Isn’t that the same thing with her? She loves passion of any kind. She loves to be angry, stubborn, joyful, or mischievous. The only thing she doesn’t like is a lack of feeling. Unfortunately, that’s what I am. Cold. Restrained. Lacking in pleasure. Until I’m around her. Then my senses crank up to a feverish degree. I smell and taste and see more acutely. It can almost be too much. It scares me, how I lose control around her. In the few weeks I’ve known Aida, I’ve lost my temper more times than in all the years preceding. Yet, I don’t want it to stop. I can’t imagine going back to dull indifference. Aida is the doorway into another world. I want to stay on her side forever. Jesus, what am I saying? I’ve never had these thoughts before, let alone allowed them to form into words. How am I getting so wrapped up in this girl, who frankly is out of her f*cking mind? She tried to shoot Jack! In my kitchen! If she did that at a campaign event, I’d be royally f*cked. And I wouldn’t put it past her, either. I’ve got to calm down and keep my head on straight. That resolution lasts about five seconds, until I press my nose against her hair and inhale that wild scent of hers, like sunshine and sea salt, dark coffee, pepper, and just a hint of honeyed sweetness. Then I feel that jolt again, that adrenaline shot, that switches off the governors on every one of my impulses. When Aida’s phone rings, I almost jump out of my skin. Aida jolts awake, having drifted off on my shoulder. “Who is it?” she mumbles. “It’s your phone,” I tell her. She rolls out of the bed, amusingly clumsy. She doesn’t even try for grace, tumbling off the edge of the mattress like a panda bear. Then she roots around for the phone, finally locating it halfway under the bed. “Dante?” she says, holding it against her ear. She listens for a moment, eyebrows drawn together in a scowl rather like the default expression of the person to whom she’s speaking. “Cavalo!” she exclaims. “Sei serio? Che palle!” I’ve never heard Aida speak more than a word or two in Italian. I wonder if that’s what she speaks at home with her family. She’s obviously
fluent. Aida has a lot of hidden talents. I underestimated her when we met. I thought she was spoiled, young, wild, careless, uneducated, unmotivated. Yet she’s shown me several times now that she’s absorbed far more of her father’s business than I gave her credit for. She’s astute, observant, persuasive when she wants to be. Clever and resourceful. She knows how to handle a gun—my throbbing bicep can attest to that. And she’s brave as hell. The way she stared me down when she threw my grandfather’s watch over the railing . . . it was a dick move, but actually pretty smart. She and Sebastian were outmatched. If she had handed the watch over, I could conceivably have shot them both and walked away. By throwing it in the lake, she goaded me into acting impulsively. She created chaos, and she split her opponents. Aida can be rash and rageful, but she doesn’t panic. Even now on the phone with her brother, though something is obviously wrong, she hasn’t lost her head. She’s getting the information, responding quickly and concisely. “Capisco. Si. Sarò lì presto.” She hangs up the call, turning to face me. She’s glowing like a bronzed goddess in the watery light coming in through the shutters. She doesn’t notice or care that she’s completely naked. “Dante says somebody torched the equipment on the Oak Street Tower site. We’ve lost about two million in heavy machinery, plus whatever damage to the building itself.” “Let’s go down there,” I say, getting out of the bed. “You don’t— I was going to go over, but you don’t have to,” she says. “Do you not want me to come?” I ask, standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the bathroom. “No. I mean yes, you can, but you don’t . . .” she shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. My little Aida, not embarrassed by nudity, but blushing from a direct question on the topic of what she wants. “I’m coming,” I say firmly. “We’re on the same team now, right?” “Yes . . .” she says, unconvinced. Then, seeming to commit to the idea, she follows me into the walk-in, where I’ve put back all of her clothes. A job that took me all of five minutes.
I’ve ordered Marta to buy Aida a proper wardrobe of professional clothing. By the end of this week, Aida should have a full complement of gowns and co*cktail dresses, slacks and sundresses, cardigans, blouses, skirts, sandals, heels, boots, and jackets. Whether she’ll actually agree to wear it or not is a different question. For now, she pulls on a pair of jean shorts and an old Cubbies t-shirt. Then she sits down on the carpet to tie up her sneakers. I pull on my own clothes. Aida raises a shocked eyebrow. “Jeans?” she says, hiding a grin. “So what?” “I’ve never seen you wear jeans. Of course they would be Balenciaga,” she adds, rolling her eyes. “Aida,” I say calmly. “I do not pick out any of my clothes, including these jeans. I don’t even know what Balan— what that brand even is.” “What?” Aida says, eyes wide and only one sneaker on her foot. “You don’t buy your own clothes?” “No.” “Who does?” “Right now, Marta. Before that it was a different assistant named Andrew. We agree on an aesthetic, and then—” “So you never go to the mall?” “No.” “Why not?” “Aren’t we supposed to be leaving?” I say. “Right!” Aida pulls on her other sneaker and jumps up. As we hurry down the stairs, she’s still pestering me. “But what if you don’t like the color, or—” I hustle her into the car, saying, “Aida. I work literally all the time. Either on campaign projects or one of our numerous businesses. Some of which, as you very well know, are more difficult and hazardous than others. When I socialize, it’s at events where I need to network. I can’t remember the last time I ran an errand or did anything for entertainment.” Aida sits quietly for a minute. Far longer than she usually stays quiet. Then she says, “That’s sad.” I snort, shaking my head at her. “I like being busy. It’s not sad, it’s purposeful.”
“What’s the point, though?” she says. “If you’re not having any fun along the way.” “Well,” I say, giving her a sidelong look. “I don’t consider Lord of the Rings marathons to be that fun.” I can’t help taking a little poke at her, because I know very well that Aida is often bored or under-stimulated. It’s why she’s always getting into trouble. Sure enough, she doesn’t retort with the usual flippant response. Instead, she bites the edge of her thumbnail, pensive rather than annoyed. “I can do more than this, you know,” she says. “I actually do know that,” I reply. She glances over at me, checking to see if I’m mocking her. I’m not. “I see how smart you are. You had a better read on Madeline Breck than I did,” I tell her. “I have a lot of good ideas,” she says. “Papa was always so afraid of me getting hurt. But I’m as smart as Dante or Nero. Or Seb. I’m smart enough not to get myself killed.” “As long as you can keep your temper,” I say, half-smiling. “I don’t—” Aida says hotly, breaking off when she sees that I’m teasing her. Mostly. “I don’t have a temper,” she says with dignity. “You don’t know what it’s like to always be the smallest dog in the fight. I have to attack first, and hardest. I never had much softness in me. I never have, and I never could.” I can’t imagine her soft. It would ruin everything about her. “Anyway,” Aida says quickly. “I still don’t know why you want to be Alderman. The Griffins are richer than god. You’ve got friends all across the city. Your territory’s secure. Why in the f*ck do you want to sit in an office and deal with all that bullsh*t?” “Why do you think people spend a half a million dollars campaigning for an Alderman’s seat, when the salary is $122,304?” I ask her. “Well, obviously you can f*ck around with zoning and tax law and suit your business interests, as well as handing around favors to everybody else.” “Right,” I say, encouraging her to go on in guessing. “It just doesn’t seem worth the trouble. You can get all that sh*t with bribes and trading favors. Or good old-fashioned violence.”
“But you’re always at the mercy of somebody else,” I tell her. “The incorruptible detective, or the greedy politician that got a better offer from someone else. Real power isn’t working the system. It’s running the system. Building it yourself, even.” I pause, remembering a little of our overlapping family history. “You remember when the Italians ran this city?” I say to her. “Capone had the mayor on his payroll. Imagine if Capone was the mayor. Or the governor. Or the f*cking president.” “I don’t like how you use the past tense to refer to our glory days,” Aida says lightly. “But I take your point. I guess it makes sense why your dad was keen to make an agreement between our families. It’s not about this election. It’s about the one after. If you want to run the whole city, you really do need us.” “Yes,” I say quietly. We’ve pulled up to the tower, its skeletal, half-built frame jutting up into the sky. Only the bottom few floors have been completed. The lot is a jumble of heavy machinery, stacks of building materials, makeshift offices, Porta Potties, and parked trucks. The site would be dark and deserted if the whole north side wasn’t lit up by lights and sirens. I see a fire truck, two ambulances, and several police cars. Dante is speaking with a uniformed officer, while another cop takes notes from a battered and bandaged security guard. I assume that’s the guard who was on duty when someone torched the machines. The air stinks of gasoline and charred metal. At least four pieces of heavy machinery are unsalvageable, including two excavators, a backhoe, and an entire crane. The blackened hulks are still smoking, the ground beneath muddied by the firemen’s hoses. “It was that f*cking Polack, I know it,” a voice says on Aida’s opposite side. It’s Nero, appearing out of the darkness as quiet as a bat. He’s quick and f*cking sneaky. He could probably steal the gun out of the nearest cop’s belt without the guy noticing until he tries to disarm at the end of the night. “How can you be sure?” Aida murmurs back. She’s keeping her voice down because we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. Me, because I don’t want my name attached to this, and Nero because he has, at the bare minimum, a f*ckton of unpaid parking tickets.
“This is their calling card,” Nero says. “They’re like Russians, but crazier. They love to make a scene, and they love symbolism. Besides,” he jerks his head toward the crane, where a blackened lump smolders against the base, “they left that.” “What is it?” Aida breathes. Her face has gone pale. I know she’s thinking the same thing as me— the object has the raw, cracked look of charred flesh. “It’s a boar’s head,” Nero says. “The Butcher’s calling card.” Dante joins us, his skin darker than ever from all the smoke in the air. Sweat has cut pale tracks on the sides of his bristled cheeks. His eyes look black and glittering, reflecting the flashing lights atop the police cars. “The security guard is telling them it was a bunch of punk kids. We got the story straight before the cops rolled up. Luckily, the fire truck was faster than the cops, or we would have lost half the building, too.” “You don’t want them to know it’s Zajac?” I say. “We don’t want them in our business, period,” Dante replies. In fact, he shoots a questioning look at Aida as to why I’m here. “I asked to come,” I tell him. “I feel responsible, since it was me who aggravated Zajac at the fundraiser.” “He already had it out for us,” Nero says with a quick shake of his head. “We’ve gotten into it with him twice already over his men encroaching on our territory. Ripping off our suppliers and robbing banks in our neighborhoods.” “He’s intent on starting conflict, that’s obvious,” Dante says, his deep rumbling voice like an idling engine. “We should—” What he proposes is cut off by the rapid-fire snaps and cracks of a semiautomatic. It sounds like a string of firecrackers but a hundred times louder. A black Land Rover roars by, three men hanging out of the rolled-down windows, guns protruding and muzzle flashes illuminating their masked faces. The moment the shots start, Aida’s brothers try to surround her. But I’ve already wrapped my arms around her shoulders, pulling her down behind the wheel of the nearest truck. The remaining police officers shout and likewise dive for cover, using their radios to call for backup. Hunched behind their vehicles, a few even attempt to return fire, but the SUV has already sprayed the lot with a hail of bullets and disappeared around the corner.
One of the officers was hit in the chest. Thanks to his vest, he’s only knocked backward against the bumper of his cruiser. Another officer, less lucky, took a bullet to the thigh. His partner drags him behind a stack of pilings, shouting for an EMT. “Are you hit?” Dante growls to the rest of us. “No,” Nero says at once. “What about you?” I ask Aida, manually rubbing my hands down her bare arms and legs to make sure they’re uninjured. “I’m fine,” she says firmly. I try to actually pay attention to my body, above the rushing thud of blood in my ears and the frantic firing of my neurons. I don’t think I was shot either. “We’re good,” I tell Dante. “Did you see any of the shooters?” Dante asks. “They had their faces covered,” I say. “I think I saw a gold watch on one of their wrists. Nothing useful.” “The end of the license plate was 48996,” Aida pipes up. “How did you see that?” Dante demands. Aida shrugs. “I’m shorter.” “That crazy son of a bitch!” Nero says, shaking his head in amazement. “He really wants us to f*cking obliterate him, doesn’t he?” “He’s trying to provoke a response,” Dante says, frowning. “Don’t get up!” I say sharply, seeing Nero about to rise. “We don’t know if that was the only car. There could be another. Or other shooters.” I nod upward to the countless windows in the high rises surrounding the site. “We can’t stay here,” Aida mutters. “The cops are gonna sweep the whole lot. Unless they’re dumb enough to write that off as a coincidence, they’re going to be taking this a hell of a lot more seriously now.” Moving slowly, we sneak off the opposite side of the site, making our way back toward Nero’s truck. It’s the closest vehicle, and the one in the least well-lit area. We all crowd into the cab so Nero can drive Aida and me around the corner to the spot where we left my car. “We can’t do anything rash,” Dante says. “Zajac might be trying to lure us into an immediate retaliation. We need to hole up for the night. Figure out how we’re going to respond. Aida, you should come home with us.” “She’s staying with me,” I say at once.
Dante frowns. “We don’t know exactly who the Butcher is targeting. He hit our building site, but he came to your fundraiser. We don’t know if that was for Aida, or for you. Or for both.” “Exactly.” I nod. “Which is why Aida should stay with me. If it turns out that he’s aiming his attacks at your family, she’ll be safer with mine.” “What exactly did Zajac say to you two?” Dante asks. I summarize the conversation. “I don’t know if he really wants that CTA property, or if he was just testing me. Actually, he mostly seemed annoyed about the wedding. I think he’s trying to crack us before the alliance is solidified.” “Could be,” Dante says, his forehead wrinkled in thought. “The Butcher is touchy. Insanely prideful, easily offended. He’s probably angry that we didn’t offer Aida to him first.” “f*cking gross,” Aida interjects. “For one thing, he’s old. For another, I’m not a f*cking pog.” “Either way, it’s too late,” I growl. “You’re mine. And whatever he wants as a consolation prize, he’s not getting it.” “I still think she should come with us,” Dante says. “We know the Butcher better than you do.” “Not happening,” I say flatly. I’m not letting Aida out of my sight. Dante scowls, not used to anybody contradicting his orders. But it’s not all ego—I can see the concern in his face, his fear for Aida. It softens my tone, just a little. “I’ll protect her,” I promise him. Dante gives a curt nod. He believes me. “We’ll ride out the night,” Dante says again. “Then in the morning, we’ll find out where Zajac is hiding and plan our response.” “A coordinated response,” I say. “Yes,” Dante agrees. Aida and I get out of the truck, transferring over to my Audi. I can see Dante is still reluctant to let his sister leave with me. It’s Aida who convinces him. “I’ll be safe with Callum,” she says. She gives her oldest brother a quick hug and squeezes Nero’s arm. “I’ll see you both soon,” she says. As I pull the car away from the curb I say, without looking at her, “I’m glad you stayed with me.” Aida tilts her head, looking at my profile while I drive.
“I want us to be partners,” she says. “Not just . . . unwilling roommates.” “I want that, too,” I tell her. Easier said than done. But it doesn’t seem impossible anymore. I’m starting to believe that Aida and I could actually work together. We could be stronger together than apart. Aida sighs. “He certainly hit us where it hurts,” she says. “Because the tower is such a big project?” I ask her. “No. It’s not the money, exactly. It’s the work—we have to provide a constant flow of contracts to the various trades and unions to keep them loyal. The materials, the jobs—if you can’t feed the machine, then it all grinds to a halt. And of course,” she casts a sideways look at me, “there’re the other layers of the machine. The shipments that carry more than lumber. The businesses that wash money for the other businesses. It’s a web, all interconnected, all reliant on the smooth operation of the individual parts.” I nod. “We work the same.” Our businesses may differ, but the strategies are similar. “The election is only a couple of days away,” Aida muses. “I wonder if Zajac will try to blow that up, too.” My hands tighten around the steering wheel. “If he tries, the Butcher’s going to find himself on the wrong end of the cleaver this time around.”
19
I AIDA have to leave early the next morning, because I’ve got a literature class I don’t want to miss. I’ve been buckling down this semester, actually passing my classes. I think it’s time to quit f*cking around and finish my degree. Callum doesn’t want me going anywhere until this thing with Zajac has come to a head, but he finally relents under the condition that Nessa and I have one of his men drive us to school. Unfortunately, the only person available is Jack. Under orders from Callum, he opens the car door for me with forced politeness, but waves of loathing are rolling off him and me. The tension in the car is so thick that poor Nessa is wide-eyed and confused, too uncomfortable to engage in her usual stream of cheerful conversation. “So, uh, did you guys see there’s supposed to be some kind of meteor shower tonight?” she asks us. Jack grunts from the driver’s seat. I’m looking at the back of his head, wondering if it would be worth another fight with Callum to just pop Jack once in the ear when we pull up to campus. “What?” I say to Nessa. “I said—oh, never mind.” Jack drops us off in front of the Cudahy library, his eyes fixed rigidly ahead as he waits for us to get out of the car. “Thank you, Jack,” Ness says politely as she climbs out. “Yeah, thanks Jeeves,” I mutter to him on my way out the door.
I can see his knuckles whiten on the steering wheel and practically hear his molars grinding together. I slam the door behind me just to annoy him all the more, and then I head off to class, hoping Jack will be too irritated to pick me up again afterward. I keep sneaking my phone out during class, to see if my brothers have texted me. Or Cal. I know they’re hunting down the Butcher. I hope they’re all together, whatever they’re doing. Zajac scares me. I know where he came from. There’s a difference between growing up in a criminal family and fighting your way up in the criminal world. The Butcher is playing this game to win or to die. There’s no middle ground for him. So I’m glad my brothers aren’t alone in this. But I’m annoyed that, yet again, I’m being left out of the action. This morning, I demanded Cal to take me with him, but he refused before the words were even out of my mouth. “No, Aida. We have no idea where the Butcher is or how far he plans to take this. We could be walking into an ambush everywhere we go.” “Then why are you going? Send someone else. Like Jack,” I said hopefully. “This isn’t an errand-boy kind of job. Zajac is not f*cking around. He didn’t just shoot at us last night, he hit two cops. We have no idea how far he plans to take this.” “I know people that know his people. I can help,” I insisted. Callum seized me by the arm, hard enough to hurt. His blue eyes cut into me, narrow and unblinking. “You’re not going anywhere near this Aida. So help me god, I will lock you in that closet for a month before I let you wander around Little Ukraine, talking to bartenders and strippers.” Whenever anybody tells me what I can’t do, it makes me about a hundred times more determined. Callum saw the flare of rebellion in my eyes and sighed, loosening his grip on my arm just a little. “I promise you, as soon as I hear anything, I will call you.” “Or text,” I demanded. Callum nodded. “I promise,” he said.
So I let him go, and I didn’t immediately slough off my classes and head to Little Ukraine. That’s not where I’d go anyway, if I wanted info on the Butcher. I have a much better lead than that. But for now, I’m stuck in Comparative Literature, completely ignoring the analysis of feminist characters in Austen’s novels. Instead I’m wondering what Nero meant when he texted me: We found the shooter. Got a tip on the old bastard, too. I text him back, but he doesn’t send me anything else. The class ends abruptly—or so it seems to me as I stare out the window totally distracted. I snatch up an armful of books, not bothering to stow them away in my bag, then head outside, trotting across campus in the direction of the west lot where I’m supposed to meet Nessa and our detestable chauffeur. When I’m almost at the right spot, I hear a male voice say, “Do you need help carrying all those books, little lady?” For a second, I think it’s Callum. I don’t know why—he doesn’t do corny impressions, like some helpful cowboy. When I turn around, I’m met with Oliver’s tanned, grinning face instead. He’s bruised where Callum tuned him up. A dark line down the center of his lip marks the place where it split. “Oh,” I say, annoyed. “It’s you.” “Not exactly the enthusiastic greeting I was hoping for,” Oliver says, keeping pace at my side. “What are you doing here?” I demand. He’s years out of school, there’s no reason for him to be hanging around here. “I came to talk to you.” I take a false step on a stone hidden in the grass, my ankle bending uncomfortably under me. “Ouch! f*ck!” I hiss, stumbling a little. “Careful,” Oliver says, catching my elbow. “I’m fine,” I say, trying to pull my arm away. But I’m limping slightly now. I don’t think it’s sprained, it’s just that thing where it’s tender and wonky, and you have to baby it a minute. “Come over here,” Oliver says. “Sit down a second.”
He steers me away from the parking lot, over to an underground walkway, at the head of which is a stone bench, partially hidden under an overhang. Oliver is so big and overbearing that I can’t really pull away, not without hurting myself. I sink down on the bench. Oliver sits right next to me, almost forced to put his arm around me because of the tightness of the space. I can smell that cologne he always wears, pleasant but a little overpowering. “I can’t stay,” I tell him. “Somebody’s picking me up.” I pull off my sneaker and massage my ankle, trying to work out the kink. “They can wait a minute,” Oliver says. He takes my socked foot and pulls it into his lap, kneading and massaging my ankle. It feels good, but I don’t want him to get the wrong idea. So after a minute I say, “That’s good, thanks,” and take my foot back. Oliver looks down at me with his big brown eyes, his expression reproachful. “Aida, what you did cut me to the bone. Do you know how painful that was, to see a picture of you on f*cking Facebook, wearing a goddamned wedding dress? Standing next to him?” I take a deep breath, trying to be patient. “I’m sorry, Oliver. It was sudden. I was pretty f*cking surprised myself.” I don’t know how to explain it without telling him too much. All I can really say, lamely, is, “I didn’t do it to hurt you.” “But you did hurt me. You’re still hurting me. You’re killing me every day.” I let out a breath, both guilty and annoyed. Oliver can be a bit . . . dramatic. “I didn’t even know you were dating him!” he cries. I press my knuckles into my forehead. My ankle is throbbing. It’s actually kind of cold here, out of the sunshine and close to the chilly cement tunnel. I feel bad about the way I dumped Oliver, I really do. It was the weirdest thing. He never did anything wrong, exactly. He took me on trips, bought me about a thousand gifts, told me how desperately infatuated he was with me.
It started out as a casual fling. I didn’t think some country club, ubercapitalist trust-funder would pursue me so aggressively. I figured Oliver just wanted to get f*cked by a bad girl. Tired of the Madisons and the Harpers of the world refusing to make eye contact during a BJ. We happened to be at the same party, two summers ago. We drunkenly kissed in the boathouse, then he tried to put his hand down my bikini bottoms, and I shoved him in the lake. A couple of weeks later, we met again at a party in Wicker Park. He gave me sh*t about the lake thing, I told him he was lucky we were swimming, not mountain-climbing. The next day he sent a bouquet of three hundred pink roses to my father’s house. That’s how it was from then on. He kept chasing after me with these grand, exotic gestures, and I went along with it for a while. Dinners, dancing, weekend trips. But I didn’t take it seriously. I doubted that he’d want to bring a gangster’s daughter home to meet Mr. and Mrs. Castle. Even around his friends, I could tell he was sometimes proud to show me off, sometimes nervous, like I might pull out a switchblade and shank somebody. I was tempted, a time or two. I already knew some of Oliver’s friends, from running in the overlapping circles of the party crowd, the criminal crowd, and the wealthy heirs of Chicago. They weren’t all bad. But some of the would-be upper crust made me want to puncture my own eardrums just to avoid the sound of their idiocy. Plus, it kinda freaked me out how Oliver told me he loved me after a couple of weeks. He called me a goddess, an angel, the only real person on earth. It was weird, because I’m no angel. He said we were soulmates, but to me he was just another guy— sometimes fun, sometimes good in bed, but barely a boyfriend let alone a best friend or soulmate. I felt like Oliver didn’t really know me at all. Like he just loved some exaggerated version of me in his mind. I tried to break up with him a few times, but he’d follow me around, finding me at every party, begging me to take him back. Once he even flew all the way to Malta to surprise me on a trip. He could be persuasive. He’s
handsome, considerate, a decent lover. When I was going through a dry spell, he made it so easy to fall back into his arms. But I knew I had to break it off for good. Because if he really did love me, I couldn’t drag it out—not without feeling the same way in return. So I finally dumped him, as brutally and finally as I could. Trying to make him get the message at last. Then after that, I pretty much had to turn myself into a hermit for a few months. No parties or dinners or dancing or even f*cking bowling, because I knew Oliver would be watching, trying to find a way to “bump into me” again. I had to block him everywhere, change my number. And finally, finally after months of messages, flowers, missed calls, and even f*cking letters, Oliver stopped. He stopped for almost two whole months. So it was pretty jarring seeing him again at the engagement party. And then again at the fundraiser. This is the most uncomfortable meeting of all. Because how, exactly, did Oliver even know I was here? Does he have my class schedule? “Oliver,” I interrupt him, “cut the sh*t. You need to quit stalking me.” He makes that wounded face. Like he’s a giant puppy and I keep kicking him. “I’m not stalking you, Aida. I’m visiting Marcus’s little sister. I promised to take her out for lunch on her birthday.” Hm. Possible. The attempt to make me jealous is misguided, however. “Okay, I believe you, but you still better quit trying to make conversation everywhere I go. My husband is kinda the jealous type, if you didn’t notice.” “I know exactly what Callum Griffin is like,” Oliver says through gritted teeth. “That stuck-up, arrogant, dirty-money piece of sh*t. No offense,” he adds, remembering that my money is just as “dirty” as Callum’s. And also that I’m married to the guy. “I can’t believe he puts his cold, dead hands on you every night,” Oliver says, his eyes feverishly bright. “How in the f*ck did this happen, Aida? How did he make you fall in love with him when I couldn’t?” That actually makes me feel bad, at least a little bit. I didn’t fall in love with Callum. It’s cruel to let Oliver think that I did. “It wasn’t . . . it’s not . . .” I lick my lips. “It’s not about love, exactly.”
“I knew it,” Oliver breathes. “I knew it as soon as I realized what his family is. They’re f*cking mafia, just like yours.” I wince. I never spilled any secrets to Oliver. But it’s not exactly classified information that the Gallos have been Chicago gangsters for the last six generations. “Our families have a . . . relationship. I think you’ll agree that Callum and I are a better match, culturally, than you and I would have been. So there’s no point—” “That’s bullsh*t,” Oliver interrupts, his voice low and urgent. He’s trying to take my hands, and I’m pulling them away like we’re playing Red Hands. “I know they forced you to do this. I know you would have come back to me, Aida—” “No,” I say sharply. “We weren’t getting back together, Oliver. We’re never going to. With or without Callum in the picture.” “We’ll see,” Oliver says, looking at me intently. I’m about to stand up. I’m definitely late—Nessa will have been waiting at least ten minutes. But Oliver grabs my wrist, pulling me back down on the bench. He holds me tight, looking into my eyes. “I know how you feel about me, Aida,” he says. “Whether you can admit it, or not.” He looks down at my chest, where my nipples are poking through my tshirt. “That’s not—it’s just f*cking cold on this bench!” I start to shout. Oliver silences me with his mouth, kissing me hard and wet. I shove him off as quickly as possible, jumping up from the bench and immediately stumbling again on that stupid ankle. “Don’t!” I say, holding out my hand to stop him as he tries to stand up, too. “I have to get back. Don’t follow me. Don’t call me. And definitely don’t f*cking kiss me anymore.” Oliver doesn’t reply. He just stands there, brows furrowed, and hands stuffed in his pockets. I hobble back in the direction of the car, stomping on my one good foot and fuming over that encounter. I’m pissed that he kissed me! My marriage to Callum may not be exactly real, but I’m not ready to be unfaithful. Especially not with Oliver, who’s really starting to creep me out.
When I get to the lot, I see Nessa standing on the sidewalk with her bag slung over her shoulder. “Where’s Jack?” I ask her. “The car’s there.” Nessa points to a nearby parking stall. “But it’s locked, and empty.” I get out my phone, planning to text Jack’s phone with something polite and simple—like maybe one of those yellow middle finger emojis. Then he pops up next to me, saying, “You ready to go?” “Yes!” Nessa says sweetly. “We’ve been ready to go for twenty minutes,” I lie. “Where were you?” “Taking a leak,” Jack says. He holds open the back door so Ness and I can slide inside. I lean back against the leather seat, not really believing him. I’m quiet on the drive back to the Griffins’ mansion, wondering how in the f*ck I’m going to avoid Oliver Castle in the future. About halfway home, I get a text from Callum saying: Come meet me in the library when you get back. I get out of the car as soon as it stops moving, hurrying into the pleasantly cool house and heading directly up the stairs to the library. Callum is sitting in one of the new armchairs—cream leather this time, instead of brown. I take a seat in the chair opposite. He looks pale and composed in his dark suit. I can already tell that he found something, from the resolute set of his shoulders. Before he says anything, I want to tell him about Oliver showing up on campus. The problem is that Oliver groping me the other night was the one and only time I’ve seen Callum lose his temper. It’s a sore subject between us. I’m not exactly looking forward to bringing it up. Especially when we’ve been working so well together. Before I can start, Callum says, “We found one of the shooters. Not the Butcher, though. Your brothers think we should smash up Zajac’s casino tonight. Try to flush him out.” “Are you going with them?” I ask. He steels himself, and says, “Yes. And you could come, too. If you wanted.”
I can tell it’s not what he wants at all, but he’s offering it, not even waiting for me to make the demand. Now I definitely don’t want to tell him about Oliver. Instead, I say, “I do want to come.” Callum looks slightly pained but doesn’t take his offer back. It’s funny that he invited me into the library. I haven’t stepped foot in here since the first night we met. The restored portrait of his great-great-however many greatsgrandmother is back above the mantel. Also the carriage clock and the hourglass. But no watch anymore. Callum already knows what I’m looking at. “The watch was mine, the clock is Riona’s, and the hourglass is Nessa’s,” he says. “What do they mean?” I ask him, not sure if I even want to know. “My grandfather passed them down to us when we were born. He said, ‘All we have is time.’” “Were you close to him?” I ask. “Yeah.” Callum nods. “Closer than anyone.” f*ck, I hate feeling guilty. Why did I grab that f*cking watch? If I’d never touched it . . . I wouldn’t be here right now, I guess. Looking at Callum’s lean, handsome face. “I’m . . . sorry about that,” I say. Callum shakes his head, like he forgot it was even lost. “That’s in the past, Aida. Let’s concern ourselves with tonight.”
20
A CALLUM s we start hunting down the Butcher, I have to admit, I’m pretty f*cking glad I’ve got Aida’s brothers on my side. My father might have been right that I was too arrogant, too sure of our dominance. I’m spread thin, trying to secure deals, whip up votes, and put a lid on Zajac, all at the same time. Funnily enough, I’m quite enjoying having Aida on my team, too. When she’s not setting our library on fire or chucking my most beloved possession over a railing, she’s actually pretty f*cking helpful. I use the license plate number she spotted to track down one of Zajac’s men, the one who owns the Land Rover used in the drive-by. His name is Jan Kowalski, but everybody calls him Rollie. I call Dante and Nero so we can run him down together. We find him at a used-car dealership in East Garfield. The Butcher owns several car dealerships and repair shops. He can kill two birds with one stone, laundering money through car sales, while chopping up and reselling the cars stolen by his minions. Nero goes around back while Dante and I walk through the front door looking for Rollie. I already know what he looks like, having had minor dealings with him in the past. Thanks to his idiotically public social media, Dante and Nero have also had the pleasure of scrolling through pictures of Rollie getting smashed at the pub, Rollie showing off the new pair of Yeezys he probably stole, and Rollie receiving the world’s worst tattoo of a pair of praying hands.
So, we recognize him fairly easily in the service bay of the dealership. He’s wearing coveralls. A filthy bandana ties back his longish sandycolored hair. As soon as he sees Dante’s bulk in the doorway, he chucks away the oil pan from the F150 he’s servicing and tries to sprint out the bay doors like a f*cking jackrabbit. Unfortunately for him, Nero is already lying in wait behind a stack of tires. If Rollie is a rabbit, Nero is a greyhound—lean, swift, and utterly ruthless. He hooks Rollie’s legs with a tire iron, then pounces on his back, pinning him to the ground. Meanwhile, Dante knocks out the manager with a brutal right cross, and I do a quick sweep of the shop to make sure we haven’t missed any other employees. I find a mechanic crouched down behind a BMW. He’s older and lacks any of the usual markers of the Polish mafia—tattoos, gold chains, and gaudy rings—so I assume he just works on the cars and isn’t one of the Butcher’s soldiers. I search him anyway, then lock him in the office after ripping the phone cord out of the wall. Dante and Nero are already tuning up Rollie. It doesn’t take much to get him talking. He gives us the phone the Butcher uses to contact him, as well as several locations where Zajac “might” be. “I don’t care where he might be,” Nero hisses. “Tell us where he is right now.” “I don’t know!” Rollie shouts, swiping the back of his hand across the bloody nose Nero already gave him. “I’m not, like, one of his top guys.” “He sent you to shoot up the construction site last night, though,” I say. Rollie darts his eyes between Nero and me, licking his lips nervously. “I didn’t know who was there,” he says. “I didn’t know I was shooting at you guys. He told us to spray the lot, to hit the cops and make a ruckus.” “Horse sh*t,” Dante growls, his voice rough as gravel. “You knew that work site was ours.” “You don’t know what he’s like,” Rollie babbles. “It’s not like with other bosses where you can take a job or not. He gives an order, and you have to do it. If you f*ck up, you get one warning. f*ck up again, and that’s it.” “What’s the warning?” Dante asks.
Rollie holds up his right hand. He’s missing the pinky finger, severed cleanly at the base. The stretched, pink skin shows that this is a relatively recent injury. “I don’t care if he’s the f*cking boogeyman,” Nero says, seizing the front of Rollie’s coveralls and jerking him close. “There’s only one name you should be afraid of in this city. Whatever Zajac does to you, I’ll do ten times worse. If he shoots you in the face, I’ll drag your screaming soul back from hell just to kill you again.” Nero’s eyes look flat and dark in the shadows of the car bay. In some ways he’s the “prettiest” of Aida’s brothers—high cheekbones, full lips. It makes the viciousness of his expression all the more disturbing. Nero pulls a knife from his pocket and flicks up the blade, so quickly it seems to appear out of nowhere. He presses the point against the jumping pulse in Rollie’s throat. “Tell me where Zajac is, or I’ll nick this artery. Then you’ll have about twelve seconds to answer me, before you bleed out all over the floor.” He’s not threatening Rollie. His expression is hopeful—hoping that Rollie won’t talk, so Nero can let his hand do what it’s obviously itching to do. “I don’t know! I swear—” With one swift slash, Nero cuts the length of Rollie’s forearm, from the rolled-up sleeve of his coverall, down to his wrist. The blade is wickedly sharp. Blood runs down in a sheet, pattering on the bare cement floor. “Aghh f*ck me! Knock it off!” Rollie howls, trying to cover the wound with his grease-stained hand. “Last warning,” Nero says, readying his blade again. “I don’t know! Wait, wait!” Rollie howls, as Nero’s knife comes at his neck. “I do know one thing . . . a girl he’s been seeing.” “Go on,” I say. “She works at the Pole. She’s got an apartment somewhere in Lawndale that he pays for. That’s all I know, I swear!” “I believe you,” Nero says. He sends the blade slashing toward Rollie’s throat anyway. He would have slit it wide open if not for Dante catching his wrist. The point of the knife trembles a millimeter from Rollie’s neck. “That’s not necessary,” Dante says. “He told us what he knows.”
“He also tried to shoot us, in case you forgot,” Nero says, tossing back the hair falling over his eyes. “I remember,” Dante says, letting go of his brother’s wrist. As soon as Dante drops his hand, Nero strikes again, slashing Rollie’s cheek instead of his throat. Rollie yelps, clapping his hand over the long cut from ear to jaw. “That’s a reminder for you,” Nero says. “Next time you want to shoot at somebody, either improve your aim or stay home.” Dante scowls, but lets this pass. We’re about to leave when I hear a crashing sound. Shattering glass, and then a howl as somebody runs straight at me, swinging a baseball bat. I duck, the bat whistling over my head. Instinctively, I punch the man right in the gut. When he doubles over, I wrench the bat out of his hand, then hit him again across the jaw. It’s the mechanic. He’s got something wrapped around his knuckles, some sort of rag, which didn’t prevent him from getting a handful of glass when he punched through the office window. His whole arm is bleeding, and all the fight has gone out of him now that he doesn’t have his baseball bat. I’m guessing he was only propelled by desperation to begin with, since he had no chance of besting me, Dante, and Nero in a fight. Now he’s panting and wheezing, trying to decide if he’s required to put up any further resistance. “Stay the f*ck down there,” Nero says, shoving him down on the ground next to Rollie. “In fact, lay down on your face and count to a hundred before you get up, or I’ll put a bullet in the back of your skull.” I don’t know if Nero actually has a gun on him, but the two men lay obediently face down, and Rollie starts counting. We leave them there, jogging back toward our cars. “Didn’t know you could fight, rich boy,” Nero says, looking at me in mild surprise. “That wasn’t much of a challenge,” I say. The mechanic has to be at least fifty and a good six inches shorter than me. Shows how terrified he must be of Zajac. He preferred to face the three of us rather than have to explain himself to the Butcher. “Still,” Dante says, “that was pretty fast.” “Shaking hands and slapping backs is new for me,” I shrug. “I still remember how to get my hands dirty.”
“Fergus knows how to fight,” Dante says. “They used to call him the Bone Doctor, didn’t they?” He’s referring to my father’s stint as a debt collector and enforcer, before he took control of what remained of the Griffin family. “That’s right,” I say. My father could put a spiral fracture down a man’s arm with a twist of his wrist, if that’s what was required to enforce the payment plan. He definitely taught me a few things. The number one thing he taught me is never to fight when you can negotiate instead. Because the outcome of a fight is never certain. The problem is, I don’t think Zajac wants to negotiate. Not without spilling a little blood on the floor, first. Aida arrives home only a little after I do. She comes up to the library, and I fill her in on what we’ve been doing. I can tell she’s annoyed at being left out of the morning’s activities, but I will keep my promise and bring her along tonight, if that’s what she really wants. When she heads into our bedroom to drop off her books, Jack pokes his head into the library. “Can I talk to you for a minute, boss?” he says. Jack and I have been friends a long time. He got himself in trouble back in our college days. He was dealing Molly at parties to pay for the trustfund lifestyle, without actually having the trust fund. When the cops raided his dorm, he had to flush about $28K of product. I paid off his supplier, then had Jack come work for me instead. He’s been a good employee and a good friend, if a little overzealous at times. Like with Aida’s brother on the pier. And sometimes with Aida herself. Aida may drive me up the f*cking wall, but she’s still my wife. If Jack didn’t learn his lesson down in the kitchen, I’ll be quick to educate him again. “I picked the girls up at school,” he says. “Good.” “Aida was talking to someone.” I give him a sharp look in case he’s trying to start sh*t again. “She’s allowed to do that,” I say. “It was Oliver Castle.”
My stomach clenches up in a knot. If he had said any other name, I would have ignored it. But I can’t help feeling jealous of that sh*t-for-brains wannabe playboy. As far as I know, he’s the only actual boyfriend Aida ever had, and for some reason that eats me alive. The thought of them swimming on some tropical beach together, laughing and talking, Aida in a bikini with her skin more tanned than ever . . . It makes me want to rip Castle’s face off his skull. Plus, I know damn well he doesn’t go to Loyola. So he was on campus for one reason only. “What did he say?” I demand. “I don’t know,” Jack says. “I couldn’t get close enough to hear. But they were talking a while.” I can feel my eye twitch. Aida didn’t mention anything about Oliver. Didn’t mention seeing him. “You’re sure it was Castle?” “One hundred percent. He left right after they talked, and I followed him back to his car. The gray Maserati.” I nod. That’s definitely him. “And there’s something else,” Jack says. “What?” I bark. “They kissed.” The floor seems to drop out from under me. I completely forget about Zajac. All my anger, all my desire for violence and revenge is turned on Castle instead. If he were in the room right now, I’d shoot him in the face. “Thank you for telling me,” I say through stiff lips. She kissed him. Then she came home to me, cheerful as ever, like nothing happened. Maybe to her, it is nothing. After all, we never really talked about this. We never promised to be faithful to each other. Our marriage is a business arrangement, I can’t forget that. The vows we spoke mean nothing, not really. The only real promises were the ones made by my father and hers. Still, it gnaws at me. Is she meeting up with him secretly? Are they f*cking? Does she love him still? I’m going to ask her.
I stride down the hallway to our bedroom, determined to confront her. When I push my way through the door, she’s typing something on her phone. She closes it out abruptly, swiping upward to change apps, then flipping her phone over and laying it face-down on the bed. “What’s up?” she says. “What were you doing?” I say. “What do you mean?” “Just now. On your phone.” “Oh,” she says, cheeks slightly pink. “Just adding some new songs on Spotify. Gotta make a victory playlist for after the election.” She’s lying. She was typing a message, I’m sure of it. I should grab her phone, demand to see what she was doing. It has a password though, and Aida is stubborn as f*ck. She won’t give it to me. It’ll turn into a battle. Better to wait. I’ll steal her password, then go through her phone uninterrupted, without tipping her off. So I force my face to be calm and inexpressive, and I say, “Okay. We should eat something before we head out.” “What do you want to eat?” she asks, relieved that I dropped the subject. “I don’t care,” I say.
21
C AIDA al interrupted me in the middle of something I’d rather not show him—not yet, at least. But now he’s acting weird. We’re downstairs, eating two of the meals the chef left in the fridge. Cal is chewing his meat like he can’t even taste it, looking moodily out the kitchen window to the pool outside. “What’s going on?” I ask him, taking a bite of braised short rib and grilled carrot. This is about as decadent as it gets in casa Griffin, so I’m trying to enjoy my meal. But that’s hard to do with Callum sitting stonefaced right next to me. “Nothing,” he says shortly. “What are you all wound up about? Poking a stick in the hornet’s nest?” I’m aware that someone named “the Butcher” isn’t the best target to antagonize. Still, I’m excited at the prospect of hunting down Zajac. I’ve been playing the good girl for weeks now. It’s time to get in a little trouble. “Yes,” Callum says testily. “I’m concerned about teeing up against an unhinged gangster. Especially two days before the election.” “Maybe we should hold off, then,” I tell him. “Wait until after to slap back at him.” “If we don’t find him tonight, then that’s what I’ll do,” Callum says. “But I’d rather deal with it sooner than later.” Callum’s phone buzzes with a message. He glances at it, saying, “Your brothers are here.” A minute later they pull up in front of the house, parking and getting out of Dante’s Escalade warily. They haven’t been here since Nessa’s party. I
can tell they feel awkward coming in through the kitchen door. “Nice house,” Dante says politely, as if he hasn’t seen it before. “Yeah, very nice,” Nero says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking all around the gleaming, modern kitchen. His eye catches on the one thing out of place. He bends over for a closer look, saying, “Is that a—” “Yes,” I interrupt him. “And we don’t need to talk about it.” Imogen already read me the riot act about the bullet hole in her cabinet door. I think she was angrier than when I tried to poison her son. This house is her actual favorite child. It would have gotten ugly if Callum hadn’t covered for me, telling her it was an accident. She didn’t look convinced. “How am I even going to get someone to fix it?” she demanded, eyes blazing. “How am I going to explain to some carpenter that he needs to dig a bullet out before he can fill in the hole?” “You could act totally surprised,” I said helpfully. Callum shot me a look, telling me to shut up, immediately. “I could get the bullet out first,” he said. “No!” Imogen snapped, “Don’t touch it. You two have done enough.” It still hasn’t been fixed, and it’s another sore subject that I don’t need Nero bringing up right before we’re supposed to head out. But then Sore Subject Number Three comes strolling into the kitchen. “Car’s out front,” Jack says, holding up the keys. “Don’t tell me he’s coming,” I say to Callum. “Yes. He is,” Callum replies. “We don’t need—” He interrupts me. “We’re not going in short-handed. Your brothers brought someone too.” “Gabriel’s in the car,” Dante confirms. Gabriel is our cousin, and one of my brothers’ enforcers. He looks like a big gruff teddy bear, but he can be a killer when he has to be. “Fine,” I say, with only a hint of annoyance. “And what’s the plan?” “Well,” Callum says, exchanging a look with my brothers, “There are two options. One, we try to follow this lead about the girl Zajac’s been f*cking.” “But we don’t have her address,” Nero says, obviously not a fan of this option. “And we don’t know how often he sees her.”
“Or,” Callum continues, as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “we could hit one of his businesses. Smash his sh*t up, maybe take something, then wait for him to call us.” “We’re leaning toward his casino, because it’s remote and cash-heavy,” Dante says. “Why not both?” I say. “Are you talking about Francie Ross? She works at Pole, right?” “Do you know her?” Callum asks quickly. “No. But I know a girl who knows her,” I say. “That’s what I was trying to tell you, earlier.” Callum gives me a look, half annoyed and half curious. “Does your friend know where Francie lives?” “Maybe,” I say. “We should ask her.” “Why bother!” Nero snaps. “Who cares about finding Zajac. We need to hit him back for what he did to our job site. We don’t need to look him in the eye to kick him in the balls.” Dante looks like he could go either way. “The casino seems like more of a sure bet,” he says. “Well . . .” Callum glances over at me. “Let’s do both. You guys can hit the casino, while Aida and I talk to her friend.” “You think three people is enough?” Dante says to Nero. “Of course,” Nero says, tossing his head. “Take Jack, too,” Callum says. “Then it’ll just be you and Aida . . .” Dante says. “We don’t need an army,” I say. “We’re just talking to a waitress.” Dante frowns, and reaches inside his jacket. He passes me a Glock, loaded. “Is that wise?” Jack says, eyeing the gun as Dante puts it in my hand. “Don’t worry,” I say sweetly. “I won’t leave it lying around like an idiot.” Jack looks like he wants to retort, but he drops it, since Callum is standing right there. “Everybody else got what they need?” Dante asks. We all nod. “Let’s head out, then.” Dante and Nero get back in the Escalade. I wave to Gabriel through the window. He grins and gives me a little salute. Jack climbs in the backseat
next to him, introducing himself with a grunt and a curt nod. I’m extremely pleased not to have to spend any more time cooped up in a car with him, and even more pleased that Cal and I are running down my lead. Well, sort of his too—but I thought of it first. Anyway, I like when Cal drives. It lets me sneak glances at him while his attention is fixed on the road. Every time we’re alone together, the energy seems to shift. There’s a thick tension in the air, and my mind starts inevitably wandering back to what we did the last time we were alone. Since I’m thinking of such pleasant things, I’m startled when Callum says, “Why did you break up with Oliver Castle?” It jolts me, and makes me remember, uncomfortably, how Oliver accosted me on campus earlier. How does he keep running into me like that? At first when he would find me at every party, I assumed my friends were texting him. But even later— “Well?” Callum interrupts. I sigh, annoyed to be talking about this again. And without the likelihood of kinky jealousy-fueled sex afterward. “It just never felt right,” I say. “It was like putting a shoe on the wrong foot. Right away it was awkward, and the longer it went on, the worse it got.” “So you weren’t in love with him? When we met?” Callum asks. There’s the tiniest hint of vulnerability in his question. I’ve never heard Callum be vulnerable. Not even one percent. I desperately want to look at him, but I use all my willpower to keep my eyes pointed forward. I feel like we’re actually being honest for a minute, and I don’t want to ruin it. “I never loved him,” I tell Cal, my voice steady and sure. He exhales, and I know, I just know, there’s relief in that sigh. I have to smile, thinking of something poetic. “What?” Callum asks. “Well, ironically, when I broke up with Oliver, I thought I should find someone more compatible. Someone more like me.” Cal has to laugh, too. “Instead you got the exact opposite,” he says. “Right,” I say.
Opposites have a kind of symmetry. Fire and ice. Stern and playful. Impulsive and restrained. In a way, they belong together. Oliver and I were more like two objects selected at random: a pen and an owl. A cookie and a shovel. That’s why there was no emotion on my side, just indifference. You need push and pull to feel love. Or hate. We pull up in front of Pole. It’s a cabaret club on the west end of the city. Dark, low-ceilinged, sprawling and seedy. But also wildly popular, because it’s not your run-of-the-mill strip club. The performances are dark, kinky, and fetish-based. Some of the dancers are semi-famous in Chicago, including Francie Ross, who’s one of the headliners. It doesn’t surprise me that she caught Zajac’s eye. “Have you been here before?” I ask Callum. “No,” he says carelessly. “Is it good?” “You’ll see.” I grin. The bouncers check our IDs and we head inside. The thumping bass makes the air feel thick. I smell the sharp scent of alcohol, and the earthy tones of vape pens. The light is deep red, making everything else look like shades of black and gray. The interior feels like a gothic dollhouse. Plush booths, botanical wallpaper, ornate mirrors. The waitresses are dressed up in strappy leather harnesses, some with leather animal ears and matching fur tails—bunnies, foxes, and cats, mostly. I spy a table emptying out close to the stage, and I drag Callum over before someone else can snag it. “Shouldn’t we be looking for your friend?” he says. “We might be in her section. If not, I’ll go find her.” He looks around at the busty waitresses, and the bartenders who are wearing skin-tight pleather bodysuits, unzipped to the navel. “So this is what Zajac’s into, huh?” he says. “I think everybody’s into this, to one degree or another,” I reply, biting the edge of my lip and grinning just a little. “Oh yeah?” Callum says. He’s looking at me, curious and more than a little distracted. “Tell me more.” I nod to the corner of our booth, where a pair of silver handcuffs dangle down from a hook. “I could see you making good use of those,” I say.
“Depends,” Callum growls, his eyes dark. “On how you behave yourself tonight . . .” Before I can answer, our waitress comes to take our order. It’s not my friend Jada. But she says Jada is working. “Can you send her over?” I ask. “Sure,” the girl nods. While we wait, the lights lower even further, and the DJ drops the music. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he croons. “Please welcome to the stage the one . . . the only . . . Eduardo!” “Oh, you’re going to like this,” I whisper to Callum. “Who’s Eduardo?” he mutters back. “Shh!” I say. A spotlight follows a slim young man who poses for a moment in its light, then saunters down to the stage. He’s wearing a fedora and zoot suit— well-tailored, with exaggerated shoulders. He has a mustache and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. His presence is magnetic. Every eye in the room is fixed on him and on his outrageous swagger. Right before he ascends to the stage, he pauses next to a slim, pretty blonde girl in the front row. He grabs her hand and drags her up on stage, despite her protests and obvious shyness. Then he goes through a little comedy routine where he instructs the girl to hold a flower for him. The top of the flower immediately falls off, tumbling down the front of the girl’s blouse. Eduardo plucks it out again before she can move, making her shriek. Then he teaches her a dance routine, a very seductive tango, which he performs masterfully, whipping her around like a mannequin. All the while he’s keeping up a patter of jokes and insults, making the audience howl with laughter. He has a low, smooth voice, with a slight accent. Finally, he tells the girl that he’s finished, and asks for a kiss on the cheek. When she reluctantly puckers up her lips, he holds out his cheek to her, then turns his head at the last minute, kissing her square on the mouth. Of course the crowd eats it up. They’re cheering and chanting, “Eduardo! Eduardo!” “Thank you my friends. But before I go—one last dance!” he shouts.
As the music plays, he dances across the stage, swift and sharp. He grabs his fedora and yanks it off his head, letting down a spill of whiteblonde hair. He tears off his mustache, then rips open the front of his suit to reveal two absolutely spectacular breasts, full and bare, except for a pair of red tassels covering the nipples. “Eduardo” hops and shimmies to make the tassels spin round, then blows the crowd a kiss, bows, and leaves the stage. Callum looks like he got slapped in the face. I’m laughing so hard that tears are running down my cheeks. I’ve seen Francie’s show three times now, and it still blows me away. Her ability to walk and dance and speak like a man, even laugh like one, is just incredible. She never breaks character for a second, not until the very end. “That’s Francie Ross,” I say to Callum, in case he still hasn’t figured it out. “That’s the Butcher’s girlfriend?” he says in astonishment. “Yup. If the rumors are true.” I get my chance to ask Jada when she brings over our drinks. She passes a whiskey on the rocks to Callum, a vodka cranberry to me. “Hey!” she says, “I haven’t seen you in forever.” “I know!” I grin up at her. “It’s been crazy.” “So I heard,” Jada says, casting a significant glance in Callum’s direction. Jada has dyed-black hair, a multitude of piercings, and plumcolored lips. Her father used to work for mine, until he was sent to prison for unrelated mischief. Specifically, he tried to scam the state lottery. It was going great until he accidentally won twice in a row, which kinda tipped them off. “Did you see the show?” Jada asks me. “Yes! Francie’s the best.” I lean a little closer, keeping my voice low so it’s covered by the music. “Is it true she’s dating that Polish gangster?” “I don’t know, “ Jada says, picking up an empty glass from the table next to ours, and setting it down on her tray. She’s not meeting my eyes anymore. “Come on,” I coax her. “I know you two are tight.” “They might be,” she says noncommittally. “Does he come in here to see her?” I ask. “No,” Jada says. “Not that I’ve seen.” She obviously doesn’t like this line of questioning. But I don’t want to drop it just yet.
Callum reaches under the table, smoothly pressing a folded bill into Jada’s palm. “Where does she live?” he says. Jada hesitates. She sneaks a glance down at her palm to see the denomination. “The yellow building on Cherry Street,” she says at last. “Third-floor walk-up. He goes there Tuesday nights. That’s when she’s off work.” “There you go,” I mutter to Callum after Jada leaves. “If he doesn’t make contact after we f*ck up his casino, then we’ll get him on Tuesday.” “Yeah,” Callum agrees. “It’s still early—text your brothers and see if they need us over at the casino.” I’m about to do so when Jada brings us another round of drinks. “On me,” she says, friendlier now that I’ve stopped grilling her. “Don’t be a stranger so long next time.” She slides a fresh vodka cranberry toward me. I didn’t really want a second, but if it’s free . . . “Thanks,” I say, raising it in a cheers motion. “Roxy Rotten’s up next,” Jada says. “You want to stay for that one.” As I raise the straw to my lips, I see a strange sheen on the surface on my drink. I set it down again, looking at the co*cktail. Maybe it’s just the red light on my red drink. But the surface looks a little oily. Like the glass wasn’t washed well enough. “What?” Callum says. I’m not sure I should drink it. I’m about to tell Callum to check his own drink, but he’s already slugged it back in a gulp. The lights lower again, and the DJ introduces Roxy Rotten. Roxy performs her striptease in zombie makeup, under black lights that give the illusion that she loses several limbs over the course of her routine. Then, finally, her head seems to fall off. The lights go up again and Roxy stands center-stage, miraculously whole again, and displaying her lovely greenpainted figure to the crowd. “Should we go?” I say to Callum. “Did your brothers reply?” I check my phone. “Not yet.” “Let’s leash, then. I mean leave.” He shakes his head. “Are you gonna finish that first?” he points to my second drink.
“Uh . . . no.” I pour half of the new drink into my old glass so Jada won’t be offended. “Let’s go.” I stand up first, slinging my bag over my arm. When Callum stands, he stumbles slightly. “Are you okay?” I ask him. “Yeah,” he grunts. “Just a headache.” I can see how unsteady he is on his feet. It’s not the whiskey—he only had two shots, and I know from experience that Callum can drink a lot more than that without getting tipsy. I see Jada standing next to the bar, arms crossed. She looks like a malevolent gargoyle with her leather fox ears, and her lips painted dark purple. “Let’s get out of here,” I mutter to Callum, slinging his arm over my shoulder. I’m reminded horribly of the day we met, when I had to carry Sebastian down the pier like this. Callum is just as heavy, slumping over more and more with every step. He’s trying to say something, but his eyes are rolled back, his voice mushy and incoherent. If I can get him into the car, I can drive us someplace safe and call my brothers. But just like on the pier, the door seems a million miles away. I’m wading through sand, and I’m never going to make it. As I reach the exit at last, the bouncers surround me. “Is there a problem, Miss?” I’m about to tell them I need someone to help carry Callum over to the car. But then I realize they’re not coming to help us. They’re blocking the door. I look around at the semi-circle of burly, looming men. No time to call my brothers. I do the only thing I can think of. I slump down like I’m passing out, hoping it won’t hurt too bad when I hit the floor.
22
I CALLUM wake up with my hands tied over my head, suspended from a meat hook. This is not a great position for me. I’m a big dude, and all that weight hanging from my arms for god knows how long makes them feel like they’re about to be pulled out of the sockets. Plus my head is f*cking banging. The last thing I remember is some dude that wasn’t actually a dude doing the tango across the stage. Now I’m in some warehouse that stinks of rust and dirt. Under that, a cold, wet, rotting smell. And it really is f*cking cold. Even in my suit jacket, I’m shivering. Maybe it’s the after-effects of the drugs. My muscles feel weak and shaky. My vision keeps switching from fuzzy to clear, like a pair of binoculars going in and out of focus. Drugs. Someone drugged my drink. When I was sitting with . . . AIDA! I whip my head around, looking for her. Thankfully, she’s not hanging from a hook right next to me. But I don’t see her anywhere in the deserted space. All I see is a table, covered with a stained white cloth. Which is not, generally, a good sign. I want to yell for Aida. But I also don’t want to draw attention to the fact that she’s gone. I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t know if she was with me or not.
My shoulders are screaming. My feet can almost, but not quite, touch the ground. I try twisting my wrists, turning them against the rough rope to see if there’s any chance of wriggling free. The movement makes me rotate slightly, like a bird on a spit. But it doesn’t seem to loosen the knot. The only good thing is that I don’t have long to wait. The Butcher enters the warehouse, flanked by two of his soldiers. One is slim, with white-blond hair and tattoos down both arms. The other looks familiar—he might have been one of the bouncers at Pole. Oh, f*ck. He probably was. But it’s the Butcher who draws my attention. He fixes me with his furious stare, one eyebrow permanently quirked a little higher than the other. His nose looks beakier than ever under the harsh light, his cheeks hollower. The pitted scars along the sides of his face look too deep to be from acne—it might be shrapnel wounds from some explosion long ago. Zajac pauses in front of me, almost directly under the single overhead light. He lifts one finger and touches my chest. He pushes, making me swing helplessly back and forth from the hook. I can’t help grunting at the increased pressure on my arms. The Butcher gives a small smile. He’s amused by my discomfort. He steps back again, giving a nod to the bouncer from the club. The bouncer strips off Zajac’s coat. Zajac looks smaller without it. But as he rolls up the sleeves of his striped dress shirt, I can see that his forearms are thick with the kind of muscle built by doing practical things. As he rolls up his left sleeve with deft, sure motions, he says, “People think I got my nickname because of Bogota. But it isn’t true. They called me the Butcher long before that.” He rolls up the right sleeve as well, until it matches the left precisely. Then he strides over to the covered table. He pulls back the cloth, revealing exactly what I expected to see: a set of freshly-sharpened butcher’s knives, their blades arranged by shape and size. Cleavers, scimitars, and chef’s knives, blades for boning, filleting, carving, slicing, and chopping. “Before we were criminals, the Zajacs had a family trade. What we learned, we passed down. I can butcher a hog in forty-two minutes.” He lifts up a long, slender knife, touching the ball of his thumb to the blade. Without any pressure at all, the skin parts and a bead of blood wells up
against the steel. “What do you think I could do to you in an hour?” he muses, looking up and down my stretched-out frame. “Maybe you could explain what the f*ck you want, for a start,” I say. “This can’t be about transit property.” “No,” Zajac says softly, his eyes colorless in the stark light. “What is it, then?” I ask. “It’s about respect, of course,” he replies. “I’ve lived in this city for twelve years now. My family has been here for three generations. But you don’t know that, do you, Mr. Griffin? Because you haven’t even paid me the compliment of curiosity.” He sets down the knife he’s holding and selects another. Though his fingers are thick and stubby, he handles his weapon as dexterously as Nero. “The Griffins, and the Gallos . . .” he says, approaching me with a blade in hand. “Both alike in your arrogance. The Gallos bury two of my men under cement, and they think that’s the end of it. You take my donation, then refuse to even meet with me face to face. Then you both make a marriage agreement, without even considering my sons. Or issuing an invitation.” “The wedding was short notice,” I say through clenched teeth. My shoulders are on fire, and I don’t like how close Zajac is getting with that knife. “I know exactly why the wedding happened,” he says. “I know everything . . .” I want to demand where Aida is right now if he knows so much. But I’m still wary of giving her away. She might have managed to escape. If so, I hope to god she’s calling the cops, or her brothers. Unfortunately, I don’t think anybody is going to get here in time. If they even knew where to find me. “This was a slaughterhouse,” Zajac says, gesturing around the empty warehouse with the point of his knife. “They used to kill a thousand hogs a day here. The blood ran down there,” he points down the length of a metal grate that runs below my feet, “Down that pipe, straight into the river. The water was red for a mile downriver from the plants.” I can’t actually see the pipe he’s referencing, but I can smell the dank stink of dirty water. “A little further down, people swam in the water,” he says, his eyes fixed on the blade of his knife. “It looked clean enough, by then.”
“Is there a point to this metaphor?” I say impatiently. My shoulders are f*cking burning, and if Zajac is going to kill me, I’d rather he go ahead and do it already. “Am I supposed to be the person swimming in the dirty water?” “No!” he snaps, eyes on my face now. “That’s everyone in Chicago, who wants to think their city is clean. You’re the person who eats the bacon, thinking you’re better than the man who butchered it.” I sigh, trying to pretend to be interested, while actually scanning the room. I’m eyeballing the two bodyguards, looking for some way out of this mess. All the while I’m chaffing my wrists inside the rope, trying to twist them free bit by bit. Or else just rubbing my skin off—it’s hard to tell. Zajac is done monologuing. He cuts off my suit jacket and shirt with a dozen quick slashes. Parts of the sleeves still hang off my arms, but my torso is bare, bleeding from five or six shallow cuts. The Butcher is skilled enough that he could have done that without touching my skin, but he slashed me on purpose. He’s whetting his knife. He presses the point against the lower right-hand side of my abdomen. “Do you know what’s right there?” he says. I don’t want to play this game with him. “No,” I say. “Your appendix. A little three-and-a-half-inch tube of tissue, extending from your large intestine. Likely vestigial for the modern human, but sometimes brought to prominence when it becomes infected or inflamed. I don’t see any laparoscopy scars, so I assume yours is still intact.” I stay stubbornly silent, refusing to play along. The Butcher rests the flat of the blade on the palm of his hand. “I had intended to wait until after the election for this, but you had to make a nuisance of yourselves, smashing up my casino and bothering my mistress in her place of work. So here’s what we’re going to do. The Gallos are going to return the money they stole from my casino.” I don’t know how much they got, but I hope it was a f*ck ton of cash. “You’re going to sell me the transit property, at a steep discount.” Nope. Also not happening. “And you’re going to provide me with a city government position of my choice, after your election.” When pigs f*cking fly.
“As a down payment on these services, I’m going to take your appendix,” Zajac says. “You won’t miss it. The surgery, though painful in the absence of anesthetic, won’t be fatal.” He raises the point of the knife once more, positioning it directly above the apparently non-essential portion of my guts. He takes a breath, readying himself to slice into my flesh. Then he begins to press the knife into my belly. He pushes it in agonizingly slow. I grind my teeth together as hard as I can, eyes closed, but I can’t help letting out a strangled yell. It really f*cking hurts. I’ve heard that being stabbed is more painful than being shot. Having recently been grazed in the arm by my loving wife, I can definitely attest that having a knife slowly, torturously burrowed into your guts is about a hundred times worse. My face is sweating, and my muscles are shaking harder than ever. And the knife is only an inch or two into my flesh. “Don’t worry,” the Butcher hisses. “I should be done in an hour or so . . .” “Wait a second, wait a second . . .” I pant. He pauses, without taking the knife out of my stomach. “Could you take a break for a second and scratch my nose? I’ve got an itch, and it’s driving me crazy.” Zajac gives an irritated snort and tenses his arm to drive the knife deeper into my body. At that moment, a bottle comes flying through the doorway, with a smoking rag stuffed in its neck. The bottle shatters on the cement floor, the flaming liquor spreading out in a pool, and shards of fiery glass spinning outward. One catches the bouncer’s sleeve. He spins around, trying to slap it out again. There’s another smashing sound, and then an explosion, loud and close. “Deal with that,” Zajac hisses to his men. The blond one splits off at once, skirting the wreckage of the Molotov co*cktail and heading through a side door. The bouncer heads straight for the main door, only to catch a bullet in the shoulder the second he walks through. “Pierdolić!” the Butcher hisses. He jumps behind me, in case the shooter is about to come through the door.
But as we wait, no one walks through. And I know Zajac is torn—on the one hand, he doesn’t want to leave me here alone. On the other, he’s now unprotected himself. He has no idea how many people are storming the warehouse. He doesn’t want to be caught in here if it’s my men who come barging through the door. As the seconds tick by, and we hear the confusing sounds of shouting, running, and something else smashing, but it’s impossible to tell what’s going on. The Molotov is still burning—in fact, the flames are spreading across the cement floor somehow. Perhaps the paint is burning. It creates clouds of acrid black smoke that make us sweat and cough. Finally, Zajac curses again. He strides over to the table, seizing a cleaver in one hand and a machete in the other. Then he hurries out through the same side door where his blond lieutenant disappeared. The moment I’m alone, I start wrenching and working on those ropes. My left arm is almost totally numb now, but I can still move the right one. I pull as hard as I can. My hands, my wrists, my arms, and shoulders are all screaming. It feels like I’m going to dislocate my thumb. But finally, I twist the right hand free. Just then, a figure comes sprinting barefoot through the door, jumping over the fallen body of the bouncer who was shot in the shoulder. It’s Aida. Her dark hair streams behind her like a banner as she flies across the cement. She nimbly avoids the flames and shattered glass, pausing only to grab a knife off the table. She presses it into my palm. “Cut the rope!” she cries. “It’s too high for me to reach!” She’s got blood running down the right side of her face. Her left hand is wrapped in a rag. “Are you okay?” I ask her, reaching overhead to saw at the rope still holding my left hand in place. “Where’re your brothers?” “I have no idea!” she says. “Those goons took my phone. Took my gun, too—Dante’s gonna be pissed. I’m the only one here!” “What!” I say. “What the hell was all that noise, then?” “A diversion!” Aida says gleefully. “Now hurry up, before—” At that moment the rope parts, and I tumble down on the concrete. My arms feel like they’re not attached to my body. My legs are throbbing, too. Not to mention the puncture on my right side. “What did they do to you?” Aida asks, her voice shaking. “I’m fine,” I tell her. “But we’d better—”
At that moment the blond soldier returns, with another of Zajac’s men. They’re both armed, standing in the doorway with their guns pointed right at us. “Don’t move,” the blond says. The air is thick with smoke. I’m not sure how well he can actually see us—well enough to shoot us, I’m sure. I grab Aida’s arm and start inching backward. We’re following the metal grate along the floor, back to the dumping spot where the butchers used to offload the blood and viscera into the river. “Stop!” The blond shouts, advancing on us through the smoke. He raises his AR, fitting it against his side. I hear a dull clang as I step on a hinged grate. Keeping my eye on Zajac’s men, I press the toe of my shoe against the corner of the grate, trying to lift it without using my hands. It’s heavy, but it starts to move upward, enough that I can get my whole foot under. “Stay there and keep your hands up,” the blond soldier barks, closing in on us. I kick the grate all the way open. Then I wrap my arms around Aida and say, “Take a deep breath.” I feel her body tense up. I pick her up bodily and jump down through the grate, down into a pipe four feet wide, that leads god knows where. We plunge into the filthy, icy water. The current is swift, dragging us along. It’s dark, so dark that it makes no difference if my eyes are open or shut. Keeping an iron-clad grip on Aida, I reach up with one hand to see if there’s air above our heads. My hand swipes the pipe, without any space between water and metal That means we need to get through as quickly as possible. The current is moving us along, but I kick with my feet, propelling us faster. We’ve probably been down here thirty seconds so far. I can hold my breath for more than two and a half minutes. I can’t expect Aida to manage more than a minute or so. She’s not struggling in my arms, not fighting me. But I can feel how rigid and terrified she is. She trusts me. God, I hope I didn’t make the worst kind of mistake.
We rocket along, me kicking all the harder. And then we shoot out an outlet pipe, falling down about five feet right into the Chicago River. The current drags us out to the center of the river, about twenty feet from either bank. That’s not where I want to be, in case any boats come along, but I’m not sure which way I should be taking us. I look around, trying to figure out exactly where we are. Aida clings to my neck, only paddling with one hand. She isn’t a very strong swimmer, and the current is powerful. She’s shivering. So am I. “How’d you know we could get out there?” she asks me, teeth chattering. “I didn’t,” I say. “How in the f*ck did you come find me?” “Oh, I was with you the whole time!” Aida says gleefully. “That backstabbing bitch Jada drugged our drinks, but I didn’t actually drink mine cause it looked weird.” “Why didn’t you tell me that?” “I was going to!” she says. “You had already slugged it down. I don’t want to make this a cultural critique, but you Irish could learn to sip a drink once in a while. Not everything is a shot.” I roll my eyes. “Anyway,” she says, “I tried to get you out to the car, but you were stumbling and slurring, and the bouncers closed me in. So when you passed out, I pretended like I was passed out too. I was so floppy, you would have been amazed by my acting. Even when the big one slammed my hand in the trunk, I didn’t break character.” I’m staring at her in amazement. While I was knocked out, apparently, she was plotting and planning. “So they brought us to the warehouse. Then they carried us inside. They took you away, and they put me in some kind of office room. The guy hadn’t tied me up cause he thought I was still out cold. He left me alone for just a second. Locked the door, though. And I didn’t have a phone—he took my purse and Dante’s gun. So instead, I went up into the air vent—” “You what?” “Yeah.” She grins. “I used my fingernail to turn the screw, got the cover off. Climbed right out. Remembered to put the cover back on, too. I wish I coulda stayed to see the guard’s face when he came back—he probably thought I pulled some kind of Houdini move. I lost my shoes along the way, cause they were making too much noise in the vent. Then I dropped down
in a little kitchen—it had a fridge, freezer, full liquor cabinet. That’s how I made the Molotovs. There was all kinds of stuff in there—Zajac must work out of this building a lot, not just when he’s torturing people.” She pauses, eyebrows pinching with concern. “Did he cut you? You were bleeding . . .” “I’m fine,” I assure her. “He just poked me a little.” “Anyway,” she says. “I heard the guards freaking out. They didn’t want to tell him I escaped, cause they’re all terrified of him. So that gave me some extra time to run around raising a ruckus. I stole a gun and shot one of them. Then a different one grabbed me from behind, shoved my head into the wall, and I had to shoot down at his foot like nine times before I hit it. Then I didn’t have any more bullets. But I found you right after!” I’m staring at her in absolute astonishment. Her eyes are bright with excitement, her face alight with the thrill of what she accomplished. It’s crazy and hectic and we could have been killed. But I’ve never felt more alive. The freezing water. The night air. The stars overhead. The light reflected in Aida’s gray eyes. I feel it all with painful acuity. It’s absolutely f*cking beautiful. I kiss grab Aida’s face and I kiss her. I kiss her so long and so hard that we sink down under the water, then rise to the surface again, our mouths still locked together. “You’re incredible,” I tell her. “Also, completely insane. You should have just run!” Aida fixes me with her most serious expression. “I would never abandon you,” she says. We’re spinning slightly in the current, the city lights rotating around us. We’re holding each other, looking into each other’s eyes, while our feet tread water. “Neither would I,” I promise her. “I’ll always find you, Aida.” She kisses me again, her lips chilly and trembling, but still the softest thing I’ve ever touched.
23
T AIDA he election takes place two days later. Cal is all patched up. He needed stitches for a couple of the slashes, but now you’d hardly know he’d been in a fight. I, on the other hand, have to wear a giant cast, since apparently that idiot bouncer broke two of my fingers when he slammed the trunk on my hand. Now I’m extra glad I shot him. It’s making it damn hard to type anything on my phone, which is annoying, because I have a very important project in the works, and I don’t want it getting all f*cked up because I can’t check my email. “I can help you with that,” Cal says, reaching out to take my phone. “You can dictate, and I’ll type.” “No!” I say, snatching it back. “I don’t need help.” “What are you doing?” he asks suspiciously. “None of your business,” I tell him, tucking the phone back in my pocket. He frowns. He’s already on edge because we’re supposed to be getting the election results any minute. I really shouldn’t bait him. His phone rings, and he almost jumps out of his skin. He holds it to his ear, listening. I can visibly watch as the relief pours over him. He hangs up the call, grinning. “Congratulations!” I shout. He picks me up and spins me around, until I lock my legs around his waist and kiss him for a very long time.
“You did it,” I say. He sets me down again, his bright blue eyes boring into mine. “We did it together, Aida. We really did. You got me the extra support I needed from the Italians. You helped me win over the right people. I want you to come work with me. Every day. Once you graduate, I mean.” My heart gives a funny little flutter. That’s crazy. A couple of weeks ago, I hardly thought Callum and I could share a room without murdering each other. “Roommates and coworkers?” I say teasingly. “Why not?” Callum frowns. “You’d get sick of me?” “No. You’re not exactly the chatty type,” I laugh. “Actually, you’re pretty . . . calming to be around.” It’s true. When Cal’s not driving me into a rage, he steadies me. I feel safe around him. “What are we going to do about Zajac, though?” I ask him. Dante and Nero made off with about $500K in cash from the Butcher’s casino, as well as smashing up a bunch of his machines. We haven’t heard anything since. Which seems like it must be the calm before the storm. “Well, Nero thinks we should—” At that moment we’re interrupted by Fergus and Imogen, who have heard the news. They burst into Cal’s office, wanting to celebrate with champagne. I try to sidle out to leave them alone together, but Imogen puts her arm around my shoulders and pulls me back in again. “Don’t you want a drink?” she asks me. “We’re celebrating you, too, Aida. A husband’s achievement belongs to the wife, and vice versa.” Imogen has apparently forgiven me for murdering her cabinet. In fact, she insists that we all go to dinner to celebrate, including Nessa and Riona. I notice that our reservation at Everest is already set. I have to smile at Imogen’s confidence in her son. “I guess you want me to change, then,” I say to Callum. He looks down at my t-shirt and shorts. “I don’t know,” he says, giving me a little half-smile. “You look pretty cute as-is.” I raise my eyebrows in astonishment. “Who are you, and what have you done with my husband?” Cal shrugs.
