THE EVENING EVERYTHING CHANGED… The drone of music, laughter, and friendly banter follows us outside the bar.
Sari looks a little unbalanced in her six-inch heels. It seems like the tequila sunrises she downed have finally caught up with her.
"Oh, come on, one more," she whines like she does every girl's night out.
"I'll take you home, Sari. You'll thank me in the morning." Jo grabs her under the arm.
"Watch out, you're the one who gave Miss Pukey her nickname," Elli warns, and I snicker. The four of us have been best friends since sophomore year in college—randomly crammed into the same apartment despite having nothing in common except our stubbornness. Six years later, we're still inseparable.
"You act like being called Miss Pukey is such a badge of shame," Sari huffs, flicking her hair dramatically. "Some of us are out here living our best lives.
Not crunching numbers at midnight."
Jo smirks. "At least my spreadsheets don't end up on TMZ."
"One time!" Sari protests. "One stupid article about a mayor's side chick, and suddenly, I'm the scandal queen of New York."
Elli laughs and pulls her coat tighter. "Meanwhile, some of us are up at three a.m. giving rectal exams."
Sari pulls a face. "We get it, Doctor Elliott." Then turns to me, "At least I don't have to inhale dust all day in a stuffy basement, scraping ancient dirt off priceless artifacts."
"Careful," Jo warns with a wink. "Scarlet might start giving lectures about the correct humidity levels for Roman frescoes."
"I would never," I say, hand pressed to my chest in mock offense. "Unless you ask nicely."
Another burst of laughter bubbles out of all of us.
This is what I love about them. Every other Friday night, we meet at Toni's Sports and Grill for a girls' night out. Sometimes Elli can't make it because of her insane resident hours at St. Raphael's Medical Center, but tonight we got lucky—she managed to trade shifts.
I check my Uber's ETA on my phone—five more minutes.
"Mine's here," Jo announces. Tight hugs and kisses are exchanged before she steers Sari into a lime-green Ford, where she immediately starts hitting on the hapless driver. Jo grins over her shoulder at us, mouthing Long night, and Elli and I both burst out laughing, waving her off.
"You sure you'll be alright?" Elli asks, glancing at me.
I know she's thinking about the warning from my dad—the one I stupidly mentioned last week. Ever since, she's been hovering like a mother hen.
"I'll be fine. The Uber will deliver me right to the front of my apartment building, where Fred will open the door for me and let me in," I assure her.
To call Fred a doorman is a bit misleading; he looks more like a bouncer, but that's one of the reasons my dad is paying the enormous rent for the apartment that I couldn't afford on my museum salary. Not that I am complaining. I love where I live. It is an amazing apartment complex right downtown. It has everything I ever need nearby, and best of all, it comes with extra security. That was the clincher when I was picking a place to live. Plus, Dad vetted the location as safe, and he's always on top of crime in the city.
"Ah, Fred," she grins. As hoped, the mention of Fred makes her all mushy and googly-eyed. She has a thing for men who are as tall as they are wide.
"How is my buddy?"
"He's good, and so is his fiancée," I intone with a warning glare. "His very pregnant fiancée. Soon to be Mrs. Fred."
"Damn," she shakes her head. It's not like Elli doesn't have a plethora of admirers waiting on her doorstep. Three men hit on her tonight alone, but none of them were dangerous enough for my best friend's taste.
"Are you going to be alright?" I ask.
"Moi?" She exclaims in a fake French accent. "Naturellement."
I giggle. Her accent is horrendous. "It's mont, not ment," I try.
"What?"
"Nature-elle-mont!" I pronounce it for her.
"Oh?" She waves her hand and giggles. "Oh well."
A nondescript brown Toyota pulls up, "That's me," I say.
She grabs my arm. "No, seriously, Scar. You know your dad is on a big case."
"I know." I roll my eyes. "Trust me. I know." My father is a judge, presiding over what is being called the trial of the year. For the last several weeks, whenever Dad and I've gotten together, all we've talked about is the Cosa Nostra.
"Why would the mafia want to hurt me? I'm just a curator. Nothing special," I say for the umpteenth time. It's a line I've been tempted to record on my phone to play for my dad and friends.
"There's a reason he warned you to be careful."
"Yeah, yeah," I intone. It's not the first time my dad has told me to be careful. He climbed the ladder to Federal Judge a few years back, and ever since, he's become paranoid that one of the accused might try to hurt me. To pacify Elli, I give her a hug and a kiss, then open the door of the Uber, whose driver is honking at me.
"Text me when you get home," she calls as I take a seat in the car.
"Yes, mother," I stick my tongue out at her in teasing.
She rolls her eyes and laughs, pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders as she waits for her own ride. I tap a quick message into my phone, promising I will, but the weight of her words lingers longer than it should.
Text me when you get home. Such a simple thing. So normal. Yet, the ache it stirs catches me off guard, because Elli means it. She worries. She cares.
So different from my real mother—the one who wore diamonds bigger than her heart, who cared more about appearances than whether her daughter made it home safely at night.
The one whose absence still feels like a hollow echo, even after all these years. Even though she'd never been a real mother to me.
I sink back against the seat, the city lights blurring past the window.
Maybe that's why nights like this matter more than I ever admit.
Maybe that's why friends who say silly things like text me when you get home feel like the only real family I've ever had.
"Girls' night out?" the driver asks as he maneuvers the car through traffic, thankfully interrupting my gloomy thoughts.
"Yeah, got to let loose sometimes, right? What about you? Driving Uber on Friday night." I keep up the friendly conversation.
"You're my last one; then I'll go let loose." He winks at me in the review mirror. "Want to come?"
Despite it being eleven o'clock at night, I'm not tired, but I'm also not in the habit of accepting invitations from random Uber drivers. To keep him talking, I ask, "Where are you going?"
"My buddies and I have a poker night."
I laugh, "No thanks."
"Can't blame a guy for trying." He winks again. He is kind of cute with his bushy eyebrows and glasses. He doesn't look like a serial killer, but then again, if following my dad's cases has taught me anything, it's that one just never knows.
"… Judge Lambert declined…" "Can you turn that up, please?" I ask. I haven't had time to follow Dad's trial and would like to hear what happened in court today.
"… remanding Carlos Orsi back into federal custody." The anchor concludes after the driver turns it up. "His lawyer, Nino Berti, held a press conference earlier, expressing his outrage at the unfair treatment of his client, Carlos Orsi. Controversially, Orsi is not on trial for gunning down another mafia don but for extortion and racketeering."
The fact that Orsi hasn't been charged with murder irks my dad more than anything. He is hellbent on seeing Orsi at least convicted for the other crimes.
"Is that the guy who gunned down a mobster in front of witnesses during a dinner?" The driver asks.
"The same," I confirm.
"Damn, that was some serious shit." He exclaims.
"Yeah, technicalities and witnesses recanting is a bitch," I agree.
"Alright, this you?" he asks, stopping the car and ignoring the honking behind us.
"That's me," I say, finishing the transaction, plus a tip, on my phone. I step out of the car.
"You sure you don't want to play poker?" He rolls down the passenger window. Smiling, I decline. I turn to the door, and my brow creases when I don't see Fred.
"Hey, can you—" I try to ask the driver to wait until I'm inside, but the window is up, and he is already speeding away. Damn.
I don't know why, but a weird sensation spreads through my stomach. Fred is always at the door. And if not him, then Ruttgar, another guy who looks like a bouncer. But tonight, neither one of them is there. Instead, I see a man with a hat pulled low over his face. He gives me the heebie-jeebies. I lick my lips and contemplate going over to the twenty-four-hour café and waiting for Fred to return, but then I call myself silly. This is Manhattan, not the Bronx. Determined, I stride to the door; using my phone to unlock it, I step into the foyer.
A man is holding the elevator door open, and I walk faster to catch a ride. I walk by the concierge's desk and realize it, too, is empty. There is no Sam, who does the night duty. The unsettling sensation in my stomach intensifies.
A shadow moves over me, and when I turn, I see the man who stood outside the door. But now he's inside.
"What—" Once again, I don't finish my sentence as he pounces on me; my scream is cut short by a gloved hand pressing down on my mouth. The man who had been halfway in the elevator is instantly at my side, grabbing me around the waist and lifting me into the air. Shock courses through me.
Instinctively, my hands reach for my new assailant's arms. I try to pull them off, but he is not only a head taller than me but also much stronger. He plucks me off the ground, holding me in a death grip while he and the other guy switch hands over my mouth. Then he carries me toward the front door while my feet kick uselessly into the air.
Some small, rational part of my brain realizes that I can't pry his arms off me, so I try to reach for anything to hold on to. But the entrance is large, and Sam's desk near the sitting area seems a mile away. There is nothing between the elevator and the door, which the first man is currently pulling open. I wiggle and kick, and my foot connects with Assailant One's side.
He snarls at the one holding me, "Control that damn bitch, you fucking idiot."
He moves a few steps back, and for the umpteenth time in my life, I curse my five-foot-three frame because he is now out of the reach of my feet. My feet!
I'm still wearing the six-inch stilettos that have been torturing my feet for hours. Somehow, I twist and contort myself just enough to grip one of my shoes, kicking out fiercely with my other foot to keep Assailant One at bay.
Meanwhile, gripping the shoe tightly, I swing it like a hammer, driving the heel into the head of the man holding me. His yelp of pain sends a wave of triumph through me. I hope I got his eye. He drops me.
"Fucking bitch."
I try to scramble to my feet, but a steel-reinforced shoe kicks me in my ribs, leaving me breathless, while a hand seizes my hair and pulls me up.
Assailant Two, now bleeding from a large cut on his cheek, slams his fist into my chin so hard I would have crashed to the ground like a sack of potatoes had the other guy not been holding me up.
"Move," he tells the man holding me, then pulls out a handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood. Even if I wanted to run away, my legs were weaker than jelly after that punch. Blackness threatens to surround me, but the pain in my scalp from where I'm being dragged across the foyer keeps me semi-conscious. That's when I catch a glimpse of two bodies lying behind the concierge desk. Fred and Sam. It's hard to tell if they're dead or alive, but the sight shoots another rush of adrenaline through me. Not that it helps any. One of the two men has me slung over his shoulder now like a sack of grain, holding my feet, seemingly no longer concerned if I scream or not.
We make it out onto the street.
Cars pass, not many because of the time of night, but enough that at least one should see what's happening to me. I try to wave my arms to catch someone's—anyone's—attention, but they keep going. A couple on the other side of the street stops dead in their tracks, and I yell, "Help."
The bleeder pulls his gun, and the couple hastily retreats around a corner.
A huge black SUV is waiting for us; both doors on the right side are wide open. The man grabbing my hair pushes me into the second row, while the one with the handkerchief moves into the front seat, nodding at a third, the driver, I presume.
"What do you want from me?" I cry.
"Shut her up, Marco. I'm not in the mood," the man in the front seat yells.
This time, it's the other side of my chin that receives the blow, knocking me out for good.