Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“Miscommunication is a bitch and so is knowing when you have fucked up.”
Aldo
A knock on the door pulls my attention from the paperwork in front of me, not that I was able to keep my focus centered on these agreements anyway. All I can think about is the way she looked destroyed when she left the event. My heart hurts for the first time in my life. I never wanted anything before her. I knew my path from a young age, where people wanted to be doctors and astronauts. I knew I would take over the family business and I was never allowed dreams outside of that.
“Come in,” I answer the knocking bleakly, hoping for a small distraction from the pain in my chest. When the door opens I see Gio on the other side of it with trepidation in each of his steps.
“Boss,” he greets me in a formal manner, easing his tension a bit. He won’t meet my eyes and I know that whatever he has to say won’t be easy, but needs to happen. I grab the bourbon on my desk, swig it, and clear my throat to encourage him to speak.
“I got a call late last night from the friend of that girl you were with….” he starts and all of my focus finds him. She better be okay, I had him follow them to her apartment to ensure that she made it home safely. I stand and walk over to him grabbing him by the throat and pushing him against the door he came in before I grab the gun at my waist and put it to his temple.
“Finish what you were saying before I lose the last shred of my sanity,” I utter in a deadly tone trying to get my point across.
“She told me to let you know that if you were going to kiss a woman and make her complicit in your adulterous behavior you could at least let her make that decision. There is one upside, I not only have her address but I also have a number to call to connect us to your girl.”
“You are so lucky that you are well connected and know exactly what I need. Pack a bag quickly and wait outside my office to be released. Your punishment is that you are to leave and sit outside of her apartment and watch her. She was seen on my arm last night and even if she isn’t speaking to me at the moment I need her alive to forgive me,” I say, releasing his neck and going back to my chair. It is a little easier to focus on the contract that I need to sign now that I know what I am going to do. Grabbing the notebook from the top drawer on the right side of my desk I start to pen a note.
Dear Lilac,
My shining star in the dark of night. I know how bad this looks but I beg for the chance to explain. Please, if you felt anything that I did last night you will have coffee with me and offer me the chance to explain myself.
Signed,
Do
I stand up and walk to the door of my office before pulling it open. Gio is standing there at attention waiting for further instructions.
“Slide this under her door,” I instruct him before turning around and letting a smile find my life for the first time since my lips were on hers last night. With a pep in my step and determination in my soul again I find my way to my desk and the stack of contracts is much easier. Hours pass while I meticulously read each one and note any questions I have that need to be run by our attorney. Once I have finished everything that I can behind a desk, I pull out my phone and call Enzo.
“Hey, we need to meet and discuss your endeavors for the company,” before hanging up the phone, getting myself another drink, and getting cozy for a minute while I wait for my friend to arrive. Enzo and I grew up together, he was younger than me, and being part of the family business already, we were both safe to be friends as children. He has never experienced love but I know he has had his eye on a female serial killer that I have been asking him to keep an eye on to see if she is problematic for us. So far he seems to be helping keep her under wraps but in the decades that we have known each other, the man has never asked for a favor so I let this be without question. I know that if she were a danger to us she would no longer exist. My thoughts are disrupted by my phone ringing, so I shake my head to clear them away and answer the phone.
“Boss, your message has been delivered,” Gio’s voice rings through the line and my heart shudders in my chest.
“Hold on, her friend is calling,” he says momentarily before I hear the hold music. I can barely breathe, I am so nervous. Every nerve ending feels like it's on fire and the seconds are moving at a molasses pace. Each beat of my heart reverberates in my ears as the anticipation grows.
“She is in. She will meet you for coffee at Sly Fox Coffee at 7:00 am,” Gio says triumphantly. While I am extraordinarily happy to be seeing her tomorrow, Gio has a long night ahead of him.
“Good, you can watch her tonight and follow her to the shop in the morning where you will be relieved.”
“Understood Boss,” is all he was able to get out before I hang up the line and hear a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I give the go-ahead to Enzo who has arrived just in time this evening. He opens the door, walks to the liquor cabinet, and pours himself some peanut butter whiskey before sitting down across from me. We both take sips of our drinks before diving into the business. We discuss the real estate that we manage for all of our people to ensure that everyone is able to have a safe space to sleep at night and raise their kids. Then we transition into the strip clubs and bars that we own all across the state to help clean the dirty money that comes in from the weapons trades that we deal in. I had asked him for the specs on a specific building and how difficult it might be to acquire the apartment building that my lilac lives in.
The information is easy, it's a faceless corporation and I can get it for market value and then increase the safety and security. Even if she doesn’t want me after I explain myself, she was seen with me and I will not let anything happen to her because of me. She deserves so much more than I can provide her but I so desperately want to be enough for her. The next thing that I had Enzo do was put a GPS tracker in her car and a video feed of the hallway outside of her apartment. The last file Enzo hands me is the background check. There are still a few requests outstanding since information isn't at the tips of our fingers, but I have her driving record from the DMV and her police record from our detective at the local precinct.
I open the file and read up on how she was only questioned once in a bar fight because someone touched her and she laid them out cold. It brings a smile to my face that my lilac can defend herself when she needs to. She has been pulled over for speeding before, but always seems to talk her way out of a ticket. It says here that her fingerprints were sent to the local hospital for their records since she is an employee there. If she fixes people, maybe she can fix the broken parts of my soul. I lose hours digging into the file and Enzo sits there answering any of my questions and making a list of necessary security updates to her building. By the time I look up, I realize how late it is and that I need to get to my room and get some sleep if I plan to win over my lady tomorrow morning.