I have no idea what happened in that little room. One moment, I was trying to comfort her, and the next I was shoving my cock into her. There was no thought behind it—just her body and mine together and the slight thumping sound of the desk as it connected with the wall behind it. I barely even remember coming.
I’m supposed to marry Lucia.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there will be no wedding. I can only hope that Rinaldo didn’t mention the idea to Lucia or Lele. As much as I want to honor his wishes, I can’t marry her. I could never love her, and the whole idea of trying to set up a wife somewhere while I try to keep Rinaldo’s empire from crumbling around me during the transition is ludicrous. I need to focus on setting myself up as the new boss. I can’t do both.
I don’t want to do either.
Going home and crawling into bed sounds as good as anything, but for once, I know I won’t be alone. Alina is at my apartment, waiting for me, and I don’t want to face her.
What am I supposed to say? I don’t need it tonight? I already got some?
I don’t even belong to a gym where I can go shower Lucia’s scent off of me before coming into contact with Alina. Yes, I’m paying her to be there, but I still feel guilty about what I’ve done. Lia was the only other serious relationship I’d ever had, and I wouldn’t have dreamed of being with another woman when I had her.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I even care?
It’s a betrayal—that’s why. I betrayed Alina. We have an arrangement, and I went against it. I fucked someone else, and I can’t take it back. Loyalty is what I hold most dear. I won’t stand for any kind of treachery from anyone around me, yet I, myself, had just betrayed someone.
Just like I betrayed Rinaldo when I killed Felisa.
What am I supposed to do now? Tell her? Keep it a secret? I’m not even sure which would be worse. Maybe if I just forget about it—hide it from her—she would never have to know I’d gone behind her back. Then again, if she was still turning tricks on the street and tried to keep it from me, I’d kill her.
What if Alina got caught up in some moment of passion and then told me about it later? Would I be more forgiving, hearing it from her mouth, or would I be just as likely to go ballistic?
I honestly don’t know if it would change the outcome, but finding out from someone else would definitely be worse.
Some things can’t be taken back.
I can’t go back and change positions with Zach. I’d chosen the spot to set up, and he had been the one hit. I can’t spin back the clock and save my unit from being ambushed. I can’t return to that time and place and keep myself from being captured.
If Bridgett had told me herself that she’d been talking about me to someone else, would it have saved her life? Or would her death still be a black mark on my soul as yet another mistake?
A whole list of things I have done more recently that can’t be reversed flood my head: killing Felisa; promising Rinaldo I’d take over the business and marry his daughter; buying Alina from her pimp…the list goes on.
My mind spins in another direction.
If I’d never been captured in the first place, I’d probably never have met Jonathan. Without him, I wouldn’t have known Rinaldo at all. I never would have known anyone who called me son.
Does that make it all worth it?
If Lia hadn’t left me, I wouldn’t have returned to Chicago at all, and I wouldn’t have met Alina. Rinaldo would have died, and I might not have even known about it. He might have even bled out on the street while Paulie and Beni debated what hospital they should take him to.
That might have been better.
I shake my head, trying to clear it. I’m too tired to be driving anymore, so I pull over and stand beside the Camaro to smoke. It does nothing to relax me, but it does wake me up a little.
Ralph remains absent. I try to think back to the last time he’s made an appearance, but I still can’t remember. I look around as if that would make him suddenly materialize, but it doesn’t. I can’t believe I actually miss his presence. Sometimes he seems to know things in my head that I can’t quite verbalize.
Maybe he’s abandoned me, too.
I finish the cigarette and climb back into the car. With one last look around for Ralph, I pull back into the street.
It’s after midnight before I finally bring myself back home. I stand at the door to the apartment for a full minute before opening it.
Alina is on the couch with a magazine. I hear her let out a breath and watch her shoulders slump in relief. She’s obviously been wondering where I was. I should have been back hours ago. I lick my lips, imagine I can still taste Lucia’s lipstick on them, and look away.
“Hi,” Alina says quietly.
“Hi.” I glance at her quickly and then try to look busy putting my wallet and keys on the kitchen counter. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up, and the skin of my back is tingling. I know she’s watching me, but she doesn’t say anything.
“I need a shower.” I walk into the bathroom and shut the door. Turning the water up full blast, I sit on the toilet and drop my head in my hands as the room fills with steam. I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting there when I hear a knock.
“Evan?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you hungry?”
“Not really.”
“All right.” There’s a pause. “There’s stuff in the refrigerator you can heat up later if you want to.”
“Okay.”
I can’t hear well enough over the shower to know if she’s moved away from the door or not, but I think she has. I step into the stream of water and let it cascade over me. Mindlessly, I grab a bottle of body wash and coat myself with it.
I get the floor all wet when I step out. I’d forgotten to put a mat down, and I can’t be bothered with cleaning it up now. I didn’t bring any clothes in with me, so I just wrap a towel around my waist and open the door. Alina isn’t to be found, and I half wonder if she’s decided to sleep in her own bedroom tonight. I wouldn’t blame her. I hardly deserve her comfort right now.
I wander into the kitchen and look in the fridge. I open a container to find some kind of Asian vegetable and chicken mixture. It smells good, but I don’t feel like eating. I close the door without making a selection and stare out into the darkened living room.
The air around me chills my slightly damp skin, bringing me from my macabre thoughts long enough to make me head to the bedroom. I’m almost surprised to see Alina lying there, waiting for me. She watches me walk over to the dresser and yank on a pair of shorts before climbing into bed beside her.
The lavender scent makes me feel worse.
Alina wraps her arm around my head and strokes her fingers through my damp hair. After a minute, she moves down to my neck, massaging me. Usually, this puts me right to sleep, but I can’t relax.
There’s no way I could fall asleep. All I can think about is what I did with Lucia.
“Do you want to talk?” Alina asks quietly. “I know you’ve had a very long and difficult day. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I just want you to know I’ll listen if you do.”
Her words are perfect, and the guilt hits me in the gut like a harpoon. It’s fitting. I’ve been a royal Moby Dick.
I swallow but can’t answer.
“I know today has been hard on you,” Alina says. She kisses the top of my head. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“It was horrible,” I say softly. “It matched the nightmares I had about it before he was gone.”
She reaches over and strokes my arm but doesn’t speak. Her silence encourages me to continue.
“After the funeral, everyone went back to the church. There was lots of pasta and wine and all that. Apparently, it’s very important for Italians to finish a funeral by eating more food than the dearly departed ever ate in a lifetime.”
“I can see why you aren’t hungry then.”
&n
bsp; “I saw what you made,” I tell her. “It smelled good.”
“It keeps well,” she says.
I have no doubt that she made it for that reason, and it makes me feel all the more wretched. She was thinking about me and what I needed while I had my dick in another girl.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and words flow unbidden from my mouth.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
Alina strokes the back of my head again. She obviously thinks I mean Rinaldo.
“She was upset…” My voice trails off.
“Who was?” Alina asks.
This is it.
“Lucia.”
“Who’s Lucia?”
It hadn’t really occurred to me that she has never met anyone in my business circle. I’m always with the same people, and I don’t usually have to define the relationships.
“Rinaldo’s daughter.”
“Oh, yes. I’m sure she was very upset.”
“It’s not that,” I whisper.
“What is it?”
“Lucia…she…I…” I can’t finish. I don’t even know why I started.
“What happened?” Alina runs her fingers over my jaw.
“Lucia…”
“What about her?” Her voice is still soft and concerned. I wonder how long that will last.
I take a long breath and push myself into a sitting position, breaking my contact with Alina entirely. I can’t say this while she’s still trying to comfort me. She rises up just enough to rest her head on her hand and wait for me to answer her question.
“I don’t know what happened, not exactly. She was upset; I was upset… We just…” I stop speaking again. I have no idea how to do this, and I’m just babbling. I center myself with a breath and try to form a coherent sentence. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Evan, what did you do?”
I stare at my hands on top of the blanket. I remember pushing up Lucia’s skirt with them.
“I slept with her.” I can’t look Alina in the eye as I say it.
From my peripheral vision, I can see that she hasn’t jumped out of the bed. In fact, she hasn’t moved at all. Every muscle is tense, waiting for her to understand what I’ve done and tell me she’s had enough of my shit.
She doesn’t say anything, so I start blathering again.
“I’m sorry. I swear it was a mistake. Rinaldo wanted me to be with her—marry her, even—but I’m not going to. It’s never going to happen again.”
Alina touches my leg and then runs her hand up my arm. She pulls at me gently until I’m lying beside her again. I glance at her, and she appears confused.
“I had sex with her,” I say, making sure she knows exactly what I mean.
She tilts her head slightly, staring at me quizzically.
“I don’t have any claim over you, Evan,” she finally says.
Her statement is so straightforward, I don’t know how to react. As I stare at her dumbly, she continues.
“I know you don’t want me to see other clients while we have this arrangement,” Alina says, “but that doesn’t mean I’m trying to control what you do. I consider this monogamous from my side, not yours.”
“So, what are you saying? You don’t give a shit if I fuck other women?”
Alina’s mouth opens and closes, but she doesn’t say anything. She looks away from me and presses her lips together. Her body language confuses me. She’s obviously tense but not tense enough to qualify as angry. Anger is what I had expected, and I don’t understand the reaction I’m getting.
“Evan, what is this to you?” she asks quietly as she turns to face me.
“I don’t know.” I swallow hard, not sure how to answer. “It was just sex and sleep, but now…I just don’t know. It’s different.”
“In what way?”
“You’re different. You don’t push me to talk when I don’t want to. You put up with my shit, and you really don’t have to. Like you said, you aren’t afraid of me. That’s different.”
“Most people are.”
“They all are.”
“That has to make relationships very hard for you.”
I never really thought about it, but she’s probably right. I can’t trust anyone, and no one is safe around me.
“What is this to you?” I ask, turning the question around on her.
“I told you I had a childhood crush on Zach.”
“Yeah.”
“Reading his letters and hearing him talk about you—how much he admired you—well, I think that crush kind of transferred. You’re my hero’s hero.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“You were to him.”
I want to deny it, but as I reflect, I wonder if it is true. He did look up to me; I knew that when he was assigned as my spotter. You would have thought he had received the Medal of Honor the way he acted.
If Alina thinks I’m some kind of hero, she’s going to end up disappointed. I can’t live up to that. I can hardly deal with the idea of being with someone who isn’t paid to share my bed. There are obligations, and I will end up failing at them because Rinaldo needs something from me, and he will always come first.
Not anymore.
I close my eyes. I don’t want to think about that—not now. If I do, I’ll just become the moody bastard she won’t want to be around. Before this even starts, I’ll fuck it up.
“I’m not good at the whole relationship thing,” I say.
“You aren’t so bad.”
“Ha! Really?”
“Well, you apologized. Twice now. Lots of guys never do that.”
“It’s not something I usually do.”
“But you did. That means a lot. I haven’t had any relationships outside of clients, so I have no idea how I am with them.”
“You haven’t?”
“When would I have had one?” She raises an eyebrow. “I’ve spent my whole life on the street. It’s not exactly the kind of place to find boyfriend material.”
“You never had anything with a john? I mean, something…something different?”
“Never.”
I consider the idea that I’m actually more experienced in my love life than a hooker. The whole idea seems ludicrous, but what she is saying makes sense. When would she have found someone to actually date? If she did, how long would he put up with her given profession?
“So, I’m your first?” I glance at her.
“I guess you are,” she says softly. “Is that what this is, Evan? Is that what you want?”
I swallow hard.
“Do you?”
“Oh no!” She sits up and pushes me off her. “You don’t get to deflect this one.”
“But I’m good at that!” I laugh.
“You don’t like the idea of a girlfriend. That’s what you said.”
“And you kept telling me that’s exactly what I really wanted, and I’m just too lazy to go find one.”
“I didn’t say you were lazy.” She lies back down beside me, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders. “I understand how complicated relationships can get, especially with…well, with what you do.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. I’m still uncomfortable with her speaking of such things aloud.
She nods, understanding the meaning of my look, and then crosses her arms and looks at me pointedly.
“You still haven’t answered the question,” she says. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” I finally say, “I want that.”
“In that case”—Alina sits up a bit, leans on one arm and looks down at me—“I understand that when people are experiencing great loss, they can get very caught up in their emotions. I know how that can happen, and I forgive you.”
She takes her finger and places it under my chin, tilting my head toward her.
“But don’t you dare let it happen again.”
I smile.
“It won’t. I promise.”
“Good. If it did, we would not be having a
pleasant conversation right now.”
The look in her eyes is wondrous and intense. I tilt my head in her direction.
“Are you laying claim to me?”
“Why yes, Evan Arden, I do believe I am.”
My heart pounds but no longer from fear.
“I think I like that.”
For a few minutes, we just lie there. Alina’s hand caresses my chest slowly, and I reflect on what we’ve just declared. Since walking through the door, I’ve gone from not knowing if she would be there at all to suddenly having an official relationship with her.
How the fuck did that happen?
It’s unexpected, but I welcome it. There is a lot still left unsaid, but it can wait. I feel like I’m in a protective bubble, and I don’t want to bring up anything that might cause it to burst.
I really want this to work.
Chapter 21—New Leadership
It’s officially done.
I own everything.
I lean against the Camaro and smoke just outside the attorney’s office where the reading of the will took place. Lele and Lucia are still inside. I have no idea what is being said, but it doesn’t matter. Everything is set in motion.
Lele will be moving back to Italy. As far as anyone knows, she’s adopted Felisa’s daughter. Lucia was given the deed to the house on the north side of the city. It was the only thing not moved into my name.
“All other properties, businesses, and the contents therein are to be transferred to Evan Nathaniel Arden.”
It’s all quite surreal.
Lele and Lucia exit the building as I finish my cigarette. I brace myself, not entirely sure what their reactions will be to the news. I know Lele will abide by whatever Rinaldo wanted her to do, but she may not like it. Lucia is a whole other matter. I’m not sure what she thinks about all of this.
Lele dabs at her eyes with a tissue and then rushes over to me.
“Oh, Evan!” she says as she wraps her arms around my neck. “I’m going to miss you.”
I close my eyes in relief. At least Rinaldo’s decisions haven’t left her angry with me.
“Don’t be surprised if I come and visit you,” I tell her. “I’ve never been to Italy.”
“Then you must come for the holidays, at the very least.”
“I’ll try.” The thought is appealing, but I doubt I will actually ever show up. If business calls for it, I may make the trip, but I plan on running this operation from the States. By the end of the day, the family will be out of the picture in one way or another.