“You know nothing about me.” I put my hand inside my jacket, feeling for my gun.
“I know enough. I did my research before getting the job at La Luna Noir.” He was treading into dangerous territory. “But you can do one thing before deciding if I live or die.”
It was late, my head hurt. I needed to eat and sleep, and tomorrow I’d figure out the mess I was in, how deep it was, and if I could crawl out and still be the same person.
He pulled out a wrinkled photo from his pocket. “Please find out who killed my father.”
7
TONY
The door slammed and the stairs shuddered. Not great construction considering he was in the business. Tut-tut.
He was gone, and the basement was empty without him. But that should’ve been a good thing. Him being with me was when he might exact his punishment.
Apart from a dripping tap in the kitchen, the basement was as silent as… well, a grave.
I rubbed my wrists and got water from the dispenser on the fridge. After gulping one glass and another, I limped around the space holding an ice pack to my face. Being kidnapped was thirsty work. Putting up a snarky facade was hard, and the adrenaline that coursed through my veins decreased, leaving me limp with exhaustion.
Flopping onto the couch, I closed my eyes. Not that I could sleep. The pain from my lip had eased, but my nose and leg were sore, and my mind was racing. I hauled myself up and inspected the rooms, feeling along the walls for any irregularity like people did in the movies. Not that I expected to find a secret door or a mislaid tablet or phone, but I had to do something. The synapses in my brain were still firing.
My desire to avenge my father’s death had overridden all else, including following sensible precautions. Dad always said I acted first and asked for forgiveness later. I doubted the owner of the house was in the business of forgiveness.
My thoughts sidestepped to the more mundane part of my life, the one that didn’t include taunting a mobster while a whiff of desire held me in its grip. My tummy grumbled, and I surveyed the selection of food in the fridge, including salad, lasagna, fried noodles, tuna salad, and crispy chicken. I grabbed one dish, but when it was twirling around the microwave, I couldn’t recall what I’d chosen.
Taking a bite, I savored the fried noodles, but after the first mouthful, my taste buds went on strike. Maybe they were as exhausted as me. After shoveling in the rest of the food, I tossed the dishes in the sink. Tomorrow might be my last sunrise, so I wasn’t going to waste whatever time I had left washing dishes.
A quick shower was next on the list. The bathroom was well stocked with toiletries, and I floated out on a cloud of jasmine and coconut. But when I selected PJs from a drawer, I paused. Was the last person to wear these dead? Dropping them on the floor and stepping over them, I climbed into bed naked.
There was nothing stopping him from coming down here while I was sleeping. I could do the chair-under-the-door trick. Did that work? It would give me a few seconds’ warning so I could defend myself with a pillow? Or a lamp?
Closing my eyes, I allowed my thoughts to wander.
In college, I donated blood and discovered I had a rare blood type. That set me on a path to discover more about my birth father. The more I researched, the more intrigued I was. Dad was evasive when I asked what the guy did for work, saying, “Many different things. He’d get bored and move on to something else.”
When I questioned how he died, Dad told me it was an unfortunate accident at work. Something about a machine malfunctioning. I sensed he was uncomfortable talking about it when he’d avoid my gaze and talk in short, sharp, clipped sentences. I let it go and never spoke to him about his first husband, my alpha birth father, again.
Instead, I set off on my other research journey, sitting in libraries studying old newspaper articles, checking family histories, and traipsing along a street where my father had lived as a child and a desolate space where factories once stood, a place my father had worked after leaving school at fifteen.
It had been a single mention in an old newspaper article of him working for a waste management company owned by Florian Durand that sent me on the path to applying for a job at La Luna Noir, now run by his grandson.
But my eyes grew heavy, and when I opened them, the room looked the same. With no direct sunlight, it could have been mid day or early hours of the morning.
He’d taken my watch, in case it connected to the internet. It didn’t. It was a cheap one, but there was a clock on the microwave, and I tiptoed into the kitchen. I snorted, my shoulders shaking with laughter as to why I was creeping around. I could scream until I was hoarse and no one would hear me.
It was seven. Morning or evening? I blinked and studied the digital numbers again. It was a twenty-four-hour clock, so unless someone had deliberately set it to the wrong time to confuse any basement occupant, it was morning.
The club didn’t open until evening, so he spent his days elsewhere. His business acumen was legendary in the city, his fingers in many pies, including the antique business, real estate, casinos, waste management, and construction. He might have left for the city already.
The bathroom door was open, and I studied the towel I’d dumped on the floor. Last night’s dirty dishes were where I’d left them. Did the basement come with a housekeeper? Unlikely. Dad had taught me to pick up after myself. “I’m your father, not your maid,” he used to tell me.
I sighed. If this was my last day on earth, I’d prefer to be lounging by a pool, eating caviar and drinking champagne, not rinsing dishes. But I stood at the sink, getting rid of dried noodles stuck at the bottom of the bowl I’d used and washing the cutlery and glass.
But as I closed a cupboard, another louder sound reverberated around the basement. The door at the top of the stairs!
“Lights on.” I didn’t need a cartoon speech bubble to tell me the owner of the voice laced with honey.
The lights on the stairs didn’t flicker.