Page 24 of When Sinners Fall
He stands and takes our glasses to the bar. It gives me a moment to think, at least. To rein in the anger that’s still simmering beneath my surface.
I pull out the small paper bird from my back pocket and twist it over in my fingers.
I’d been making origami stars and birds for homework back when we were really little. I couldn’t get the intricate triangle fold right for the crane head. Dante had come over and just sat down with me and copied. He was good at it right away. And without a single word said between us, he finished the perfect bird and gave it to me.
Every time he was in trouble from that moment on and wanted to talk – or more accurately, just hang out – I’d find a paper bird waiting on the window ledge next to the front door. I kept them for years in a box under my bed. Sometimes they’d have a few words inside of them. Other times, not.
“Here.”
He sets another glass of whisky down in front of me, and I’m back to looking up to the grown-up Dante. The dumb-struck handsome Dante. When did that happen? He's huge. And hot. He's all dark skin and dangerous looking. His brow is set low under his frown and his mouth - his lips. I get pulled back to what they did to me in that alley as I admire his model-level cheekbones.
His fingers linger on the rim of the glass, rings tapping, and my memory of him the other night catches in my throat. Heat rises over my chest, and I grab the glass and down a mouthful in frustration. It was my fantasy. My… experiment. And now that I have to share it with him, it's turned into something different.
“Why? Why didn’t you say anything?” I understand my warped version of the answer, but I feel like I deserve his.
“Don’t go getting all prissy about it now, Wren. You asked for it. Better me than someone else.”
“Oh, really?” I lean forward, pissed that he's called me prissy and is ruining this. “See, with a stranger, I wouldn’t be stuck here having to relive my own dark fantasy with an old friend. That was part of the appeal. I know you, Dante.”
“You don’t know a goddamn thing about me anymore, Wren. That kid I was? He’s long gone. The man I was in the alley? He’s far more like me these days.”
There’s an edge to his voice that tells me to sit my ass back down, and I do, but my tongue itches with more questions.
I look around the bar, force myself to be quiet, and spin the glass in my fingers.
“What?” His voice growls.
“Nothing.”
“Spit it out.”
“Fine. Don't you think I have at least some idea about who you are? I found that bar, didn’t I?” I fold my arms across my chest and don’t miss the dip of Dante’s eyes down to my cleavage.
“You best tell me what you think I’m all about then, Wren Bird.”
“Well, you’ve not left San Antonio. You’re working with your family. You seem to own a whole lot of businesses in the area. Or at least, the Cortez family does.”
“Yeah. What about me, though?” His eyes flash in challenge.
“Your name was on a few different…establishments. That first bar, well, it was the closest to my house, so I tried it first.” I gloss over the fact that some of the bars didn’t seem to only serve booze, at least from the search info I pulled.
“It’s a ways from your part of town, Wren. What the hell were you going to do if I wasn’t there? I can’t be at all the places I have my name against at once.” His head tilts to the side as if he’s sizing me up. It shouldn’t make my breathing change, or my thighs clench, but it does. It’s like he’s playing with me, and I like it.
“Well, you were.”
“And you were happy walking into a bar like that? With no idea if I’d be there?”
“You left me your calling card. It’s not like it had your number scribbled inside.”
“You didn’t see it as a risk? After what you found out during your research?”
“I’d say fucking a stalker in an alley was a risk, too.”
He shakes his head at me and chuckles darkly. “You know what goes down at a bar like that? In some of the other places we own?” He looks right at me as if testing how much I found out.
“I know that you’re probably skirting the law. That the places you own aren’t just biker bars or a front for card tables.” I keep the words whore or brothel from my mouth, but they run through my mind.
“That’s a start then.” He leans back in the booth but frowns at the whole place around him. “You need to know upfront that my family comes first. Cortez means something, and I protect that. Don’t think that our friendship will save you from what we do.”
