Sempre: Redemption (Forever Series #2)(34)
The guy nodded tersely. Corrado posed it as a question, but they all knew it wasn’t open for negotiation. “Yes, sir.”
“That’s how,” Corrado said before disappearing into the den.
Carmine followed the guy outside, finally loosening his tie and pushing his sleeves up as he went. The guy was fairly young, mid-twenties at most, with bushy eyebrows and short brown hair. He wore a pair of baggy jeans and a plain white t-shirt that made Carmine bitter. Why had he been forced to put on a suit?
He expected to be led to yet another Mercedes, but was surprised when the guy stopped beside an old gray Impala. Carmine eyed it peculiarly. “This is yours?”
“Yeah,” the guy said, unlocking the doors so they could climb in. “Something wrong with it?”
“No, I just thought . . .”
“You thought I’d drive one of those?” he asked with a laugh, nodding toward the row of black cars. “I wish I could afford one. Maybe someday. But for now, this baby will do.”
“It’s nice,” Carmine said, settling into the cracked leather passenger seat. The interior was stained and it smelled like a combination of oil and sweat, but he felt more at ease in it than he had in Corrado’s car.
Laughter cut through the air, nearly drowned out by the engine roaring to life. It rumbled as the car shimmied, violently shaking as it almost cut off. “She’s a piece of shit, man, but she’s paid for.”
Carmine didn’t say much during the drive, but the guy’s endless chatter filled the car the entire time. It was distracting and consuming—exactly what he needed. When Carmine was busy listening, he had little time to think, little time to dwell on the things that kept him awake at night.
It wasn’t until they had pulled onto his street and the car slowed near his house that it struck Carmine—he never gave the guy directions. “How do you know where I live?”
“You’re shitting me, right?” he asked. “You’re a DeMarco. Your family is like royalty, and even a f**king British hobo knows where Buckingham Palace is.”
Carmine shook his head. He should have known. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Anytime, man. I’m Remy, by the way. Remy Tarullo.”
Carmine opened the car door but froze when that name struck him. “Tarullo.”
“Yeah, like the pizzeria over on Fifth Avenue.”
“Any relation?” Carmine asked.
Remy nodded. “My pops owns the place.”
Carmine’s mouth went dry. He suddenly felt like he couldn’t swallow. He hadn’t been there in a long time, but he knew the place well.
“I don’t go around there much, though,” Remy continued. “Pops doesn’t really agree with my life, if you know what I mean. Well, hell, never mind. I guess you don’t know. Yours is a part of this. You don’t have to deal with him looking at you like you’re a disappointment, like you’re f**king up everyone’s life being a part of this.”
Carmine said nothing, because Remy was wrong. He knew that feeling well.
“Anyway, I’m rattling on here,” Remy said, tinkering with an old gold watch around his wrist. “Sorry, man. Just a sore spot, especially since what happened to my little brother.”
Those words made his heart rate spike. Dean Tarullo. Carmine nearly forgot all about the boy from the warehouse. “What happened to him?”
“He got mixed up with the wrong people, I guess. Disappeared months ago.”
“So he’s missing?”
Remy’s voice was quiet. “Yeah, but not the kind of missing that’ll ever be found, if you get what I’m saying.”
Gunshots flashed in Carmine’s mind, the memory of Corrado silencing the boy forever infiltrating his mind.
“Yeah,” Carmine muttered. “I know what you mean.”
* * *
Haven sat on the green metal park bench, watching the activity all around her. She had just gotten out of her last art class and her final project lay beside her, the canvas carefully wrapped and secured in brown paper.
It surprised Haven how therapeutic painting turned out to be, two weeks of art doing what three months of waiting and crying couldn’t begin to touch. It opened up a part of her, exposing her nerves for the world to touch. Drawing was technical, the lines and details needing to be precise, but she could let go while painting and pour her emotions into it. Each piece of artwork held special meaning, but she knew others would look at it and see something entirely different.
She enjoyed that about art, like it held a hidden code only she had the key to. She was telling her story, getting out every gritty detail of her tortured life, but people were none the wiser. She could never tell the world, but there was nothing that said she couldn’t show them . . . as long as they didn’t know what they were looking at.
Haven sat there for a while, enjoying the peaceful spring evening, before gathering her things and heading across the street to the apartment. It was approaching dusk, and Dia would already be home from her classes. They had made plans to go out to commemorate the end of her workshop, but Haven didn’t feel much like celebrating. She felt another void deep inside now that it was over.
She reached their building, walking into the lobby as the elevator opened. A man stepped out of it wearing a black baseball cap and spotted her, holding the door.