“You don’t think you’ll ever want to get to know someone in a special way?” Maks pressed. “That this thing with Igor will open the door for you, even a crack? That it gives you the opportunity to spread your wings or something?”

“I like my door locked, and I never wished for wings,” I retorted, staring out the window at the city blurring below us.

His mouth turned up into a smile. “You never wanted to fly, cousin? Every child wishes to fly.”

“Why fly when you have feet?” I asked, holding one of mine up before knocking him in the knee with it.

“You should dream more,” he admonished, kicking me back.

“I do dream,” I assured. “Every night.”

“About what?”

“You shutting the fuck up.”

And at that, my cousin crossed the seat to put me in a headlock as we laughed our way back to the West Side, unchanged.

8

October 1931

Abraham had told me he would be away in the middle of the month, which was when I typically came around to take orders, so I put him on the end of my list, figuring he would have returned from wherever he’d gone by the last weekend of October. Evidently, I was wrong.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Cal the Peach said, opening the door to Abe’s office to let me in.

“You’re taking over The Gallery?” I asked skeptically, sitting down in the chair across from Abraham’s desk when he gestured for me to do so.

“Only until Abe comes back,” Cal confirmed, taking the owner’s seat. He looked natural and powerful in the spot of authority, as if he belonged there. It was as irritating as it was attractive.

“Where is he?”

“Did he tell you where he is?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

I shook my head, garnering a smirk from the redhead.

“Then why would I?” Cal reasoned, opening Abe’s ledger.

“Did he get taken to the big house?” I pressed, disconcerted by the possibility. It had been a week since Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison, a stint which was supposed to start in May. Though I wasn’t pulling in anywhere near the amount of dough Capone was, I was concerned that eventually life, and the taxman, would catch up with me. Perhaps both had already taken hold of Abraham.

“No,” Cal answered, crinkling his nose at the question. He regarded me for a pregnant pause before focusing on the papers.

I barely paid attention to a word he said, too consumed with how he said them. His melodic drawl leaked from his lips like honey, and I lapped it up. Between his twang and his face, Cal was distracting as hell.

“Why does he call you Peach?” I asked, once I’d noted the number of pallets Cal confirmed.