The Original Sinners: The Red Years

“Not where we’re going.”

18

Zach followed Nora outside. He started to walk toward her car parked in front of the house. But she beckoned him instead to her garage.

“This way, handsome. I’ve got a little surprise for you.”

Nora pulled her key ring out of her coat pocket and hit a small black button. The garage door slowly yawned open. Zach never dreamed she kept an actual car in her garage. Her black Lexus and Wesley’s beat-up VW always sat in the driveway or on the street. But inside the garage he saw some kind of vehicle covered in a suede car cover.

“You Yanks.” Zach shook his head. “You think you need a whole army of cars.”

“This isn’t just a car, Zach.” She grabbed the corner of the cover and pulled it off in one extravagant motion.

“My God…Nora,” he breathed at the sight of the inferno-red machine. He’d never been much of a car enthusiast but something very male in him wanted to just run his hands across it from fender to fender.

“Once upon a time,” Nora began, “I spent a week with a sheikh. This was his version of morning-after roses.”

“You just keep this in your garage?”

“What? Just your everyday Aston Martin.”

“This is James Bond’s car.”

“Yes, but he can’t have it back. Don’t tell, but I’m going to give it to Wes as a graduation present in a couple of years.”

“If you ever fire him and start looking for a new intern…” Zach reached out and touched the hood.

“I’ll keep your rеsumе on file,” Nora said, looking at him as he stroked the top of the car. “You’re hard right now, aren’t you?”

“Fully erect.” Zach didn’t crack a smile.

“Typical male.” Nora rolled her eyes. “Get in.”

Zach slid onto the passenger seat and inhaled the heady scent of the most expensive leather interior in the world. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. It held him like a hand. He could die here.

Nora slipped into the driver’s seat. The car purred to life.

“Nora…who are you?”

“Just another guttersnipe. Ready to see my gutter?”

Zach leaned up and opened his eyes.

“Where exactly are we going?” he asked as she slinked through the streets and headed toward the city.

“It’s a club,” Nora simply said.

“What kind of club?”

“The only kind of club I would ever go to.”

“What’s this club called?”

“It doesn’t really have an official name. It doesn’t officially exist. Those of us in the know call it the 8th Circle.”

Zach tried to remember his Italian literature class.

“It’s been too long since I’ve read Dante. The eighth circle—was that where the sins of lust were punished?”

Nora’s lips curled into an ironic grin.

“That was the second circle. The eighth circle was the destination for those who abused their power—panderers, seducers, simonists, false counselors.”

“Simonists?”

Nora’s smiled widened.

“Corrupt priests.”

“Abused their power…very clever.”

“The name is all too apt.”

Zach turned to her and didn’t ask what she meant by that. He’d already lost his train of thought as he watched Nora shift gears with the practiced ease of a race-car driver. Her touch was easy and smooth; the engine responded to her every whim. Zach couldn’t stop watching, couldn’t stop imagining her dexterous hands on him.

“How did you learn to drive like this?” Zach asked, trying to ignore his growing arousal.

“I can drive anything—any car, any kind. I’ve been driving a stick shift since I was thirteen.”

Zach started to open his mouth to ask her another question. But Nora took a sharp turn to the left and pulled into what appeared to be an abandoned parking structure attached to a dingy squat concrete block of a building. Windowless, lifeless and covered in graffiti, the building seemed the last place in the city Nora would want to enter.

“Why did you stop?”

Nora pulled in and parked next to a sleek, silver Porsche.

“Because we’re here.”

“Here?” Zach looked around in disbelief as they both left the car. The place seemed dismal and far too quiet. Only the wind sliding around the concrete columns made any sound at all. He looked back at the Aston Martin.

“Are you sure it’s safe to leave it here?” Zach asked even though it was just one of many luxury cars in the garage.

“This is the safest parking garage in New York. Trust me.”

Nora brought them to a gunmetal-gray door and pulled out her keys again. She slid one into the lock and turned it. Zach expected the roar of a nightclub to greet them but he heard nothing but silence.

He found himself standing at the end of a long hallway. It seemed to be part of an old hotel. The walls and carpets were a deep red; small aging chandeliers hung from the ceiling and cast broken light over the paisley squares of threadbare carpeting. They came to the end of the hall where an old-fashioned coat check booth stood. Nora rang the silver desk bell and shed her coat.

A girl came out of the back and flashed them both a courteous smile.