Page 16 of Rent an Enforcer

I stare at the messages for a long time before looking up from the screen. He seems sympathetic. That might be what bothers me most. His sympathy. “Go,” he murmurs, turning his attention back to the laptop. “We’re finished here for now. Take care of business.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. I remind myself of it through every minute of the drive to Stella’s neighborhood, which feels like the longest and shortest fifteen minutes of my life. I need to give her the full picture. She deserves that much.

It doesn’t make it any easier to climb the stairs up to the second floor. The hallway smells like someone cooked garlic last night and burned it slightly. I take the stairs two at a time, hands trembling. That never happens. I’ve done things with these hands I’ll answer for someday, but they have never once trembled. Yet here I am, trembling outside a door with a lock I could break with my shoulder, because the girl on the other side of it is the only good thing I’ve touched in years, and I’m about to give her every reason to tell me to leave.

I knock. It rings out much too loud. There are footsteps, then the turning of one lock, then another. The door opens, and there she is. There’s paint on her forearm and her hair is in one of its messy buns. Over her shoulder, I have a clear view of Socks on his cushion, gazing at me like a disapproving chaperone.

Her face glows. “There you are!” she chirps, like I’m something she misplaced for a short while and found under the sofa.

“I need to tell you something.”

The smile fades. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Do you want to come in?”

I do, but I can’t. Not until I get this out. “I don’t work in personal security.” I hold up my hands, showing her the knuckles, the bruises. “I work for a man named Dorian Moretti. He runs one of the most powerful organized crime families on the coast. I’m his enforcer. When someone needs to be threatened or otherwise convinced to cooperate, I’m the one who does it. This is why I haven’t come to see you, because I didn’t want you to see these. You deserve to know all of it, though, before we go any further.”

The hallway is dead quiet. She looks at my hands, studying the bruises, before her gaze moves to my face.

All I can do is wait for her to deliver judgment.

7

STELLA

My brain is doing that thing where it tries to process too much information all at once and sort of short-circuits, like a browser with forty tabs open.

Enforcer. Organized crime. Dorian Moretti. I stare at his hands, and then at his face, then his hands again. The bruises on his knuckles are deep and ugly, and he’s standing in my hallway looking like a man who just handed me a grenade and is waiting to see if I pull the pin or hand it back.

I should be terrified, right? Horrified. I should close the door and slide the chain and call someone, though I’m not sure who, since my best friend is a freaking rabbit.

I should be feeling those things. I know I should.

But then I’ve never been very good at doing or feeling the things I’m supposed to do or feel, have I?

“Like in The Godfather?” I hear myself ask.

He blinks rapidly, like he just heard a question he wasn’t expecting. “What?”

“The Godfather. Is Dorian like the Don of the family? Are you his consigliere?” I’m already stepping aside to let him in because it doesn’t occur to me not to. “Wait, no. You said enforcer. Is that like Luca Brasi? Please tell me it’s not like Luca Brasi. He died very early in the movie, and I would prefer if you didn’t. Just promise me you won’t go along with a plan to pretend you’re switching alliances, because you’ll end up sleeping with the fishes.”

He steps into the apartment slowly, as if he’s afraid there’s a mine hidden somewhere, ready to explode. He’s waiting for my brain to catch up with my mouth because he expects me to be horrified, too. Any normal person would be, I guess. But then I’ve never claimed to be normal.

“You’re not scared?” he asks.

I close the door and flip both bolts. “I’m not scared. I mean, should I be? Are you going to hurt me?”

“Christ, no.” It comes out fast, almost like he’s offended.

“Then I’m not scared. I am very curious, though. Like, extremely curious. I have so many questions. Do you have a code of honor? Did you have to take a blood oath? Do people actually kiss rings, or is that just a movie thing?”

He sits on the couch and puts his head in his hands. Not in a dramatic way. More like he rehearsed this moment, and it’s not going anything like what he expected. “Stella...”

“Do you carry a gun? You carry a gun, right? You would definitely have to carry a gun if you were an enforcer. What would you have if it wasn’t for that? Pepper spray? An iron pan? Tazer?”

“Can you—” He looks up and blinks at me. “I just told you I hurt people for a living.”

“I know. I heard you. I have excellent hearing.” I sit down on the couch, tucking one leg under me. “But I also have excellent peripheral vision and a borderline photographic memory. None of that helps me in any practical way, but I thought you should know.”

The way he’s looking at me says he clearly can’t understand where this is coming from. Not that it matters. People have been looking at me that way for a long time. “You told me the truth,” I remind him. “That’s a big deal. I know you expected me to freak out, and I guess I’m sorry if I’m not freaking out the way you planned. But honestly?”