"Did you see her?" he asks. "Did you talk to her?"
"No, she wasn't there."
His eyes narrow suspiciously. "Was somebody else?"
I nod. "My father, if you can believe it."
I can hardly believe it myself.
Naz's expression hardens. He's so still I'm not sure he's breathing. "What did he say to you?"
"A lot," I mutter. "But nothing really. All lies, or maybe it's all the truth. I don't know. I figured out who he was and left."
"What did he want?"
"To explain why he left."
"And did he?"
"No, I didn't give him the chance."
Naz's thumb strokes my cheek as he lets out a deep sigh. "Maybe you should."
My brow furrows. "You think so?"
"Yeah," he says. "I'm interested to hear what he has to say."
The trip to Jersey is quicker with Naz driving. I feel better now having him with me, like instead of being on defense maybe I'm on the offense this time. He holds my hand on the center console, his thumb soothingly stroking my skin.
He has no issue finding the house, navigating the streets of Newark like he's well versed on the dilapidated neighborhood. My mother's car is there now, parked out front. Naz pulls the Mercedes to a stop behind it, cutting the engine and getting out without a word.
He opens my door for me and I get out, taking a few steps toward the house when Naz grabs my wrist, pulling me to a stop. I look at him peculiarly, and he shakes his head. "Wait here."
My brow furrows. "Why?"
"Just trust me."
I shrug it off, walking back toward Naz and pausing right in front of him, my eyes on the house. It's completely dark, illuminated only by the streetlight out front. It's nine at night, maybe a little later. "Maybe they're asleep."
"They don't sleep here."
My brow furrows. "How do you know?"
"I just know," he says. "I can tell by looking at it."
Before I can ask him any more, the curtain in the living room moves. The door yanks open, my mother appearing, eyes wide.
She looks frantic.
"Karissa," she shouts, her voice high-pitched, full of panic. "Oh God. Get away from him, sweetie."
I blink a few times, caught off guard, as Naz slips his arms around me, pulling me flush against him. One arm encircles my waist as his other settles along my chest, his hand drifting up, resting at the base of my throat. He's holding me protectively, my armor against the brutal outside world, but my mother sees it differently.
She lets out a panicked noise as she rushes forward, descending the small porch steps and wavering in the yard.
"It's okay," I say. "It's fine, Mom."
"Please let her go," she pleads, ignoring me, her focus on Naz. "I'm begging you. Let her go, Vitale."
My blood runs cold when she says his name... his last name... the name those people use for him. This isn't right. She doesn't know him. They don't know each other. They can't.
"I'm not going to hurt her, Carmela, but I'm not letting her go."
My knees nearly give out on me. He called her Carmela. If not for Naz's strong hold, I would hit the ground. I turn my head, seeing Naz's serious expression, his eyes as dark as the night around us.
"Naz," I whisper. "What's going on?"
"What's going on is your mother isn't happy to see you near me."
"Why?" I ask, my voice trembling. "Who are you?"
"You know who I am," he says. "The question you should be asking is who are they."
"Mom," I call out. "Mom, what's happening? How do you know Naz?"
She doesn't look at me, but I know she hears my words. Her alarm grows when I call him Naz. She pleads with him more. "Please, she's my daughter... my little girl. She's been through enough. Don't do this to her."
"I've done nothing to her," Naz says, his hand shifting higher, tightening around my throat. I gasp as he leans down, kissing my temple. "Nothing she hasn't wanted me to do."
My mother's on the verge of hyperventilating. "Just let her go and let's talk about this. I'll give you whatever you want, whatever it is. Take me, but leave her alone. Please, I'm begging you. I'll do anything."
Naz loosens his hold, and I breathe deeply, disoriented. "Johnny here?"
"No."
"Bet he went out the back door when he saw me, didn't he?" My mother doesn't respond to that question, which seems answer enough for Naz. He laughs bitterly. "Once a coward, always a coward."
"Tell me what I can do," she says. "Just... whatever it is. Just tell me."
"You know what I want. You stay out of my way, and I won't hurt you, Carmela. It's as simple as that. I don't want to hurt you—for her sake, I hope I don't have to. But nothing's going to stop me from getting what I want."
"I understand," she says, taking another step toward us. "Just let Karissa go. Please."
"I can't do that," Naz says. My mother makes an unnatural noise at his refusal. I'm too stunned to react. One of Naz's arms lets go of me as he reaches for the car door. "Get in."
My eyes widen as I look at him. "What?"
His eyes meet mine. "Get in the car."
The voice in the back of my head screams for me to pull away from him, to run to my mother, but his troubled expression is enough to make my feet move toward the car.
I slide into the passenger seat, and he slams the door, standing there for a moment longer.
He loves me, I remind myself. There's no reason to be afraid.
But this isn't my Naz, the Naz I fell in love with, and Ignazio Vitale scares the hell out of me.
Through the window, I can hear my mother pleading with him some more, his voice casual as he shrugs off her concerns.
My heart is in my throat, my stomach queasy when Naz gets in. He says nothing, starting the car and speeding away. He never looks at me, never addresses me during the drive. His hand no longer tries to hold mine. Things are so tense I think I might explode. It all keeps playing in my mind in a loop, their words, and his actions, everything that happened today playing over and over again.
I'm not sure what to think about any of it.
We get to the house, and I wrap my arms around my chest as I stand in the living room, trying to combat the swell of nausea as reality slams into me. "I don't understand."
Naz loosens his tie. "What don't you understand, Karissa?"
"Any of it."
He's quiet for a moment as he takes off his coat. "I told you one day get him."
"What? Who?"
"The man who stole my life from me."
My eyes widen as that sinks in. "It was him? My father?"
"Johnny Rita and I were practically family. He was my best friend. And that meant nothing to him. He murdered my wife and kid right in front of me."
"Did you know?" I whisper. "Did you know it was me all along?"
His expression offers no apologies. I think I'm going to be sick. I shove past him, running for the kitchen, and fall to my knees in front of the trashcan, losing whatever's in my stomach. Naz follows, pausing in the doorway behind me.
"You knew," I say, my vision blurred. "You used me all along just to try to find my father... just so you can kill him!"
"That's not true," he says. "I knew who you were, Karissa, but I didn't use you so I could kill him. It was never my intention to kill Johnny. I said I wanted to make him pay."
"How?"
"He killed my family," Naz says. "So I was going to kill his."
Oh God.
I lose it again, heaving until my body has nothing else to give. I hear Naz approach, feel his hand pressing against my back. Trembling, I cower away, scurrying across the floor and pressing my back against the cabinets as I pull my knees up to my chest, trying to slink away. I stare at him, horrified.
He was planning to kill me.
Oh God, he's going to kill me.
"You promised," I cry. "You promised you wouldn't hurt me."
He crouches down in front of me. "An
d I'm not going to. I can't lie to you, Karissa. I've never lied to you."
I scoff.
His expression hardens. "Name one time I lied to you."
"You lied about everything!"
"No, everything I've told you was true. Just because I didn't tell you all of it doesn't mean I lied. Everyone has secrets."
"I don't."
"You did," he says. "I was your secret. We keep the darkest parts of us to ourselves until we think others are ready to see them. Sometimes that never happens, but I knew it tonight... knew it was time for you to see me."
"See you? You're a monster!"
"I am," he admits, "but don't pretend to be surprised. You knew that about me all along."
"I didn't."
"Ah, I don't lie to you, so at least give me the same respect in return," he says. "The pieces were all there from the beginning, every single one of them. Just because you refused to put them together, to look at the big picture, doesn't mean you didn't know what it was. I told you I wasn't a good man. I told you I never would be. That's reality, sweetheart, and you still asked me to stay." He reaches for me, grazing the back of his hand along my cheek and down my neck, across my chest. "You handed over your body so willingly, like it already belonged to me."
I smack his hand away, the loud crack echoing through the silent kitchen as I try to move further away from him. "There's something wrong with you."
"There's a lot wrong with me," he says. "Has been ever since your father aimed a shotgun at my chest and pulled the trigger."
"Why?" The word is barely audible as tears spill over from the corner of my eyes. "Why did he do it? Why would he?"
"Revenge."
"Why?" I ask again. "What did you do to him?"
"Nothing," he says. "It wasn't me he wanted vengeance against. He did it to get back at my wife's father."
"Her father?"
He nods. "Ray."
I blink rapidly. I can only stare at him in shock.
His wife was Raymond Angelo's daughter?
"I was caught in the middle, condemned to die at the hands of someone close to me, someone who was supposed to love me. God spared me, but you see, nobody would've spared you, not when I was done with you, so you're lucky... you're fucking lucky... I fell in love with you."
My voice is weak when I whisper, "You don't love me."
"Oh, but I do," he says. "Because if I didn't? You'd be dead already."
I let out an involuntary whimper at the sound of his voice, so matter of fact, with no sign of regret in his words. He would've killed me… he so easily could have, so many times. If it's love that kept me alive, what does it mean for now? What does it mean for my future?
"Nothing's changed," he says, as if he can read my mind. "I'm still the man I was two hours ago, the same man I was two weeks ago, two months ago… two years ago. I'm the same man you gave yourself to, the same man you fell in love with. Nothing's changed."
He says it like he means it, like he really believes it, but looking at him, I don't see that man anymore. I see a man who not only could end my life, but a man who I think someday might.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says quietly, and I close my eyes, unable to take the expression on his face, the look that wants me to believe it, that almost makes me believe it.
I sit still, my breath hitching when I feel him touch my face, caressing my cheek, fingertips grazing my lips as I exhale shakily. I can tell he leans closer, his cologne stronger, his body heat wafting across my skin, warming me on the outside, but I'm so, so cold inside. He's turned my blood to ice, stopped my heart from pumping it from fear that if it does, it might still beat for him.
"Tell me what you're thinking," he says, his lips near mine. He kisses the corner of my mouth. "Say something."
His lips meet mine softly. I don't kiss him back, instead whispering a lone word. "Red."
Red.
His lips leave mine in the next breath, his hand dropping from my face. I open my eyes in enough time to see him stand up. He stares down at me for a moment in silence. He has the audacity to look upset, like I've wounded him, like the word hurt him more than he could ever possibly hurt me. It feels like an eternity passes around me as I stare up at him with watery eyes, trying to keep my tears from falling, before he looks away, turning his back to walk out of the room.
I sit there for a while, not having the energy to move, before forcing myself to my feet. My knees are weak, wanting to give out as I leave the kitchen. My gaze darts to the front door, and for a brief second I think about running out of it, but where can I go? Who can I turn to?
Who will believe me?
What would he do?
Instead, I head upstairs.
I climb into bed with my clothes on, not even bothering to take off my shoes. I'm on the verge of tears, but the shock of it all is keeping them at bay.
The city is dangerous, my mother repeatedly told me. There are people who will prey upon me, who will corrupt me, who will use me and abuse me. I have to be on guard, alert, always keeping my eyes open to the dangers of the world, because they're real, and they'll destroy me.
I heard it over and over.
So many times.
Who would've expected I'd fall in blindly with the biggest threat of all?
The world keeps turning.
I keep moving.
Life around me continues to go on.
Naz acts like nothing changed. He meant it when he said it, truly believed it, but it's different for me now. It's all different. The truth seeped into my bones, infused in my muscles, as much a part of me now as the blood in my veins.
Blood that still feels too heavy in my chest, making each beat of my heart painful.
The den is quiet. The television is on, but muted, reruns of Real Housewives playing on the screen. Naz isn't watching it, instead sitting at his desk with a book. He's reading. Reading. I don't think anything Raymond Angelo pays him to do requires him to look in a book.
I stand just outside the doorway, looking in. I know the TV is on for me. He does it every day, turns on something he's seen me watch before, like he's trying to coax me into the room with him.
I haven't gone in yet.
It's been a week.
He hasn't left the house. Every day the same thing, the same routine. He lies beside me at night, but I don't think either of us gets any sleep, staring into the darkness, lost in the bitter silence. He hasn't touched me… hasn't tried to touch me… since I spoke the safe word in the kitchen. Not so much as a brush of his arm against mine in seven days.
I'm grateful. I'm relieved.
But I ache.
I mourn the loss of his touch.
What's wrong with me?
He tore me in two—half of me still clinging to who I thought he was, while the other half is shattered by the man he turned out to be. I love him. I hate him.
If I never saw his face again, I would be better off.
But yet I stand in the doorway, not looking at the silent television, instead looking at him. I wonder what he's thinking, what he's reading, what he'd say to me if I talked to him. I wonder if he knows how I feel about him right now, if this is how he's felt about me all along.
He set out to destroy me, but he fell in love with me instead.
I fell in love with him, and that's what destroyed me in the end.
He says he would never hurt me, but he doesn't realize he already has.
He hurt me by loving me.
By being who he is.
Because I am who I am.
I stare at him like I used to stare at my philosophy book, like maybe all the answers will magically transfer into my brain so I know what I'm supposed to know, so I understand what so far has evaded me. My stomach knots, constricting the flight of the butterflies he gives me, until his gaze shifts my way. He doesn't move anything except his eyes as he regards me carefully. I feel like a child being watched, but he still looks at me like I'm a woman.
He looks
at me like he needs me more than the air he breathes.
My lungs can't seem to work when he looks at me that way.
My chest burns, my stomach churns, my vision goes hazy and my knees go weak, all the while the two halves of me scream at the top of their lungs. I love him. I hate him. He's everything that's good. He's the worst of everything. He gives my life meaning. He'll take my life away someday.
My Prince Charming turned out to be the villain of my fairy tale, and part of me thinks that's okay, because eventually, it'll all disappear, anyway.
Nothing lasts forever.
Happily ever after, I think, doesn't exist.
Naz curves an eyebrow in question but remains silent. I hesitate for a moment before turning around and walking away.
There's nothing to do.
I mindlessly walk laps around the house, sitting in one room for a bit before moving on to the next, never going into the den. I consider calling the number my mother gave me, but it feels like a betrayal to Naz, and I'm not sure what to say to her, either. The fact that she hasn't called me sticks out like a sore thumb.
I text Melody and act like nothing is wrong.
I flick little birdies across the screen and annihilate pigs to occupy my time.
I even go outside and walk around the back yard. There's nothing out here, except for trees and grass, a lawnmower that desperately needs used and some rose bushes that seem like they've died a long time ago. I find the outside entrance to what I assume is the basement, and I consider going down there out of boredom, until I catch Naz watching me from the window in the den.
His gaze burns through me, so I go back inside, just to escape it, going upstairs and falling into bed, succumbing to exhaustion and taking a nap. When I awaken, the room is dark. It's well after nightfall.
My throat is dry.
My stomach growls ferociously.
Rubbing it, I head downstairs again. The light in the den is the only one that's on. I head into the kitchen, my footsteps faltering when I find a carton of Chinese food sitting on the counter beside the fridge. It's still warm when I pick it up, and I pop the top open, seeing it's beef Lo Mein with no vegetables.
He ordered it for me.
It's what I ask for when he orders Chinese.