Breaking the Rules

Prologue

“It’s your last night of freedom, Joe. Your choice. You get your future foretold or you get a tattoo.”

Joe Figueroa adjusted his white sailor hat and looked from one Second Avenue storefront to another. A neon hand crisscrossed with lines hovered in front of a velvet curtain in the first. A thousand wrinkled, yellowed drawings clung to the glass of the other.

“What happens if I don’t want either?”

“Then you’ll have to fight me and you don’t want to get your pretty white uniform all dirty.”

Joe looked at the scrawny pink-faced kid making the threat and laughed. They all wore the same “milkman” uniform that identified them as raw recruits in the Navy.

“Go on Joe, get the tat,” called the big kid from Philly.

“Yeah, a well-stacked broad, right there on your chest where you’ll appreciate her assets when you’re alone in your bunk out on the ocean.”

“Nah, Joe’s going to get ‘mom’ tattooed over his heart. He’s a momma’s boy, you can tell.”

“Leave my mom out of this.” His words emerged with an unintended edge that spoke of the guilt he felt at leaving her alone. But his dad would have been proud to see him join the Navy. He planned a life that’d make his dad smile down from heaven.

“No way I’m gonna mark up this perfect physique. I’ll take my chances with the fortune-teller. Let’s see what my grand future has in store for me. You lugs wait out here.”

A bell tinkled as he pushed open the heavy steel door and stepped into the darkened space behind the curtain. An unusual aroma filled his nostrils, an exotic incense that made him smile. A taste of the strange and exciting experiences waiting for him on the other side of the world.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he made out a small, round table with a crystal ball sitting all alone on the black velvet cloth. Something brushed against his ankle, and the resulting shot of adrenaline made him flinch.

Just a cat. A black cat.

“Hey, anyone here?” His voice, deep with forced bravado, swirled around him like the scented smoke that curled in the air.

Maybe just a small tattoo on his back…

A door creaked open in the wall behind the table, and a dark-clad figure entered the room.

“Be seated.” The soft voice surprised him, feminine, the voice of a young woman. A furtive glance suggested she was about his own age. And pretty.

Joe lowered himself into the wooden chair, hitching up his fitted sailor pants.

“You have three choices.”

“Yeah?” Another flash of nervous energy jolted him. She could just look at him and tell he had three choices in life?

“I read your palm for five dollars, I read the tarot cards for ten dollars, or for fifteen I look into my seeing globe.”

“Oh, yeah, right.” He wanted to laugh at his own seriousness, but the solemn atmosphere silenced him.

He glanced at the ball sitting on the ornately carved black stand. The orb shimmered in the flickering light from the incense burner, opaque, mysterious, promising a glimpse of the bright future he was eager to begin. “The crystal ball, please.”

She held out her hand. Slim, long fingered, pale in the half-light, palm raised toward him. He battled a sudden, unexpected urge to seize it and press his lips into the soft flesh.

“Fifteen dollars, please.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his billfold, carefully separated the crisp notes, then placed them on her palm. As she curled her fingers around the notes, he looked up into her face. What he saw there made him catch his breath.

Dark eyes shaded by thick lashes fixed him with an inquisitive stare that made his palms tingle. Her lips parted slightly, as if in surprise, and she blinked shyly. The sloe-eyed beauty looked almost as nervous as him.

He pushed a smile to his lips, wanting to set her at ease, wanting to set himself at ease. But she simply looked down at the ball as she slid his money into a fold of her shapeless black garments.

“Can you really see the future in that thing?” He shifted in his chair, trying to diffuse the tension, make some small talk with the pretty fortune-teller.

“Quiet please. I must concentrate.” She pressed her lips together. In the dim light they were dark, the color of rosy fall apples, of temptation. Quite a babe, this fortune-teller. Joe settled back in his chair, ready to enjoy the view for a few minutes. Get his fifteen bucks’ worth one way or another.

Her straight, shiny black hair hung past her shoulders to where her breasts must be hidden beneath her black top. He wondered what kind of breasts she had. Small and pert, or full and heavy? Were her nipples pale shell pink or dark like the bruise from a love bite?

Ouch. He shifted again. These tight white pants didn’t hide much.

She didn’t wave her hands around the ball or mutter any incantations the way he might have expected. She simply looked into the milky sphere, eyes keenly focused, face taut with concentration.

Her features were delicate yet strong, proud cheekbones and slightly pointed chin forming a heart shape. The dark fall of hair hid her ears and he wondered if she wore big hoop earrings like a fairground gypsy.

“Are you a gypsy?” He couldn’t resist asking as the thought occurred to him. There was something exotic and otherworldly about her that triggered his imagination.

“Yes.” She looked up, startled from her intense contemplation. “I am Romani.” She stared at him for a moment. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No.” Her sudden hostility surprised him. And intrigued him. “Just curious.”

She regarded him for a second, black eyes filled with suspicion, before turning her gaze back to the crystal ball.

Her pursed lips parted for an instant, then snapped shut. A little prick of fear spiked in Joe’s gut. Did she see something there that made her hesitate to tell him?

“What?” He cleared his throat.

“Something unexpected.”

“Yeah?” He tried to sound casual as he shifted on the uncomfortably hard wooden chair.

“It concerns…love.” As she said the word love, she glanced up at him and pinned him with her haunting gaze for a fraction of a second. Just long enough to suck the breath from his lungs and set his heart pounding.

Her eyes dropped back to the ball, but her rosy lips twitched as if more words danced on her tongue. Her dark lashes flickered, blinking at what she saw.

“Love?” The word felt alien on his tongue, like an unknown word from a foreign language.

His gut tightened as he remembered his dad’s words, rasped harshly as the emphysema stole his last breaths: “Love makes a life, son.” He hadn’t understood it then, and he didn’t understand it now, but he’d damn sure try.

He leaned forward, tried to make out something in the milky glass, but saw nothing but his own distorted reflection. A big, raw-boned kid in a goofy sailor getup.

She squinted slightly as she peered into the depths.

Smoky curls of the sweet, heavy incense hung around him, stinging his nostrils, heightening his senses. For the first time he noticed the soft beat of a drum seeping through the walls, pounding a steady rhythm, echoing the elevated beat of his heart.

“Tonight,” she intoned softly, lashes flickering over her lowered eyes. “Tonight you will meet the woman you are destined to spend your life with.”


CHAPTER 1

Ten years later

He had a bone to pick with that fortune-teller. The love of his life? Yeah, the bane of his existence, more like.

Joe strode along Second Avenue, pushing through the happy hour throng gathered on the sidewalks in the hot mid-summer dusk. The sickly-sweet scent of steaming garbage mingled with the smell of hot pierogies, chicken fried rice and raw fish being chopped for sushi.

Home.

It was an odd relief to be back in the city. He’d grown up in Brooklyn and maybe he’d go back there one day, but right now Manhattan, with its teeming crowds of anonymous strangers, was the place for him.

He scanned the storefronts, looking for that neon hand. He’d seen a few of them dotted around the East Village, but he was one hundred percent sure that the one he needed was right here on Second Avenue. He wasn’t sure what block, though. Between Ninth and Tenth streets? Nope.

Seventh and Eighth? Fire burned in his gut, along with the two hotdogs-with-everything he’d shoved down there as he wandered the blazing streets. The bulky leather bag slung over his shoulder carried the only possessions he’d bothered to bring with him. Linda could have the rest, along with the house. Material things mattered far more to her than they did to him.

They mattered more to her than he ever had.

Maybe the storefront was gone? Ten years was a long time. Maybe she’d moved or gone out of business or been arrested for fraud? Messing up people’s lives with phony predictions should come with a stiff penalty.

He should have gone with the tattoo. He had more than one now anyway. And recently had one very painfully removed. The raw patch of skin still itched and burned.

A flash across the street caught his eye. Sun glinting off glass, momentarily obscuring the familiar curves of neon tubing shaped into an outward-facing hand.

Stop! That was what the hand said to him now. If only he’d had that reaction ten years ago.

A fresh flush of anger goaded him across the street. He strode through honking traffic right up to the scuffed metal door leading into the storefront.

He hesitated for a second, steadying himself, hand on the worn brass knob.

He’d been to hell and back and had the scars to prove it–inside and out. He’d stared death in the face and survived the death of his dreams. What was he doing here? Did he really think scolding some phony fortune-teller would make him feel better?

He didn’t know what the hell he was doing any more, and it scared him. He was just trying to put one foot in front of the other and keep on keeping on. With that thought, he pushed hard on the heavy door and stepped blindly into the smoky darkness behind it.

The rich, heavy incense stung his eyes as he waited for his vision to penetrate the dim atmosphere. The table was there, velvet cloth hanging to the floor, with the big glass ball glowing ominously in the shimmering light from the incense burner. The wood chair still stood in front of it, waiting to support the squirming backsides of gullible strangers.

He saw the outline of the door in the dark wall behind the table. Suddenly it cracked open an inch. Joe threw his shoulders back, clenched his gut as if anticipating a hard fist.

“You have three choices.”

“I know.”



Susana pushed out into the room, stifling a yawn. The man’s brusque response made her lift her eyes to get a look at him. From his response he sounded like a regular, but she didn’t recognize him.

Or maybe she did.

She narrowed her eyes, squinting through the smoke. Something oddly familiar about him sent a shiver along her vertebrae. His hardness jolted her: rigid posture, taut muscles, his hostile stare.

And those eyes.

Black in the darkness, his eyes spoke of pain that sent a sharp echo ringing through her. A pain strong enough to sap the life force of a man. To suck the energy out of those around him. A sorrow that feeds and grows, like a living thing.

She suppressed a shudder.

She’d seen more than her fair share of sad eyes. Hurt eyes, haunted eyes, desperate, bitter, lonely eyes. People didn’t come to a fortune-teller when their life was going the way they wanted. They came when they needed help.

“I read your palm for five dollars…”

“I’m not here for a reading.” He spat out the words, cutting her off.

Again she was struck by the odd sense of familiarity. Something about the cut of his jaw, the shape of his skull beneath the cropped dark hair, something about those eyes…

“Why are you here?” Curiosity swelled inside her like the opening notes of an unfamiliar tune.

“To see you.”

The force with which he spoke made her hold her breath.

Let him speak. He has something to say.

She watched him, caution stinging her fingers and toes. She wasn’t naïve about the dangers of her profession. Alone in a darkened storefront with one troubled, needy stranger after another.

But she had the strength of her ancestors to guide and protect her. Their wisdom and otherworldly knowledge flowed in her blood. She walked among people, yet apart from them, separated from them by mysteries she could never explain.

“Are you some kind of witch?”

“No!” She bit back the indignation that surged at his accusation. The days of her kind being burned at the stake were over, at least for now.

“I asked because you don’t look a single day older.” He tilted his head, facing her in suspicious half-profile. “I was here ten years ago. Ten long years that are etched all over my face, and you look exactly the same.” His face was contorted with confusion, his handsome features tight with worry.

“Ten years ago my grandmother would have given the reading.”

“No.” He shook his head, his dark stare so fierce it threatened to knock her off her feet. “No, it was you. You read my future in the crystal ball.” His eyes darted to the sphere and back to hers. “Right here. While I sat in that chair you told me I would meet the love of my life that very night.”

The bile in his words audibly choked him, and for a second she longed to reach out and offer the simple consolation of a touch. But she’d been warned against the dangers of stepping outside the bounds.

She did know him, though. Susana narrowed her eyes again as the memory of that night formed in her mind’s eye.

“It was you,” he said, his words a harsh indictment.

“It was me,” she replied softly. “It was the first reading I ever did.”

“Your first reading?” Aggression twisted his lip. “So you were just making stuff up off the top of your head? How old were you anyway?”

“I was thirteen.”

“Jesus.” Shock flickered in his eyes.

“I was young, but I had experience working with the seeing globe. My grandmother taught me everything she knew.”

A familiar pang of sorrow accompanied the thought of her beloved Granna. Her own skills had now surpassed the older woman’s. Susana’s psychic abilities were stronger, her gift for intuitive readings deeper and more subtle. But she still missed Granna’s supportive strength and reassuring confidence every day.

“So she taught you to make a sucker cross your palm with silver, then scheme up something to get him running out the door with a smile on his face?” His hard eyes bored into her as he stood there, fists clenched, spitting his arrows of accusation.

She held her tongue. It’s the hurt talking. Something terrible had happened to him.

Pity stirred in her heart along with something else. Something deeper, sharper. Something invigorating and alarming.

She remembered that first reading as clearly as if she’d seen it in the globe that morning. Two lovers. The fresh-faced young boy he’d been that night, glowing with hopeful optimism and lust for a life he’d barely begun. And a girl.

But not just any girl.

A black haired girl with cat’s eyes and a heart shaped face. A girl who stood in shadow, seeing things no one else could see.

Her.

She’d seen them together in the globe that night. Eyeing each other tentatively. Reaching out a careful hand. Joining those hands and walking together. A slim solemn gypsy girl and the broad shouldered gadjo boy who’d sat in front of her.

And she’d never breathed a word of it to anyone.

It had been her first reading for a stranger. She was a young girl, her visions unreliable. Or so she thought.

Now she knew better.

“I told you the truth about what I saw.” Fear tightened her throat.

“You saw me meeting the love of my life that night.” Filled with pain, his eyes searched her face.

Did he want to think she’d been lying? That she’d lie to him now?

Would she? His heavy burden of sorrow and anger frightened her. He was no longer the innocent boy she’d met all those years ago.

A few dismissive words would make him go away, and she doubted she’d see him again.

“I did see you meeting the love of your life that night.”

“But she wasn’t. I thought she was…” A muscle twitched in his cheek. “I thought she loved me.” His voice cracked and Susana’s heart clutched in response.

“I said you would meet the love of your life. But I didn’t tell you who she was. I didn’t describe the woman I saw in the seeing globe that evening.”

She glanced at the globe as icy fingers of apprehension clawed at her gut.

Should she tell him?

“No, that’s true.” His expression softened a little. “You didn’t describe her.” His fists still hung clenched at his sides. His plain white T-shirt stretched over his muscled chest, revealing the raw physical strength coiled and waiting in his hard body.

All that strength scared her.

“Was she blonde?” He spoke hesitantly, suspicion darkening his eyes. “The woman you saw?”

She shook her head.

“What did she look like?” A wary look flickered over his strong features. He didn’t trust her, but he was listening.

She held her head steady, held his gaze as she spoke. “She looked like me.”

He blinked and flinched very slightly. “You?”

“I saw myself in the globe when I did your reading that night.”

There. She’d said it. She stiffened, bracing against any number of possible reactions: rage, disgust, disbelief, violent retribution.

But he looked curious. His broad shoulders shifted a little, as if he could rearrange the heavy burden they carried.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

She shrugged, trying to lighten her own burden of responsibility, the obligation she’d shirked when she told him only half the reading. “I was young. I didn’t have faith in my ability to read accurately. I thought perhaps I was seeing what I wished to see.”

“You wished to see yourself—with me?”

“Perhaps.”

What thirteen-year-old girl didn’t dream of walking arm in arm with a handsome boy? A carefree, healthy young man in a white sailor suit. He’d been the stuff of teenage fantasies back then, with his dark hair buzzed short, his handsome face shaved clean and his dark eyes shining with youthful optimism.

Different from the man who stood before her now. The man whose lips parted as he struggled for words. The youthful optimism gone, replaced by a hard stare of accusation leveled at the world and at her in particular. His striking features marred by a semicircular scar that pierced one eyebrow, and the dark stubble shadowed under his jutting cheekbones.

“Thirteen years old!” He shook his head. “And I listened to you as if you were the Oracle at Delphi. Don’t know why I did. I came into the storefront on a dare. I guess you told me what I wanted to hear, so I chose to believe it.”

“You wanted to find love?” She spoke so softly her words almost disappeared in the smoke from the incense burner.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Who doesn’t?”

“Do you still want to find love?” The words slipped out of her mouth before she had a chance to catch them. What was she doing?

His reply was a dismissive snort. “No, no, no. I’m all done with love. No more for me, thanks.” He shook his head again, and a bitter, silent laugh racked him. “Love, hate and everything in between. I’m done with it. I’m not going to marry anybody or fight anybody ever again.”

The glint of dark humor in his eyes surprised her. Susana struggled to keep her confusion from showing on her face.

“Funny thought, isn’t it?” He let out a sharp choke of laughter. “I had the hots for you that night. While you were sitting there reading my fortune, I was thinking about your breasts.”

Her breasts stirred under her black T-shirt as his eyes boldly dropped to survey them.

“I’m thinking about them right now. Guess I don’t have any shame left any more.”

Susana swallowed hard, trying to shove down the very unfamiliar sensation building underneath her baggy shirt, sliding hotly down into her long, black skirt.

He glanced up and raised his eyebrows. “Do I disgust you?”

“No.” She shook her head. She didn’t know what she was feeling, but disgust didn’t play any part in it.

“I should have disgusted you back then. A big, horny twenty-year old boy eyeing a thirteen-year-old girl. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.” Bitter humor flashed in his eyes again. “Then again, maybe a jail term would have saved me some of the other trouble I had instead.”

His eyes fell to her breasts again. Her nipples tightened, heating under his gaze.

“What would you have said if I’d asked you out that night?”

“I’d have had to say no.”

“Why?”

“I was engaged to be married.”

“At thirteen?” His expression of shocked surprise almost made her smile.

“It’s not unusual among my people.”

“So you’re married?” His forehead creased as he asked the question.

“No.” She shook her head. “The engagement was cancelled. My grandmother needed me to stay with her, to develop my gifts.”

“And I was the lucky man you tried them out on for the first time.” He nodded grimly, a smile struggling to break across his lips. His body still taut, emotion and motion reined tightly as he watched her.

“It wasn’t planned.” She shrugged, again trying to absolve herself of the growing sense of responsibility gnawing at her. “My grandmother was smoking a cigarette out back. She told me to step in for her.”

“You were nervous, weren’t you?”

“A little.”

“I could see that. It made me like you. Made me see you as a person. Now I can see it should have made me nervous too.”

One fist unclenched, and he rubbed a spot on his chest with the extended fingers. The action pulled his thin, white T-shirt tight across the thick curve of his pec, and again Susana’s body responded with an alarming flare of heat.

“You were anxious, too.” A smile flickered across her lips at the memory of the strapping young man in his white sailor suit, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for her to emerge through the door.

“Yeah? I guess most people are when they’re about to hear what the future has in store.”

“Only if they plan to believe what they hear.”

“Like I said, I just came in on a dare. I sat in that chair”—he gestured toward it—“and I wondered about your breasts.” Again his eyes flicked over them, and goose bumps rose over the swollen flesh. Susana tossed her head, lifting her chin, defying her body to respond to his crude gawking.

“You misinterpreted the information I gave you.”

“You withheld the information I needed.”

He fixed her with his hard stare again, dark eyes holding hers as if a beam of black light shot between them. She faltered, wilting under the heat of his gaze.

He was right. She had cheated him. Committed a sin of omission.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Yeah? Well, I’m sorry, too.” He paused, unclenched his fists and settled his hands on his hips. The gesture enlarged him visually until he seemed to fill the entire space of the small storefront. “And I think you owe me.”

He hissed the words quietly, and they slid into Susana’s ears, ruffling her nerves, undermining her carefully cultivated professional demeanor.

“I owe you another reading?” She shivered. She didn’t want to do a reading for him now. Changed as he was, twisted and tormented by circumstance, she was afraid of what she’d see.

Especially since his future had once been bound up with hers.

“Hell, no. No more readings.” He held his head high, dark eyes unreadable in the smoky gloom. “You owe me my life back.”

“Only you can shape your own life.” The words emerged with a quiver of apprehension. People always wanted more than she could give. She could only read the future, not make it happen. And fate was not a hard, immutable thing, but a frame of possibilities, constantly shifting, changing, as destiny and circumstance writhed together in their unscripted dance.

“You owe me one night, then.” His low voice rumbled through the smoke and darkness, setting off a vibration that echoed deep inside her.

“No.” She choked the word, hands fisting into her skirt. Smoking trails of heat simmered through her body where his eyes danced over her.

“An evening. Dinner.” He tilted his head slightly, thoughtfully, as if contemplating an unfolding scroll of possibilities. That bitter laugh shook him. “Dinner and a movie, just like regular folks.”

“It’s not a good idea.” Nerves all on edge, she resisted the urge to shrink away from him. Her nipples strained against the fabric of her shirt. Her fingertips hummed with unwelcome anticipation as she buried them in the folds of her skirt and struggled to stay totally still. To resist his power.

“I don’t care if it’s a good idea. I did everything right and look where I am now. A bad idea is as good as any, as far as I’m concerned. Are you afraid of me?”

Yes.

“No.”

“Then why not? You’ve got to eat. I’ll buy you a good dinner. I’ve got to eat, too. I guess that’s one thing we have in common.”

Her nerves shrieked an alarm of warning. But woven through the wail of fear was an opposite call—a siren song bidding her to taste the dangerous and forbidden fruit of dinner with the handsome boy she’d seen in her globe so long ago.

To taste the freedom she craved.

She consulted her sixth sense—her bread and butter, the precious gift she’d cultivated until it was stronger than her other senses.

Silence and darkness. No answers forthcoming.

“Come on.” He reached out a hand. Her eyes fell to the thick muscles of his forearm, the tan skin sprinkled with tiny dark hairs. Warm human flesh reaching out to her.

“Okay.”