Like a phantom cock in the middle of a party.

Oh, God. Don’t laugh, I thought, pulling my eyes up. Unfortunately, my gaze landed on the mirrored chandelier, and the reflection of the fluorescent lights in it nearly blinded me. What was that phrase about money not buying taste?

Aly elbowed me. “You want coffee or something stronger?”

“Oh,” I said, dropping my focus to her uncle. “Coffee, please.” The thought of wine on an already sour stomach was a no-go, but I thought I could do with some caffeine since I’d barely touched the to-go cup Aly had made me.

Nico strode toward a fancy white and steel machine with far too many buttons. “So, what brings you here so early?”

“We killed someone,” Aly said.

I turned toward her with wide eyes.

She gave me a “What?” expression.

“You didn’t want to ease into that?”

She shrugged. “I must have missed school on the day they taught us the polite way to tell people about bodies in car trunks.”

Nico whipped around. “You brought a goddamn body to my house?”

Aly swiveled toward him. “Yes? Dad said to come here if I was ever in trouble.”

“Fuck!” Nico bit out. “I might have feds watching me. You can’t just bring me corpses like I’m the morgue.”

“Hey,” I said, stepping in front of Aly. He might be her uncle, but hearing him speak to her in that tone was enough to have me second-guessing whether or not I cared about making a good impression. “She didn’t know.”

Nico threw his hands up. “Tell that to the feds!” He wheeled around, yelling as he left the room. “Greg! Stefan! Alec! Junior! Get your asses up! We got a problem!”

Aly sidled next to me, and I wrapped an arm around her shoulder, glancing down to see her looking chagrined.

“Whoops?” she said.

I squeezed her close. “What were we supposed to do? Call the guy and warn him and the feds who might have tapped his phone?”

Footsteps thundered overhead, Nico’s shouts rousing everyone as he raised the alarm. Someone ran down a set of stairs nearby, and we turned toward the sound as a young man burst into the room, still pulling on a gray t-shirt. He was maybe Aly’s height at 5’8”, with dark hair and a rail-thin frame. Despite his baby face and freckles, something about the hardness in his eyes made me think he was older than he looked.

“Keys!” he yelled, gesturing toward Aly.

“Hey, Greg. Nice to see you, too,” she grumbled, digging around in her purse for them.

So this was Greg. I eyed her youngest cousin. Maybe he was exactly as old as he looked, and the hardness came from what he’d already done for his father. God knew I understood the way parents could prematurely age someone.

“Come on,” he said. “We gotta go.”

Aly extended her keys toward him. “What do you mean, we?”

Greg shook his head. “Keep ‘em. You drove in. You gotta drive out.” He turned toward me. “Where’s your coat?”

“Mudroom,” I said automatically.

He nodded and gestured toward his cousin. “Let’s get out of here.”

Aly took a hesitant step forward, pulling out of my embrace. “What about Josh?”

Greg’s eyes flashed to mine. “I’m gonna pretend to be him so anyone watching won’t get suspicious, and he’s gonna stay here and fill Dad in.”

“Uh-uh,” Aly said. “He’s not getting separated from me.”

“He’ll be fine,” Greg told her. “You think Dad wants to get on your bad side by messing with your boy toy?” He glanced at me again, giving me a once over. “Plus, it looks like he can handle himself. Now, move, Aly. We don’t have much time.”

She turned back to me, expression worried.

I stepped in and kissed her forehead before lifting my eyes to Greg. “I get that you’re in a rush, but I have to know what your plan is.”

He shifted from one foot to the other, talking so fast that he almost tripped over his words. “We’re gonna get to a safe spot and have someone remove the body.”

“What if the feds trail you?” I said.

“We’ll lose them.”

I held his gaze for a long moment. Jesus, he was just a kid, barely out of high school. “Don’t let anything happen to your cousin.”

“I won’t,” he said, stepping toward the door like he was trying to prompt Aly into action.

I looked down at her. “I’ll be okay. You?”

Her brows pinched together as she frowned. “I hope so. I don’t like this.”

“Me neither, but they’re the experts, and we have to trust that they know best.”

Greg snapped his fingers. “We don’t have time for a mushy goodbye, Aly. Come on.”

Annoyance flashed across her face as she turned away from me. “I’m coming. Jesus, calm down.”

I met Greg’s eyes over Aly’s head and gave him the barest shake of my own, my stomach churning with anger. Dad used to snap at my mom, and it was a huge pet peeve of mine. “Don’t do that again.”

I’m not sure what my face looked like, but it was enough to make the child of a hardened mobster take a step backward.

“Sorry,” he said.

I tipped my head toward my girlfriend. “To her.”

He looked at Aly. “Sorry. Now, can we please go before my da –”

Nico reentered the room from a side door. “What the fuck are you two still doing here? Andate, idioti!”

Greg, obviously more afraid of his father’s wrath than mine, grabbed Aly’s wrist and hauled her toward the mudroom. She broke his hold halfway there and threatened him with bodily harm if he touched her again.

She shot me one last look before she left. “Be safe.”

The words were a warning. Be safe, or else. I forced a reassuring smile and nodded. “You too.”

Greg said something sharp from the other side of the door, and Aly stepped out and shut it on the sound of their continued bickering. A rumbling noise told me the garage was opening again.

And then I was alone with Aly’s mobster uncle.

I turned toward him, wary, but he was already stomping out of the room again, head craned toward the ceiling as he yelled at his other sons to get a move on. Soon, three more men tumbled into the room, ranging from their mid to late 20s. They looked like Greg, only filled out more.

Nico returned to the coffee maker and started pushing buttons. “What happened?” he threw over his shoulder, and suddenly, I was the center of attention.

I hated being the center of attention. It made me want to fold in on myself, hide, but Aly was relying on me, so I had to keep my shit together for her.

“First, where are Greg and Aly going exactly?” I asked.

“Back into the city to an autobody shop we run,” Nico said as the fancy coffee machine whirred to life. “Our guy there will clean your car while others take care of what’s in the trunk.”

“And you think Greg and Aly will be okay?”

He nodded with his back to me. “Greg knows what to do. He’s one of our best drivers, and he’ll get other people on the road with them to run interference if he and Aly pick up a tail.”

I let out a heavy breath, more nervous for Aly than before because it finally hit me that my girlfriend was about to be back on the road, driving around the city with a dead body. Fuck, I should have argued more or found some other plan that didn’t involve her taking such a risk, but it all happened so quickly.

“You still with us, Joe?” Nico asked.

I jerked my gaze up from the floor and found him staring at me, arms crossed over his chest.

“It’s Josh,” I said. “Tell me she’ll be okay.”

I thought my continued delaying would piss him off, but he only grinned. “You really like my niece, huh?”

I nodded, looking around to see all four men eyeing me in the same speculative manner. Why did this suddenly feel like a trap?

“And are you responsible for the body in the trunk?” Nico asked.

I nodded again, and the men around me tensed. It occurred to me then that the idea of Aly dating a killer might not be a welcome one to her male relatives.

“Then you need to tell me what happened,” Nico said, and I had a feeling that if he didn’t like my story, not even Greg’s promise to Aly that I would be okay would keep me alive.