Page 19 of Working for the Mob

“What is it they say? ‘Quickest Hands on the East Coast.’ But I guess that only applies if you have a gun.”

“Will you shut up and just look for the damn revolver?” I growled at him.

I didn’t ask for those titles. Hell, I hated them. But that’s what my father had trained me to be. And now, I’m my brother’s strongest weapon for him to aim wherever he wants.

I finally found the gun under in front of the shed, yards from where I fell.

“Now we can go,” I said, and stowed it back in the holster.

I headed towards the car without another glance at Henry.

He jogged to catch up and fell into stride with me.

“Do you think the Valuncias are going to respond after this?” he asked, earnestly.

“I guess we’re going to find out.”

Chapter 6 – Genevieve

We only had five minutes to make it to Miss Dunham’s before we would be considered ‘late.’

“Lucy! I wanted to leave fifteen minutes ago,” I called to her in the back. I tapped my foot on the floorboard and watched the big hand on my watch tick again. “We have four minutes to get there!”

We had stopped at the supermarket Saturday night, and I made sure to buy the most important thing: coffee. I already drank two cups that morning.

It’s a good thing I did because we would not have time to stop at the café on the way to Miss Dunham’s and I didn’t sleep well. I stayed up half the night imagining the different jobs she could assign us to and all the things that could go wrong at each one. I had never had a job before. I never needed one. My parents had provided everything I needed until now.

“I don’t have anything to wear today,” Lucy yelled back, but I knew she was wrong.

We had just been given a bag of old clothes the night before. Although the bust fit tightly, I wore one of the white blouses and a skirt a nun would approve of.

“Just picksomething,” I said, and marched into her room. She had the same slip she wore the day before, along with the same pumps. The contents of the bag lay strewn across the room. A stark difference from my tidy room next door.

“Here.” I picked up a white blouse and a skirt, and held them up to her.

“I can’t wear that. That’s what you’re wearing,” she said, indignantly.

“Miss Dunham is not going to care about what you’re wearing as long as you’re presentable,” I said, through clenched teeth. “Now put these on, or I’m going to leave without you.”

A full twenty minutes later, we finally walked into the green-tiled butcher shop to the sound of tinkling bells and its iron smell. We would’ve gotten there sooner if Lucy hadn’t worn her heels.

“You’re late,” Miss Dunham said, the second she poked her head out from the back room. I tried to summon all the vitriol I could into the glare I gave Lucy.

“I’m sorry, Miss Dunham. We’ll be on time tomorrow,” I said, but she waved me off.

“You won’t be here tomorrow,” she said, and I gulped. We were late one day and we were already fired. “The two of you are to show up at the café. Jamie McKnowlton needs help with the morning rush.”

“Will I be okay in these simple clothes? I promise they were the only ones I had,” Lucy said, and pulled at her skirt.

“You’ll be fine,” Miss Dunham assured her. I bit my tongue to prevent myself from telling Lucy off right there.

“So, we’ll be bussing tables?” I asked her. After scrubbing our entire house, wiping down surfaces was the last thing I wanted to do.

“Something like that.”

???

A line had already formed at the café when we showed up, with a sweaty Jamie behind the counter. I inhaled the heavenly aroma of coffee and felt a jolt more energized. Once Jamie spotted us, a wide grin spread across his face.

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