish gangster, lived by his own rules in Nevada, and the Mafia were destined to be kings in that desert kingdom.

"Have you seen Carmine?" Carmelo asked.

"I saw him in the car when he dropped me at the bus station, but we didn't speak," she shrugged.

"That's strange. He came to New York, and we were supposed to have dinner.

But he never showed. The next day, he met briefly with Matteo, then left without explanation.

I've tried calling him several times, but he hasn't returned my calls. Janey called me back. Said she’d tell him my message.

Nothing. Is he upset with me about something? "

"That is odd. Janey mentioned he was in a foul mood. Must be all the business pressure he's dealing with," she suggested.

"Must be. I'll see him at the hotel, try to catch up. We might need to leave Memphis for one of the smaller towns to spend time together safely. I'll work it out," he assured her.

She grinned with anticipation. "I suppose I should go."

He groaned in protest. "The weigh-in tomorrow is open to both white and colored spectators. Will you be there?"

"Yes! I promise," she smiled brightly. "I'll be there cheering you on."

He hugged her tighter, and they parted with that sacred promise hanging between them—a bridge across the darkness that would carry them to whatever came next.