Ellis was shoved from behind. His knees weakened from anticipation as he trudged up the steps. The driver, just a few feet back, was taller than Ellis had first guessed.
The stocky man remained by the car, lighting a fresh cigarette. His choice not to join them provided only minimal relief. No doubt the driver was also armed and equally comfortable pulling a trigger.
Inside, Ellis led the way into an unlit hall. The door slammed. The scene went black as pitch. Darkness closed in around him, a tunnel awaiting a hurtling train.
“Go.”
Ellis plodded forward as best he could, avoiding another push that could land him on his skull. His vision was adjusting. When he reached a coat-check table that led to a draped doorway, recognition fully set in.
This was the Royal. The supper club where he’d taken his parents. Same as then, the dining room glowed beneath a large chandelier. Only this time, the place was as quiet and still as a graveyard. Ellis was glad to not find himself in a dank, abandoned warehouse, though not overjoyed.
As he continued over the club’s checkered tiles, the driver stayed on his heels. Their footsteps echoed off the high ceiling. Chairs, turned upside down, were balanced on tables now bare of linens. No candles or dinnerware. No witnesses in sight. Only terror creeping in.
There was little worse, Ellis decided, than suspense from the unknown. He wheeled around and stopped. “If you’re gonna take me out, get on with it. Otherwise, tell me why we’re here.”
The driver stared back, emotionless, before a crashing noise rang out. It traveled through the swinging door of the kitchen, on the wall to the right. A cook had dropped some pans, Ellis figured—until he heard the muffled groans, broken up by the sounds of skin hitting skin. Meat being tenderized. Someone was taking a beating.
No need to guess who’d be next.
“Ellis Reed.” The voice came from behind. At the end booth, partially obscured by a white privacy curtain, a man sat snipping a cigar.
Anxiety shot through Ellis, filling every limb. Max Trevino looked no less formidable in person than he did in the papers. His neck was as thick as his shoulders, set off by an expensive, tailored suit. His black hair was slicked, fringed with gray. He had the dark eyes and bearing of a typical Sicilian.
“Have a seat, kid.” Max directed him with a wave of a cigar cutter.
Ellis managed the remaining steps to reach the table. As he edged himself into the booth, the driver stood guard no more than two skips away.
“You know,” Max said, “I’ve been familiar with your work for quite some time.”
“I’m…flattered, sir.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
Potential replies spun through Ellis’s head. He opted for silence.
Max stoked his cigar with a gold lighter and exhaled an earthy cloud. “A few stories of yours caused trouble for my ventures a while back. As a businessman, I like things to run smoothly. A well-oiled machine. You understand, yeah?”
Ellis considered his old tip-offs from the Irish Mob. Several resulting articles had exposed crimes by politicians whose pockets were often padded by other competing gangs. Apparently, some of that padding came from Max.
“Hell, what am I thinking? Course you do,” Max said. “After fifteen years of your old man’s factory work, I bet he’s taught you all about that.”
The remark, flaunting his knowledge of Ellis’s father, was jarring even without the noises in the background. Another punch, another groan. From a room stocked with knives.
Ellis struggled to keep his tone even. “What is it you want, Mr. Trevino?”
“This. To talk.” The levity in the reply was almost convincing.
“What about?”
“Family. Importance of protecting it. I can tell we see eye to eye on this already.” Max pulled several puffs from his cigar and reclined into the cushioned seat, his implied threat hanging amid the smoke. “Thing is, I hear you and another reporter—a lady friend of yours—have taken quite an interest in my sister’s affairs.”
His sister?
Right then, Ellis recalled something Alfred had said back at the bank. How family in New York had long been the attraction to moving out East. “You’re Sylvia’s brother,” Ellis realized.
His editor’s warning had been more about her than Alfred.
Max raised a dense black brow. “Don’t play dumb, kid. I ain’t got patience for people wasting my time.”
The assumption was fair. Any decent reporter would have made the connection by now. Ellis had just been too busy with the Dillards, and Samuel, and yeah, time in the clink.