“Did you just call me sunshine?” I add. I can feel this situation careening out of control, much like the car when it flipped over on the fucking bridge five minutes ago.
“Are you deaf or something?” she bites back, her smug smile vanishing.
I lean closer again, catch a whiff of the coffee on her breath. And something else. Vodka. Ahhh. “You’re drunk at eight-thirty in the morning?” I ask incredulously.
She huffs, a laugh that contains no real emotion, just a defensive reflex. “Are you judging me, gangster boy?”
I raise my eyebrows. As much as I want to keep bantering with this broad, I’ve got an Irish bitch to bag before I end up in a body bag. “Time’s up,” I growl, pressing my gun into her sternum, right along the line of buttons between her breasts.
She clamps her mouth shut, her stance insolent, her eyes narrowed.
And I snap.
“Time to go for a little drive then, sweetheart,” I grimace, shifting the gun so it’s digging into the side of her ribs.
“You’re sweating,” she says casually.
Who the fuck is this woman? My dick wants to find out. The rest of me? I’m not so sure. She’s so unhinged, she’s almost … scaring me. “It’s hot,” I reply. Why am I even answering her? Fuck that. “Walk,” I demand, pulling her alongside me. I loop my arm around her shoulder so we’re walking side by side, shifting the gun so it’s now underneath my suit jacket, still pointed firmly into her side. “What’s your name?” I hiss.
She just glares up at me. “Petunia,” she drawls. “What’s yours?”
I huff. “Your name is not …” I struggle to even repeat the word, it’s so ridiculous. “Petunia.”
She just shrugs. This chick is mad. She’s certifiable. I should just shoot her in her pretty face and make a run for it. Still, she’ll be handy as a hostage if it comes to that. The mood in the diner wasn’t exactly joyous when I ran through, bleeding and chasing Kaitlin. Why has nobody come to check on her? Are there cops out there, right now? I gotta chance it. I have to get out of here. My neck’s starting to itch, almost as much as my trigger finger.
I’ve got that feeling in my gut. The one that tells me I’ll be emptying my clip before the day’s finished. Hopefully into somebody else, and not into my own skull.
We make our way out of the bathroom and past the kitchen, where the fat Russian guy is throwing giant slabs of butter onto a hotplate. He’s oblivious, and I have to wonder if I was just imagining the looks I got when I ran through the diner after Kaitlin.
We’re almost at the door when a squat Italian woman steps in front of us, her face thunderous.
“Scarlett! You’ve got tables to clear,” she growls, snapping her fingers in front of this chick’s face.
Scarlett. Oh, Christ. I can just imagine the way her cheeks turn scarlet red when she’s coming, my face between her legs. Oh, fuck. Focus, Barbieri!
“I’m being abducted,” Scarlett says to her boss, glancing up at me. “Can’t you ask Helen to clear my section? She’s already taken my tips.”
I almost choke. I’m being abducted?
“Honey, didn’t you tell your boss I was coming to visit today? It is our anniversary, you know.”
The squat woman smiles up at me, and I shoot back a placating grin, with as much charm as I can muster right now. “Scarlett, you didn’t tell me you were dating Salvatore!”
And the smile falls right the fuck off my face. I can’t go anywhere in this damn city without being recognized.
Satisfaction spreads across Scarlett’s face as she looks up at me with a grin. “Salvatore,” she says, her voice saccharine sweet.
“How long have you two been together?” the woman asks, her eyes flicking between Scarlett and me, almost in disbelief.
“Coming up to five minutes now,” Scarlett replies casually.
The woman shakes her head. “When I saw you come in, I thought for sure you were one of those stronzo cab drivers using our toilet to take a dump.”
“Oh, he did,” Scarlett says, deadpan even with a gun pressed against her right tit. Fascinating. “He’s got violent diarrhea. He just destroyed one of the bathroom stalls.”
Well, I don’t know what to say to that. “We need to go.” I pull Scarlett firmly past her boss. “Scar forgot her crazy pills this morning. She might be back in tomorrow.”
“What? You’re working a double today!” the woman screeches, but I ignore her, kicking the heavy glass door open and escaping into the stream of people clogging the sidewalk.
We need a cab. We need a cab right fucking now.
“Where are we going?” Scarlett asks.
I pull her over to the street and hail down a cab. “For a drive.”
“Where?”
“Just get into the damn cab,” I say, releasing my stronghold on her long enough to shove her into the backseat of the waiting cab before sliding in behind her.