Page 12 of Ruined

I want to ask Angelo what is happening, but I know he wouldn’t tell me. He’s probably enjoying my confusion. I expected an abandoned warehouse or maybe a gleaming high rise to be their destination, not this little slice of normality.

Of course, it makes sense. Many nasty things are hidden in plain sight. Any kind of foul dealer could be operating under cover of suburbia. We could be here picking up drugs, or perhaps Bobby is in there paying off a weapons deal.

He returns with a plain white box big enough to carry several kilograms of cocaine, or any other heavy compact drug. It’s very strange to see him doing his job, carrying out crime so brazenly.

He gets back into the car, puts the box on the passenger seat, and I smell the unmistakeable scent of baking. Not drugs. Not even the sweet scent of legal weed. I smell sugar and fat. I smell cake.

“What is that?” I can’t contain my curiosity anymore.

“Show her,” Angelo says.

Bobby flips the lid of the box open, and I see a good dozen cupcakes all iced to perfection, each and every one of them finely decorated with little piped flowers in a range of very feminine colors.

“What are those hiding?”

Angelo chuckles. “They’re cupcakes, Riley.”

I am now thoroughly confused. Angelo Vitali said there was a matter of great importance to attend to today.

“This was the work emergency?”

“Maria becomes very agitated if her baking does not leave her home when it is still at peak freshness.”

I know this is not about cupcakes. It can’t be. Cupcakes are frivolous, and Angelo Vitali is not a frivolous man. There is something going on here, I just don’t know what.

“Wait. Bobby was talking about wanting to kill someone.” I look at Bobby in the mirror again. “You were going to kill a home baker?”

“No. I was going to kill Gregory VanDinn.”

Gregory VanDinn is a known fence running all kinds of stolen things across any border you could care to name. He is untouchable in the criminal world because too many people need to use him. If anything were to happen to Gregory, retribution would be guaranteed from many powerful quarters. He’s untouchable. Even to federal agents. He is effectively above the law.

“The cupcakes are for VanDinn,” I conclude. It still doesn’t make sense, but that’s because I don’t have enough information as yet.

“Can we not just cage her?” Bobby shoots an irritated look over his shoulder at Angelo. “She asks too many questions.”

“She’s new. She’s curious.”

“She’s a fucking agent.”

“She was. Now she is ours.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that. Fucking delusional. You think she looks cute with short hair and because of that you’re going to let a fucking federal agent into our business.” Bobby emphasizes his misgiving by slamming the steering wheel with his palm.

I feel Angelo’s energy shift next to me. It becomes much more stern and directed. He looks at Bobby with an expression I can only describe as terrifying. It is an intense stare that makes Bobby shut his mouth, turn around, and start the car without another word being spoken.

I’m impressed. Bobby is not an easy beast to keep on a leash, but Angelo clearly has him well trained. That thought is swiftly followed by the possibility, or rather, probability that he will train me just as well if I do not escape his grasp.

Angelo has a way of making those he captures reluctant to leave. I am beginning to understand the attraction. When with Angelo, everything is more intense. The day is brighter, water is more refreshing, every breath seems like something to celebrate, because it is.

“We need to swing by a grocery store,” Bobby announces. “We need soda.”

I’m surprised when Angelo agrees. What is going on? I don’t for a second believe we have come out today for cupcakes and soda.

But that is precisely what we seem to have done. We toodle about the place, running these little domestic errands and I cannot pinpoint a single thing that could be picked up on as criminal.

At least until we turn toward the shipping district, and my stomach tightens. This is it. This is where it all goes wrong. The energy in the vehicle has changed. I didn’t think it could get any darker than it already was, but it is. Bobby no longer seems angry, which means he has an anticipated outlet for his near constant existential rage.

Something is going to happen. Something dark and terrible and to do with cupcakes. We wind through a series of narrow streets, one-ways designed to function more like a warren than a passage. There’s no easy way out of this place, and I’m surprised Angelo is putting himself in this situation. This is somewhere the agency could take him with barely any resistance.

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