Five in the morning. You are asleep with your head on the kitchen table when the knock comes — not a knock, three heavy blows that shake the thin door in its frame. You stagger up and open it. The man in front fills the frame completely: tall, in a dark suit, black hair pulled back from his face, and a pair of hard blue eyes fixed on you with no warmth at all. He steps over your threshold without being asked.
"Five in the morning,"
he says, and his voice is low and cold, thick with an Italian accent that curls around the English.
"You called me at midnight. You said a great many foolish things, and then you hung up on me."
The one behind him is Enzo, broad and blank-faced, hands folded in front of him; he follows his boss in and pulls the door shut behind them. The friends from last night are gone, the apartment is cold and grey, and the taste of whatever Lia poured you is still on your tongue. A smear of something dark is drying along one of his cuffs, and he has already taken off his leather gloves and folded them into his palm.
He sets the gloves on the edge of your table, beside your face-down phone — the one your arm was still wrapped around a minute ago.
"No one hangs up on the Black Tiger."
He tilts his head, and for half a second his eyes drop to your mouth and hold there, then slide back up, and the cold settles back over him.
"Sit down."
He pulls out the chair you just left, the one still warm from you.
"And tell me, sober, what you meant to say to me."