“I know what they say about Coney,” she mumbled. “It’s nobody’s land.”
“Maybe so, but the fact remains, it’s too close to Odessa.”
Violet didn’t bother to argue. She knew he was right.
“But that still doesn’t explain why you know where I live,” she pointed out.
“Quick girl,” he murmured.
Violet ignored the way that sounded like he was praising her. “So explain.”
“If there are places I am not allowed to go being who I am, then there are reasons for those rules.”
Reasons being people.
She understood his unspoken words.
“It took me a second to recognize you,” Kaz added, “but you can’t exactly hide who you are to someone who makes it his business to know all that he can about a certain family that doesn’t like us all that much.”
“What, like safety?” she asked.
“If you want to look at it like that. Let’s put it this way, Violet. There are places that I can go, but I know I’m toeing a line. Then there are places I can go and while it’s probably safe, I still shouldn’t be there. And then there are other places, like Manhattan, where it’s a goddamn death sentence.”
Oh.
The territory lines had never quite been explained to her in that way before.
Maybe if they had, she wouldn’t have went down to Coney Island.
“I still think you should drop me off and let me grab a cab,” she said. “To be safe and all that.”
Kaz smirked, shaking his head. “No.”
Violet just stared at him. “Even after what you just said?”
“Even after that,” he confirmed.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not that bad of a guy, even for a Russian,” he said with a grin, “and I was taught that every lady deserves to be treated like one. Even if she isn’t being a very nice lady.”
Violet decided after that statement to sit still, be quiet, and hope the rest of the hour-and–a-half-long drive went by as smoothly as possible. It was probably unlikely that her father wouldn’t somehow find out where she had been, but maybe—just maybe—she could keep Kaz and the fact that he drove her home a secret.
Maybe.
When they finally did get into Manhattan, Violet didn’t have to say a thing about where she lived. Kaz navigated the streets like he had done it a hundred times before.
If she had to guess, she would say he had spent time where he wasn’t supposed to.
Just like her.
Park Avenue was a great deal quieter in the middle of the night than it was during the day. There was still traffic, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it usually was. Besides the occasional passerby, the street was practically empty.
Violet didn’t say a thing when the car rolled to a stop in front of the apartment building that belonged to her father. The fifteen-level complex held several condos of varying size and expense. It was older, the exterior lending credence to a time when gold detailing and warm shades were all the rage. Hers was one of the biggest and most costly, and at the very top. Her parents had used it on and off for years, but once she starting taking classes at Columbia, they handed the keys over to her to make travel easier.
“Thank you,” Violet said.
Kaz smiled. “Don’t say a thing about it.”
“Quite literally, huh?”
His laughter came out dark and rich.
Violet chose that moment to get out of the car before her errant, half-drunk thoughts might notice something else about the man she found attractive.
Wasn’t his appearance, attitude, and charm enough?
“Until the next time,” Kaz murmured from inside the vehicle.
Violet’s hand tightened around the passenger door. “There won’t be a next time.”
She heard the smirk in his tone when he replied, “There wasn’t supposed to be a next time after the first time we met, and look how well that turned out for us both.”
Violet blinked awake at the hard hammering coming from her left side. At first, she thought it was the throbbing in her head that was making all the noise, but she quickly figured out it wasn't.
Right about the time her brother cursed from outside her bedroom door.
“Cazzo Cristo. Violet, I swear to Dio. Get your ass out of that bed before I come in there and force you out of it.”
Violet pushed up from her pillow using one hand, but everything swam in her vision and the massive beating her head seemed to be taking increased enough to make her sick. She dropped right back down to the bed with a groan, burying her face into the pillow.
“Go away, Carmine,” Violet grumbled.
“Oh, good. You’re up.”
Her brother’s snarky, arrogant self was not what Violet wanted to deal with first thing in the fucking morning. Wait—was it even morning? She couldn't tell what with the way the light coming in from the window seemed to burn the eyeballs right out of her skull.
Hangovers were the devil.
“Violet, stop making me stand out here like a fool,” Carmine barked.