Hell's Kitchen Page 9

  “I can’t believe you left me here,” Katya says.

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “You told me to leave you here.”

  “I thought you were running to Starbucks!” she repeats.

  “You should really get her a latte or something,” Scarlett pipes up from her spot in the corner. “Caffeine withdrawal is a bitch.”

  “Yeah,” I say, undoing the last knot on Katya’s ankle. “Almost as bad as alcohol withdrawal, right?”

  Her mouth forms a tight line, and I can tell I’ve pissed her off.

  Good.

  Dun dun dundundundun dundundun …

  Fuck! Theo’s hung up and re-dialled. I snatch the phone up, answering it again. “I’m dealing with a fucking situation here!” I yell.

  “You leave the phone now?” Theo screeches, so loud I have to pull the phone away from my ear. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Katya pulling her clothes on. I suppose she doesn’t want to stick around and shower, since I’ve just tied a chick up and shot a TV screen in front of her.

  I can’t say I blame her.

  “I’m a little busy!” I say to my brother.

  “Have you got Kaitlin?” he asks impatiently.

  “No,” I reply. “But I have someone who knows where she is.” I look at Scarlett, who appears bored, annoyed and amused all at the same time. One thing she doesn’t appear is scared, and that unsettles me greatly. She’s cool as a motherfucking cucumber.

  “Who?” Theo demands. I hear a loud crash.

  “Some chick who’s hiding her,” I explain. “Bro, have you got the bodyguard under control?”

  “Yeah,” Theo huffs. I hear another crash.

  “I gotta go,” Theo says breathlessly. “Answer your fucking phone next time.”

  He ends the call, and I stare at the screen for a moment, debating whether I should shoot it or not. Taking a deep breath, I shove the phone in my pocket. It can live, for now.

  “Are you going to fuck her?” Katya says, her eyes narrowed. The phone call forgotten, I snap to my senses just in time to see Katya dressed and looming over Scarlett. Who, to her credit, looks entirely unperturbed by the tall, blonde Russian chick with murder in her eyes.

  I rush over, push her away from Scarlett and hand her her shoes. “I’m going to torture her, and then I’m probably going to shoot her and bury her out back. If you’re jealous, Katya, pull up a fucking seat and I’ll do the same to you.”

  She swallows thickly, glances at Scarlett one last time, and backs slowly out of the room. A few moments later, I hear my front door slam.

  “You said you weren’t going to shoot me,” Scarlett says.

  I ball my fists up. “I’m not.”

  She’s quiet for a beat. Then, “I think that chick pissed the bed.”

  I’m gonna smash something. Scarlett’s face is too pretty, and if I wasn’t so wound up I’d probably be crying my Italian ass off laughing at her inane comments, but right now? I need to smash something.

  “It could be worse,” Scarlett says, clearly goading me. “At least she didn’t shit the bed.”

  TEN

  THEO

  I know exactly where to find my father. When he’s at Cucina Diavolo, he’s always in the small study he keeps on the ground floor, usually with a glass of whiskey in his hand and a frown cutting into the brutal lines of his narrow face. Today is no exception. Wallace, his longest-serving and only friend is with him, staring out of the tiny window that overlooks the herb garden outside in the courtyard. When he sees me, Wallace nods his head in my father’s general direction and goes to leave.

  “Stick around, Wally,” my father says, stopping him in his tracks. “I want you to tell my son here what’s been happening this morning.”

  My stomach lurches. Shandi said Roberto wanted to see me, but she didn’t say what about. I assumed it was because of Kaitlin. Sal and I were meant to bring the girl right back here and we haven’t. And my brother isn’t here, either, so the old man is going to know something’s up. He casts sharp eyes over me, and, as if he just read my mind, says, “Where’s your brother, Theo?”

  “He’s with the girl. We split up. We ran into a few … complications.”

  My father looks at me like I’m something he just scraped off his shoe. “I think I know a little about your complications, son. Come. Walk with me. You too, Wallace. I need to eat something before the whiskey goes to my head.”

  Not even midday and Roberto’s half buzzed. Nothing new. Ever since our mother died, this is how he’s been. And no one fucking dares say a word to him about it, either. It wouldn’t be worth their lives.

  He stands, still gripping hold of his whiskey tumbler, and stalks out of the study, heading for the kitchen. Wallace and I are expected to follow, and so we dutifully do so, me ahead of the older, grey-haired guy. There are even more people in the kitchen than there were when I dragged Gracie through here earlier. With the old man’s birthday celebrations at the restaurant tonight, there are more prep guys bringing in fresh ingredients and working furiously at the stations, but there are also three of my father’s handymen standing by the fryers, apparently waiting for him. In between them, they’re holding onto a bookie, Sammy Preston, a guy with the worst luck in the world. He started running books because he’s good at math but terrible at the actual gambling part. Told me once he figured he’d cut his losses and make himself some cash off other people throwing theirs away instead of the other way around. He’s visibly sweating as we cross the kitchen, and I have a sudden and overwhelmingly bad feeling about what he’s doing here.

  “Sammy,” my father says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Thanks for coming by. I heard you had some interesting visitors at your place earlier this morning?”

  “Cops,” Sammy says, nodding like crazy. “Some kid got shot on my street or something. They wanted to know if I’d seen anything. I said no, of course.” His words run together, betraying his nerves and also the fact that he’s lying. It sounds too practiced, too plotted out to be the truth. My father knows this.

  “I heard different, Sammy. And I hate hearing shit like this. It really ruins my day. See, how I heard it was like this. My friend down at the Midtown precinct calls me and lets me know that Fox Five News are running chopper footage of a car crash that took place on the George Washington Bridge,” he casts a sideways glance at me and I know I’m fucking done for, “and he says there’s this close-up shot of a guy that looks just like my kid fighting with a woman, and he’s getting his ass kicked.” Again, another cool, hard look at me. “And then, my friend at the Midtown precinct, he tells me that one of their detectives has received a call from one of their informants, letting them know that the guy on the bridge getting his ass kicked by a woman is in fact my son, Theo Barbieri. And then do you know what he said?” my father asks. He picks up a piece of cherry tomato one of the chefs is preparing and tosses it into his mouth. Shooing the chef away, he picks up the guy’s knife and begins slicing the tomatoes himself.

  Sammy looks around the gathering of men, as though he’s waiting to see if he’s actually supposed to respond. What he needs to do is keep his mouth shut, but even that won’t help him now. If he’s been informing to the cops, and if he called and informed them I was the guy on that bridge, then he’s dead and nothing he can do or say is going to save him.

  Roberto looks up at me from underneath drawn brows, scowling. “Where’s your brother, Theo?”

  “With the girl. They were headed to his place. I drew off the police.”

  My father hammers the knife he’s holding into the chopping board without looking, the sound like machine gun fire. Perfectly even, sliced tomato stacks up while I start to sweat almost as badly as Sammy. “I saw your little circus performance shortly after my phone call ended. Can you guess what was going through my head at the time, Theo?”

  “That your son really knows how to roll the fuck out of a car?”

  Roberto points the knife at me and growls. “Shut your smart mouth
.”

  I do, because my father doesn’t tell you twice. He turns around and clears his throat, leaning against the counter, studying a now very, very anxious Sammy. My father tosses more tomato into his mouth, chewing thoroughly before saying, “My friend tells me that Sammy Preston, the bookie I use to run my own fucking gambling ring, is the guy who’s informing on my son. I thought to myself, now how can that be? That makes no sense. But sure enough, when I look into it, I find out that it’s true. That you have been giving the police information for the past six months.”

  “No! No, I would never—” Sammy, poor bastard, doesn’t get to finish denying that this is true. My father nods to one of the men, Alfie, who then grabs Sammy by the back of the neck and shoves him down. It all happens so quickly. One minute the guy’s standing there with a look of horror on his face, then the next his fucking head is in the deep fryer and his body is shaking so violently that the other two men have to hold him up.

  My father folds his arms across his chest and watches as Sammy the bookie becomes Sammy the late bookie. I can hear my blood roaring in my ears. I’ve seen some pretty gnarly stuff before, especially at the hands of my father, but when Sammy stops moving and they let go of his body I know shit’s hit a new level of fucked up. Sammy’s entire head looks like it’s been melted. His mouth gapes open, his eyelids, his actual eyeballs just fucking gone, and I turn around and throw up onto the polished tiles of the kitchen.

  My ears are ringing.

  I feel contact on my back—my father’s hand. When I straighten up, he’s watching me with a look of disappointment on his face that I should be used to by now. “Did you call the specialist like I asked you to?”

  “We did. He wasn’t interested,” I say. “He didn’t want to speak to us.”

  Roberto grunts. “And where is your brother, Theo?” This is the third time he’s asked me that question. He obviously hasn’t liked my response the first two times. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, gasping for breath. I know the only response that will please Roberto is, he’s right here, waiting for you. “I’ll get him. I’ll bring him here,” I say. Roberto nods, smiling sadly, like I’ve finally just understood and, boy, is it hard work being my father. He casually lifts the knife from the countertop and holds it against my throat. I can feel its cruel edge biting into my skin. For a second I think he’s going to do it; I think he’s actually going to cut my throat.

  “I want you back in an hour,” he tells me quietly. “I want both my children standing in front of me where I can see them. And I want that Irish bitch on her knees in front of me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Off you go.”

  I back away from the knife; my blood marks the steel, bright red as I step away from him. I try not to look at dead Sammy’s mangled head but macabre fascination draws my eyes to the floor against my will. My stomach rolls again, ready to purge whatever’s left inside it. I have got to get the fuck out of here before that happens again. The last thing I need is to disgust Roberto even further. Have him change his mind about the pressure he wants to apply with that knife of his.

  As soon as I’m out of the kitchen, I pull out my phone and call Sal. Motherfucker had better pick up this time. I cannot fucking handle our father on my own. I have to know if he’s even fucking found—

  “What?!” Sal’s voice on the other end of the phone sounds seriously pissed off. I’ll give him fucking what.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  There’s a long pause before my brother exhales and says, “I’ve been busy.” He sounds like he’s kicking back, relaxing, not a worry in the world. I could kill the motherfucker. My anger levels spike when I hear something in the background. Something very, very bad. I pause a second, listening hard, making sure my ears aren’t playing tricks on me. But nope. I can hear moaning.

  “Are you … are you screwing someone right now? Are you screwing Kaitlin?”

  “No. I am not.”

  “I’m coming again!” a female voice moans in the background. This is ridiculous. Absolutely fucked. I’ve just been subjected to someone getting their head fucking deep fried and my brother is out somewhere sticking his dick inside our hostage. I’m going to castrate him.

  “Sal—”

  “Hang on.” The line goes dead. Not dead, but silent, like I’m on hold. Now is not a good time to be putting me on hold. I am about to seriously lose my shit. I hang up the call and dial him again, cursing him out under my breath. When he picks up I scream at him.

  He sounds pissed that I’m pissed, and I want to reach down the goddamn phone and strangle him. “Have you got Kaitlin?” I snap.

  “No. But I have someone who knows where she is.”

  This is not what I wanted to hear from him. Not even close. I grip hold of the phone, doing my best not to snap and throw the fucking thing. “Who?”

  “Some chick who’s hiding her. Bro, have you got the bodyguard under control?”

  “Yeah.” The door to the kitchen opens and Alfie backs out into the hallway, dragging Sammy’s dead body behind him. Alfie grunts at me, trips, and drops Sammy. His head hits the floor hard, cracking against the tiles. Fuuuuuck. “I gotta go,” I say into the receiver. “Answer your fucking phone next time.” I kill the connection, backing away down the hallway. I need to get the hell out of here right fucking now. Roberto said he wanted us back here in one hour. That’s blatantly not going to happen since Sal doesn’t have Kaitlin, so the best thing I can do is get my ass as far away from Cucina Diavolo as possible. Until we have that Irish princess, this is seriously not a safe place to be.

  ELEVEN

  SCARLETT

  It’s sad, you know, that the thing that spurs me on to get out isn’t the fact that I’m scared for my life.

  Because I’m not scared, not really.

  I honestly don’t really give a fuck what happens to me.

  And that realization is almost freeing.

  The problem, though, is that even though I don’t care, my body does. Very much so. Those little white pills that get me through the day are in my purse, and my purse is back at the diner. And I’m suddenly not feeling very good. I’m dizzy, I’m sweating, and I’m fairly sure if I don’t get to a bathroom soon, I’m going to throw up all over Sal’s plush carpet.

  He’s busy fussing with the sheets. He rips everything off the bed and disappears, his feet thudding down the stairs and back up again.

  When he returns, he’s got fresh sheets that he tosses on the bare mattress. He turns to me and frowns, as though he’s deciding whether to go ahead and make the bed, or start going to town on me with a rusty screwdriver until I talk.

  “Don’t stop on my account,” I say, a little slower than I would have liked. My mouth is so dry, and my heart is pounding. Fuck. I knew I should have taken one of those tablets before I started my shift, but usually the alcohol gives me enough of a buzz until mid-morning when I take my first pill.

  Timing is everything when you’re keeping yourself doped to the eyeballs day and night.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” I mumble.

  He shrugs. “Guess you’ll just have to wait, sweetheart.”

  I glare at him. “You really want two chicks pissing in your room today?”

  He clenches his jaw, looking unimpressed. He leaves me for a moment, going into his bathroom, and when he comes out, he’s holding a large, very sharp cut-throat razor.

  My eyes must wig out, because he smirks at me, placing the razor on top of the doorframe, where I’ll never be able to reach it.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not going to use it.”

  He closes the space between us, untying my wrists. “Two minutes,” he says.

  I massage my wrists. They feel tender from where he tied the rope, but he didn’t tie it very tight. It’s just that my skin is so fucking sensitive right now, it’s like paper-thin glass, ready to shatter into a million pieces and leave me a bleeding mess. At least, that
’s what it feels like when I can’t get my pills and booze when I need it.

  I nod, because I don’t even have the energy to speak anymore. Sal raises an eyebrow, giving me a strange look, but I need to be sick. Now.

  I’ve only gone through withdrawals once before. It was back when I’d just gotten here and my doctor back in LA had prescribed the Oxy to keep me functioning through the worst of the court shit. I guess he didn’t want me jumping off a building like I kept threatening. The drugs numbed me, gave me some artificial sense of calm, a buzz in my stomach that I became rapidly obsessed with maintaining at all times.

  Then he cut me off.

  Fucker said I’d become too dependent on them and refused to prescribe them anymore. I’d been in New York three weeks by then, and I was tripping out.

  Until I found Taylor, selling the shit at the AA meeting I’d been instructed to go to as part of my parole.

  After that, it was just a matter of juggling enough tips to get my hands on a couple of the pills each day. Ideally I’d get more, but they were expensive, so I compensated by spacing out my doses and filling the voids with cheap alcohol. It’s worked pretty well for the past seven months that I’ve been existing out here.

  I lock the bathroom door behind me, holding my hair back as I retch over the toilet bowl. God, it’s disgusting. I haven’t eaten since last night, and all that comes up is coffee and the burning vodka I consumed earlier.

  Losing the vodka to the toilet bowl makes me sad. Hopefully I got most of the alcohol in my bloodstream before that happened, because today’s going to be a fucker. Then again, Sal might do me a favor and kill me.

  “Hurry up,” Sal yells, pounding twice on the door. I roll my eyes, flushing the toilet and rinsing my mouth out under the fancy tap. This guy’s got to be rich, I think, because everything in this house stinks of money. Even the chick in his bed looked like an upmarket slut. I take a little bit of toothpaste from the tube on the counter and rub it around my teeth to get rid of the vomit taste, and then my eyes are scanning every square inch of the room, looking for a weapon.