Page 44 of Female Fantasy
“So.” I clear my throat. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”
He looks away, guilt-ridden.
“Oh my God, I knew it,” I say. “Tell me exactly what we’re doing here, Nico. Who the hell is Harry ‘the Hug’ Lester? And what does he have to do with you?”
Nico clears his throat. “Um, has Tey talked to you about how the business is doing?”
I stare at him. Hard. “What are you talking about?”
“He swore he was going to,” he mutters under his breath.
Crunching the numbers.That’s what Tey said Nico was doing at Kabobs ’n’ Bits before Sunday night dinner.
Oh no. Oh God.
“Ever since your parents left…” His voice trails off. “Things haven’t been going too well. You know how Abbotts opened that outpost. And then there’s that Michelin-starred oyster bar down the street. People are just…less interested in fast casual Middle Eastern food, I guess.”
This baffles me. Kabob is timeless!
“Anyway, when the books started to look really bad, Teymoor asked me to take a look. I promised I’d help him get back into the black, but I made a miscalculation that resulted in Tey taking out a loan…using the shop and his apartment as collateral. I felt so bad, Joonie. So fucking awful. I mean, he trusted me with this, and I let him down in this massive way. So I made another really stupid decision. I thought I was helping. I truly believed I was doing what I had to.”
I stare at him, letting the silence between us grow thick.
“I went to Mohegan Sun.”
My groan must be audible in New Jersey. “Nico!Nothing good happens at Mohegan Sun casino.Everyone and their mother knows that!”
“You thinkIdon’t know that?” he asks. “I was desperate, Joon. Come hell or high water, I needed to pay off that loan. So I chose hell. I had a fair amount of savings, and I ended up placing some risky bets—”
“But you detest gambling!” I interrupt. “You once told me that I played poker like a reckless child!”
“I studied blackjack forweeks,” he retorts.
“WatchingCasino Royaledoesn’t count.”
“Well, I thought I was prepared. I had a plan. Play a few hands, make the money I needed, pay off the loan, save the business. Except…”
“Except that’s not what ended up happening. You lost. Big. To Harry the Lobster.”
“Harry ‘the Hug’ Lester,” he corrects me. “And now I owe him an ungodly amount of money. Money I don’t have. Money he gave me a few weeks to come up with, but the deadline has passed. I never thought he’d actually come after me like this. Come after you. Joonie, I would never, ever, ever intentionally put you in danger. I swear on my mother’s life, I had no idea he was Mafia. Otherwise I never would have played that hand. He told me he worked in waste management.”
“If you had ever read a Mafia romance in your damn life,” I practically snarl, “you would know that’s practicallytextbook code for the Mob!”
“Well, as we’ve established, you’ve read a lot more books than me.”
I huff. “You bet all the money you had to save Kabobs ’n’ Bits? Why would you do that? Why put yourself at risk?”
He looks at me pointedly. “Why do you think, Joon?”
We stare at each other for a single heated moment, but it’s too much. I look away first.
“What kind of name is Harry ‘the Hug’ anyway?” I ask.
“He’s known for starting every conversation with,Where’s my hug at?”
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “And I thought this couldn’t get worse.”
“We’re dead,” Nico agrees. “We’re completely and utterly dead.”
