“I bet he does.” I can’t contain the sarcasm. I’ve known too many pimps too well.
“He really does.” She slides her fingers up my arm, pressing her thumb into the crook of my elbow for a moment. “He doesn’t keep us strung out, gives us a fair percentage, and watches over us.”
“If he watched over you, you wouldn’t be here with me.”
“Yes, I would,” she says quietly.
“Really? Why?”
“Because someone has to be.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not like we don’t know who you are,” she says quietly.
“We?”
“All the hookers. I know. I’m not supposed to talk about it, but there isn’t a single person on the street who doesn’t know your name. I understand why it has to be that way for you—at least, I do now—but you have to realize we know who you are. We know your history.”
“What history?” I’m genuinely confused. She obviously isn’t talking about my work for Rinaldo.
She licks her lips nervously. There is more to her nervousness than just bringing up my occupation. This is something closer, something more personal.
Oh, shit. Of course. She knows what happened to my last regular hooker.
“Go ahead. Say it.”
“We know about that girl—the hooker you used to bring home with you.”
“What exactly do you think you know?”
“I know she never came back. I know you went on a shooting spree and ended up in jail right after she disappeared. I know you aren’t with her now.”
My heart is pounding though I’m not sure why. Memories flash through my head, and I squeeze my eyes shut as if it will help remove the images: Bridgett in front of me, screaming and crying; me yelling at her; the sense of betrayal deep inside of me that couldn’t be controlled.
I breathe deeply, in and out, several times before I open my eyes again.
“My advice to you,” I say slowly, “is to never betray me.”
“I wouldn’t, Evan.” Alina places her palm against my chest. “You don’t even have to ask.”
As I look at her, her eyes are clear and bright. There’s still a hint of a tear at the corner, but I can’t begrudge her that. She knows what I’ve done before, and she knows I’d do it again. Still, there’s no fear in her eyes, and I believe her.
“Why wouldn’t you?” I ask. “Why haven’t you talked to Loretta about me?”
She runs her hand up to my shoulder, squeezes it lightly and then runs it to my neck. She doesn’t meet my eyes, but I can tell she’s trying to find her words.
“I probably know more than you realize,” she finally says.
“What do you know?”
“You said you were a Marine, but there’s more to it than that. Something happened to you over there.”
“Did I say something while I was asleep?”
“A few times, yes.”
“What did I say?”
“You say the name ‘Lia’ a lot,” Alina says softly. As she speaks, she curls her fingers around the back of my neck. “Sometimes, it sounds like you’re begging someone not to put you back. You say the words ‘sand’ and ‘hole’ all the time. Once, you just kept repeating your name and a number over and over again. Sometimes you just scream.”
It all makes sense. I knew the nightmares sometimes made me scream because I’d wake up hoarse. I’d been told by both Bridgett and Lia that I talked in my sleep. I didn’t remember them saying I gave so much detail though.
“Evan, were you captured?”
“Yeah.” I barely utter the single word.
Alina rubs my neck again and then runs her hand up and down my arm.
“I’m not going to ask you about it,” she says.
“You aren’t?”
“No.” She shakes her head and gives me a half-smile. “I have the feeling you’ve been asked about it enough. If you had wanted to talk about it, you would have.”
Tightening my hold on her, I bury my face against her lavender-scented skin. This is why I wanted her here and not some other hooker. She doesn’t push.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her hand returns to the back of my head, and I feel her lips press against my hair. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, and I don’t need to know more about it. I just want to help you forget it for a while.”
Forgetting. Forgetting is good. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s good. Unfortunately, trying to forget never really works. Even as I hold on to her, flashes in my mind bring it all back. There’s pain. There’s loneliness. There’s blood.
The thought of blood brings my thoughts to the recent past—the killings at Marcello’s hangout and Felisa’s body as it falls into the hole.
A hole. I put her in a hole. I never do that—not to anyone.
But I had.
*****
It’s cold and dark. There should be a fire burning in the fireplace, but there isn’t. Did I forget to stoke it before we went to bed?
There’s a hand on my cheek, but it slides away. The bed beside me grows cold.
“Lia?”
I can barely see her outline at the door. She has a bag in her hand.
“I can’t do it anymore, Evan. I just can’t.”
“I was going to be better.” I make the promise to her, but she walks out the door. I follow, but she’s already on the front porch. Running, I trip in the doorway and fall into a hole. I shake my head to clear it and try to wipe dirt off my face, but my hands are bound.
“Is someone there? Anyone?” I’m panting, sweating. My stomach aches from being bent over for so long, and my eyes burn when I try to open them.
How long has it been? How many days? I can’t count them anymore.
“Someone? Please, someone answer me!”
“Please…please…. I don’t want to be alone anymore! Please, don’t leave me alone!
“I’m right here.” The voice is soft and soothing, but it’s not enough. I grip at the body beside me, pulling it closer until I can smell the scent of her skin.
“Don’t leave me!”
“I’m not leaving, Evan. I promise. I’m right here.”
“I don’t want to be alone anymore.” I can’t control the tears. When I try to speak, I can only choke out words. “Don’t want to be alone…please…don’t leave me alone.”
“Shh…I’ve got you, Evan.”
“Stay with me!”
“I will.”
I tighten my hold on her, bury my face against her chest, and fall into the blackness.
*****
I’m not at all rested when I wake. It’s still dark though probably early morning. My head is pounding. I can’t remember the nightmare, but I know I woke more than once. Alina is there beside me with one arm wrapped around my shoulder and the other across my chest.
I push away from her and sit up on the bed, wrapping my arms around my knees. She sits up beside me but doesn’t speak. She just sits there and waits to see what I’m going to do.
I have no idea.
Everything that has happened in the past week comes crashing down around me: finding out about Rinaldo and Felisa; Lele’s face when she asked me where he was; taking Felisa to the woods and putting a bullet in her head; dragging Felisa’s corpse back out while trying to look like I’m surprised; Rinaldo in the hospital—it’s too much. It’s all too much.
Bridgett betrayed me.
Odin’s dead.
Lia left me.
Rinaldo’s all I have left, and I betrayed him. He’s the one I care about the most, and I killed a woman he loved. I’d put her in a fucking hole. I wanted to protect him, but I’d hurt him instead. No wonder Lia deserted me. Maybe if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have fucked up so badly.
“I was going to fix it,” I whisper through my hands. “I swear, I was going to fix it all.”
“Fix what, Evan?”
“It wasn’t going to be
like that anymore. I was going to stop. I was going to stay with her. It’s what I wanted, but I just…I just can’t stop it.”
Alina wraps her arms around my shoulders and pulls me to her. I don’t resist. I want the closeness—I need it.
“Isn’t that how you got to this point in the first place?” It’s not Alina’s voice this time. If I open my eyes, I’ll see Ralph, so I keep them closed. However, his point is too accurate to ignore. Yes, I wanted to fix it at the time. I’d also made those promises to her before—time and time again. I always broke them.
I’d betrayed Lia, too.
But she was supposed to be there for me. She was supposed to be the one who would keep me sane. I needed her, and she left me. She wrote a fucking note and left me. For all she knows, I’m dead.
“Why’d she do it? Why?” I link my fingers in Alina’s hair around the back of her head and hold her tightly. “Don’t ever betray me. Please, please don’t betray me.”
“I won’t, Evan.”
“If you did…I don’t know what I’d do.”
“I know.” Her voice is a whisper against my ear. “I’m here, Evan. I’m here for you.”
Alina’s here for me. Alina can keep me sane.
There’s a brief moment when I relax, but it doesn’t last. Yes, Alina is here for me now. Where was she last night? The night before? Who was she comforting then?
“You’re not.” I want to push her away, but my arms don’t seem to be cooperating with my commands. Instead, I grip her tighter. “You’re here for whoever wants a piece of your ass. I’m just another john on your list.”
“You aren’t just another john, Evan. You’re a…a very special john.”
“That sounds so much better.” My words are biting, and I don’t care.
She cups my cheek with her hand and turns my head to look at her.
“I know you need me,” she says bluntly. “I’m here for you.”
I really don’t know if I can believe her or not.
Chapter 13—Broken Security
“Would you stop messing with me, woman!”
“I’m not messing!” Lele places her hand on Rinaldo’s back and pushes him forward to fluff up his pillow. He flings his arms around ineffectively, and Lele swats at his hand. “Now you listen to me, Rinaldo Leonardo Moretti! If you want to go home tomorrow to finish recovering, you are going to have to listen to me! Now drink your juice!”
She shoves a little plastic cup with a straw at his face until he relents and takes a sip.
“I’m not a child!” he whines. “Stop treating me like one!”
I stand in the doorway with a smirk on my face, observing. It’s rare to see Lele all up in Rinaldo’s face and even rarer to watch him take it. I’m not about to announce my presence and have it end too soon.
“You don’t want to be treated like a child, but you expect me to put up with your nonsense when you’re acting like one!” Lele tsks as she shakes her head. Her voice softens. “It’s this hospital food. It makes you Mr. Grumpy.”
“I’m addicted to your cooking,” Rinaldo says as he smiles up at her. “Anything else makes me grumpy.”
Lele leans down and kisses his lips lightly. When she breaks away, they touch foreheads and look into each other’s eyes for a full minute, then kiss again. Feeling suddenly voyeuristic, I clear my throat, and they part quickly.
“Evan!” Lele calls out as she walks over to hug me and kiss my cheeks. “Maybe you can do something to get him to eat his lunch.”
I take a closer look at the food on the tray, mostly untouched, and glance at Rinaldo with a raised brow. There’s nothing on the tray I find appealing, and he obviously agrees.
“Gabrielle, my love,” Rinaldo says, “I do need to speak with Evan.”
“Not until you at least eat this.” She holds up a little plastic cup of applesauce, and he grimaces.
“Later, I promise. Now out with you.”
“Let the men talk business,” Lele mutters. “Don’t think I won’t check the trash when I come back!”
He chuckles as she leaves, and I can’t help but smile as well. It’s good to see him smiling. Maybe I didn’t screw up as badly as I thought.
As soon as Lele is gone, I realize how wrong I am.
“I didn’t tell her,” Rinaldo says immediately. “I don’t know what to say.”
I’m confused. I don’t understand his hesitation.
“Why?” I ask.
“We had this all figured out,” Rinaldo says as he rubs his eyes. “Now I don’t know what to do.”
“We?”
“Lele and I.”
Nothing he says is making sense to me, and I tell him this.
Rinaldo shakes his head and tries to straighten up in bed, but it’s difficult for him. I help him get the pillow arranged so he can get comfortable.
“You can’t repeat this, Evan.”
“Of course not, sir.” I’m more confused now than ever.
“Felisa was Lele’s niece,” he says with a long sigh. “They weren’t so far apart in age and were very close when they were growing up. More like sisters.”
Shit.
I knew I had killed a relative of Lele’s, but someone she considered a sister?
“I didn’t realize.” Lele had given me some information on Felisa, but Rinaldo obviously didn’t realize that.
“No one did.”
“But why keep that a secret?” I ask. “Who cares how they’re related?”
“It’s not their relation that’s the concern.”
“What is?”
“I told you that Felisa had a daughter.” Rinaldo takes his hand away from his face and stares at me. I nod, and he continues. “The girl was legally adopted by Felisa, but her biological mother is…is Lele.”
I pause and think, trying to put everything together, but I’m missing something. Lele had a second child? When?
“How old is she?”
“Seven. Lele had her the year before you came on board. I sent her to Italy so no one would notice her condition.”
I feel all the organs inside my body drop, and I freeze, staring at Rinaldo.
“She cheated on me,” he says with a shrug. “It’s not like I didn’t deserve it or anything, but she screwed up and got pregnant. I’d been away at the time of conception. I knew after the first doctor’s visit that it wasn’t mine. We talked about raising it together, but I just couldn’t, Evan. I couldn’t raise a kid that belonged to a man who happened to fuck my wife while I was away on business. It’s no different than Nick, really. Lele can’t even stand to have Nick in our house. If nothing else, I’d lose respect.”
He’s correct there. As sexist as it is, Rinaldo having an illegitimate child is one thing, but his wife? That is a whole other matter.
“Lele wanted Felisa to raise the girl,” Rinaldo says. “That’s why I have been sending money to her off-shore accounts. It’s for Margot, Lele’s daughter. Now I have no idea what to tell Lele.”
“Where’s the girl now?”
“In New York with Felisa’s parents, Lele’s brother and sister-in-law.”
“Will they raise her?”
“No. They made it very clear the arrangement was to be temporary. Felisa goes there on the weekends, but she’s been working on getting Margot enrolled in school here. Lele can’t stand her brother, and I don’t think she’d let him raise the girl anyway. Felisa was the only option.”
Something still doesn’t make sense.
“But sir, you were with Felisa.”
“I was.” He nods and looks down. “I didn’t plan for that to happen. Having her show up here in Chicago reminded me of Lele’s affair. I think it started as a revenge fuck, but it turned into something else. I got a little carried away, and she paid for it.”
Rinaldo looks at me, and I feel my insides seize up again when I notice the tears at the corners of his eyes. I keep waiting for his anger, but it doesn’t come.
“Did you take care of everythi
ng else?” he asks quietly.
“Yes.” I run my hand through my hair. I can’t quite look him in the eye. “Franklyn got her taken over to that funeral home we used for Mario. They’re all set up for the day after tomorrow. No questions. All the money that was transferred is now in the name Margot Bianchi.”
“And the things you found with her?”
“Nothing conclusive, but it certainly points south. No one has taken credit or contacted us about it. I don’t have anything concrete, and I want to be sure before moving forward. Jonathan is looking into a couple of things regarding the books and focusing on who ambushed us.”
“Identities on any of the bodies?”
“A group of merc hit men from out of state,” I tell him. “Anyone could have hired them.”
“They should have hired better ones.”
“They still managed to hit you, sir. If you hadn’t been wearing a vest, I’m not sure you would have made it. You were losing so much blood from your leg. Another wound would have done you in.”
He nods and reaches down to rub his thigh.
“Pain?” I ask.
“Itchy. They still have me pumped up on meds for the pain. Franklyn has a whole pharmacy to send home with me.”
“You’ll feel better once you are out of here.”
“Lele’s driving me crazy enough during visiting hours,” he says with a laugh. “How will I get any sleep at home?”
“The food will be better.” I point over to the plastic cup of applesauce, which still remains untouched.
“That is a good enough reason to go. My stomach can’t deal with this shit.” Rinaldo reaches over to the tray and grabs the cup of applesauce and a spoon. “I probably ought to make an effort, or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
He takes a couple of bites and mumbles something about baby food.
“Sir, may I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“That GPS chip you told me about—who else has one?”
He doesn’t look at me or answer for a while. I have a pretty good suspicion as to why.
“Everyone I consider family,” Rinaldo finally says. “Lele, Lucia, Nick—even I have one.”
I stare at him pointedly.
“Yes, Evan, you have one, too. That’s how I knew you were still alive.”