Kissing The Enemy

I
t was raining
, the day she danced into my life and changed it forever.

It was February and New York hunkered under a sky the same color as the sidewalk. Bullets of freezing water hammered the car’s windows. I
hate
winter. Give me a roasting summer sun any day. I got my driver to drop me six feet from the building, but my hair and the back of my neck were still soaked by the time I made it inside.

People scattered ahead of me: my size or my expression or maybe just my reputation. As I passed, the receptionist got as far as calling, “Sir…?” before a security guard put a hand on her arm and shook his head. “
That’s Angelo Baroni!”
I heard him whisper.

Any other time, that would have pleased me. But I wasn’t in the mood.

Up on the twentieth floor, I marched straight into the office of Peterson, the little prick I’d come to see. He turned pale as I came around his desk, craning his head to look up at me. “Mr. Baroni! I wasn’t expecting—”

I put my foot on his chest and
shoved.
Peterson and his office chair shot across the room towards the floor-to-ceiling window. He screamed in terror, clutching at the arms of the chair... and crashed to a stop. He sat there panting, eyes huge, staring down at the ant-like people twenty stories below. There were hairline cracks spreading across the glass, but the toughened pane had held.

This time.

I hooked my toe under the front of his chair and tugged him back towards me, castors squeaking. My voice was low and very, very cold. “You were good to me,” I told Peterson. “You made sure our containers got through customs. So I was good to you.”

Peterson nodded. Sweat was beading on his forehead and trickling down under his shirt.

“But then you had to get greedy,” I said. And I shoved his chair towards the window again. It crashed into the weakened glass and this time there was a definite cracking sound. A spider web of lines fanned out across the glass. Peterson began to panic-breathe.

I’m a big guy. Six-three and most of it muscle. But when I’m really pissed off, my voice can go what people call
dangerously quiet.
I hauled Peterson back towards me. “I even let you take bribes from other people. I said you could smuggle what you wanted, except for one thing. Do you remember what that one thing was?”

“I swear, Mr. Baroni, I don’t know what—”

I shoved his chair again, this time putting every ounce of my anger into it, and it hit the glass with the force of a quarterback going into a tackle. The window finally caved, becoming a flexible sheet of frosted white held together only by its safety film. “
Women!
” Peterson screamed. “
You said no women!
”

“Women,” I confirmed. “You smuggled women. In my fucking city.” I put my foot higher on Peterson’s chest and pushed. The chair tipped, the whole window slowly bowing outwards over the street twenty stories below. Peterson’s feet lifted off the floor.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I told him. “You’re going to keep our containers moving. You lose your cut for the next six months. And if you ever,
ever
help someone traffic women again, I’ll chain you to that fucking chair and toss you into the harbor myself.”

Peterson nodded frantically. I lifted my foot and his chair crashed down onto its wheels. Peterson hurled himself out onto the carpet, then scrambled on hands and knees away from the window. The temperature in the office dropped as the outside air started to howl in through a thousand little cracks.

“Thank you, Mr. Baroni.” Peterson dug in a pocket, hands shaking. “Here! Take these. A gift. My company’s a sponsor. Tickets to the ballet.”

“Do I look like I go to the fucking ballet?” I snatched the little strips of cardboard out of his hand and stuffed them into the pocket of my overcoat. I could feel the thick, black rage boiling up dangerously high in my chest—I was
this close
to picking him up like a bag of trash and hurling him through the glass for what he’d done. But he was still useful to me and he wouldn’t dare try anything like this again. So I straightened my tie and smoothed down my lapels—my equivalent of counting to ten—and stalked out of his office before I changed my mind.

In the hallway, office workers scattered ahead of me. The women shrank back against the wall, paperwork clutched to their chests, eyes a little too wide and breathing a little too fast to be just fear. When I’d gone, they’d tell each other how terrified they’d been, and how they hated men like me. And then, that night when they were all alone, their hands would creep down between their thighs….

That’s what I am to them: a monster, a fantasy. I live outside their safe, happy little world and I’m fine with that. I don’t want their fucking world. I have my own, one built on power, honor and respect. One that touches theirs in a thousand subtle ways every single day.

Those designer sneakers that were such a bargain? They came from us: we stole the truck carrying them and sold them off cheap. That cute little coffee shop you stop at on your way to work? A percentage of every one of your lattes goes to us, to pay for our protection. The guy you voted in as mayor? His success was decided long before you ever heard his name. He’s a friend to us, as is the chief of police.

We make New York work and you don’t even know it.

We are the
Cosa Nostra
and I am the youngest, hungriest boss
in twenty years. I love New York. I love my piece of it, one of the most fiercely-contested territories there is. And I will never, ever let anyone take it away from me. Not the Irish, not the street gangs and
especially
not the Russians.

Downstairs, my driver—Tony—was gone.
Goddammit!
When I called him, he confirmed what I’d thought: the cops had made him move, so he’d had to circle. Now he was stuck in traffic. “It’ll be twenty minutes,” he grumbled. “We’re not even moving.”

I sighed. But I didn’t chew him out: it wasn’t
his
fault. And if it took twenty minutes to even reach me, then a half hour to get to my apartment… “Don’t you have your kid’s game tonight?” I asked.

I could almost hear his embarrassed shrug. “That’s okay, boss. I gotta pick you up.”

I looked through the building’s doors: the rain had eased off. “Forget it,” I said. “Go home. Go to your kid’s game. I’ll find a cab.” No need to make his day shitty just because mine was.

“Thanks, boss.”

Out on the street, the rain was lighter, but a bitter wind turned every drop into a vicious little bit of ice. By the end of the block, I was starting to regret my decision. I could have called for a limo, but nothing was moving and I grew up poor enough that paying to sit in traffic was unthinkable.

As I moved downtown, the rain came back, heavier than ever, so hard it bounced up from the sidewalk and drowned out the traffic noise. My overcoat shielded me for a while, but I could feel the icy drops working their way under my collar and down my back. My pants were getting soaked, too, the expensive fabric clinging wetly to my legs. I’d be soaked to the skin in minutes.
Goddamn it!
I looked around for a cab but, as always, the rain had made them all disappear.

I growled in frustration and looked around for a bar or a coffee shop to shelter in, but there wasn’t one. Then I frowned. I was outside a theater and the name on the poster was familiar: some sort of ballet thing. I dug in my pocket and found the tickets Peterson had given me. Yep, it was starting right now.

Do I look like I go to the fucking ballet?
But it would be dry inside.
What the hell…
I pushed open the door.

A smiling woman took my tickets and showed me to my seat. I was still shaking water from my coat and hair when the lights dimmed. I had no idea what I was going to be watching.
Ballet,
to me, was little kids in pink tutus or guys in tights. It was something the New York elite went to see, along with art galleries and operas. These days, I had that kind of money—I even moved in those kinds of circles, though I scared the shit out of those people. But I’d never considered going to see anything like that. I didn’t have time for art, not with an empire to run. Not with the Russian mob invading my territory.

Then the dancers came out on stage and I frowned and leaned forward in my seat.

It wasn’t dancing—at least not like I’d ever seen. The women seemed to float as if they didn’t weigh anything at all, making long, graceful leaps, coming down on one delicate foot and then powering back up into the air without apparent effort. I watched, still frowning but transfixed. Maybe those rich New Yorkers were onto something. In their tight white costumes and gauzy skirts, the dancers seemed otherworldly, like elves or pixies or whatever the fuck they have in those fantasy movies.

And then my life changed.

As the music swelled,
she
leapt onto the stage, long legs extended almost horizontally, doing the splits in midair.
How the fuck is she doing that?
I felt my jaw drop.
Wires. There must be wires….
But there weren’t any. She could just move with a grace so far outside anything I’d known, it seemed like magic.

She seemed to hang there, the stage lights picking out every detail of her body: her perfectly-pointed toes, the exquisite smoothness of her thighs, the twin hillocks of her upthrust breasts. Her lips were pursed in concentration, satin-soft and pink, contrasting with the delicate tan of her skin. I’ve never wanted to kiss a pair of lips so much: her expression was just so
noble,
so richly fucking
unknowable.
If the others were elves, she was their queen, untouchable by mortal man. Her hair, tightly pinned into a bun, was platinum-blonde and that only enhanced the look: she was an ice queen, regal and perfect.

My hands tightened on the arms of my seat. I didn’t care how
unknowable
she was. I had to know her. I didn’t care how untouchable she was: I had to touch her. I needed to feel those lips under mine,
now.
I needed to run my hands along the length of those long legs, feeling the warm flesh through the thin fabric of her tights, and cup her
there,
right where she lived, and rub her until she moaned into my mouth. I had no idea who she was but I needed to find out.
Right now.

She landed and spun on one leg, going faster and faster. Each time she’d whip around to face the audience, I caught a glimpse of her face: those pursed lips, that tightly-pinned hair. I was seeing her in freeze-frames, drinking in the image of her until the next one replaced it. Her eyes were so cold, so imperious, yet with just a hint of molten heat….

Jesus, I needed to do
bad things
to this girl.

She bounded across the stage and was gone. Immediately, the other dancers were forgotten: all I cared about was seeing her again. I was leaning so far forward in my seat, it creaked. The guy in front of me twisted around in irritation, but I just gave him a glare and he paled and faced front.

Then she reappeared, lifting herself right up onto the points of her toes and stepping so lightly across the stage that she could have danced on a soap bubble. How did she
do
that? Didn’t it hurt?! I was noticing detail after detail, now, and every one of them was sweet fucking perfection: the soft skin of her neck, revealed by her pinned-up hair, ripe for kissing. The firm curves of her ass, when that gauzy skirt floated up, athletic and yet feminine. Her long, supple legs, one moment stretching out into the splits, the next scissoring together and propelling her skyward: I wanted them wrapped around my waist, wanted those ankles hooked behind my ass, urging me on.

I sat there for an hour, spellbound. I’d never sat in such rapt attention in my life, not even watching the Yankees take on the Mets with ten thousand on the table.

Then the dancers were taking bows, the lights were coming up and, too late, I realized it was over. And something I’d never felt before seemed to clutch at my chest and grip tight.
Shit!
I didn’t even know her name!

I jumped to my feet, my heart suddenly thumping in my chest.
I’m never going to see her again!

My hands tightened into fists.
Unacceptable.

Backstage.
That’s where she’d be, right? I headed for the stage, fighting through the tide of people heading towards the exits. But when I tried to vault up onto the stage, someone grabbed my arm. “Um...sir? You can’t go up there!”

I turned and glared...but it was just one of the ushers. She shrank back and the fear on her face made me stop.
What the fuck are you doing, Angelo? You’re acting crazy!

But I couldn’t help it. Something had taken control of me.

I took a breath and tried to speak calmly. “The dancers. I gotta speak to one of them. Where are they?”

The usher blinked. “They’ll be in their dressing rooms by now,” she said uncertainly. “But the public’s not—”

I nodded and turned away from the stage, heading for the nearest exit like a good boy. But as soon as I hit the hallway, I peeled off and headed straight for a door marked
No Admittance.

I didn’t get where I was by following the fucking rules.

I thundered down a flight of stairs and emerged into a hallway. I knew I was in the right place:  there were women in stage make-up chatting and laughing, but most of them were already in their street clothes.
Shit! They’re leaving!

“Are you supposed to be back here?” asked a voice behind me.

I turned and found one of the dancers looking up at me. I hadn’t figured on how small they’d be, up close. The top of her head was only up to my shoulder. She was pretty enough, with long chestnut-colored hair hanging in tresses down her back. But she wasn’t
her.

“I’m looking for one of the dancers,” I told her. “The one with the platinum-blonde hair.”

“Irina? She left already.”

Shit!
But at least I had a name.
Irina.
I gave the dancer my best smile. “Are you all in a ballet…”—shit, what was the word—”
team?”
Maybe I could find out where they were dancing next and get a ticket.