Stalker Daddy: Villain Daddies

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

___________

Fia

The jittery nerves won’t go away; the itchy pricks stab my skin tenaciously as I stand in the makeup room.

I have thirty minutes before the performance begins, and I’m terrified out of my mind, and this anxiety isn’t helping. This is a high school presentation all over again, but this time is in front of people who have higher expectations.

My career practically rides on this performance, and I don’t want to disappoint those who have brought me here. Many people would say my success is through my own hands, but I will always give credit to those who have played a crucial part in my life.

I look over the bouquets, baskets of gifts, and colorful letters. I promise myself that I wouldn’t touch them until after the performance because every person who had extended their blessings to me should get my gift first.

I want to be able to gift them a performance that they will love before I even attempt to touch the gifts that they had sent me. It is a custom that I like to do out of respect.

Brushing the dense violin case, memories flash back to me as I chuckle for the first time I tried to play. It sounded terrible, and it was even worse than my singing, but I never gave up because I had fallen in love with the melody that would come out of it.

I withdraw my hand when a knock on the door jerks me out of my thoughts. It’s most likely the hairstylist that wants to come in to do my hair.

The door opens, and a woman with a petite figure smiles when she steps inside. I could have sworn the person who was going to do my hair was a man that introduced himself earlier. It must have been during those busy times of preparation that I mistook him for my hairstylist.

“Good evening, Miss. Fia.” She shakes my hand and turns my body to push me down on the chair.

The mirror in front of me is illuminated by small lightbulbs on the sides, and the whiteness blinds me for a moment.

“I’m going to do your hair, and please feel free to tell me if I’m hurting you.” Her politeness is soothing as I nod.

I don’t have much of an idea for the kind of style one would have during a live performance, but I take it that it has to be classy.

I have had experience with services where people just like to talk, and I’m fine with it because it takes my mind off other things that I would rather not think about. The performance, for one, is something I would like to leave at the back of my mind for now. I want to relax and maybe cuddle with Vito for a couple of minutes.

He said he was going to scout the area first and take care of some business before coming back. This is one of the most secure buildings, so no one can come in without an invitation or a worker’s badge.

I don’t understand why Vito had told me his thoughts about one of the board directors that I had met at the gathering. He said that the man was suspicious, and he thinks he is my stalker. As absurd as it can be, Vito made convincing shreds of evidence.

The man had access to money and power to make sure that I can be tracked from anywhere. He has a family history of schizophrenia, and he was on medication for it. I told him that it was an invasion of privacy and a breach of patient-doctor confidentiality.

Vito doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings when he dived into the man’s background, but I couldn’t stop him either because the fear of the stalker is still greater than anything I have felt.

I want this nightmare to be over with.

“Hey, Fia—oh, I’m sorry, can I call you that?” the hairstylist asks. “I’m Clarissa.”

I open my eyes and peer at her through the mirror. “It’s okay; you can call me Fia.”

Clarissa smiles as she twists a piece of hair into a curling motion for the hair iron. “I heard about what happened to you, and I’m so sorry.”

I shudder with a weak laugh. “Yeah, it’s scary. I have Vito, so things have been easier.”

“Vito,” she mumbles the name under her breath, and her eyes narrow at the top of my head.

“Is it the guy that’s been your shadow for the last week or two?”

I blink at her interest in Vito. “Yes, why?”

She shakes her head and slumps her shoulders before dropping the curled strand. “It’s just that I heard a lot of stories from my former coworkers.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Did you work in the government too?”

“Yes,” she confirms with a grin, and the pride in her eyes is brilliant. “I was the manager at the DMV. Your friend has properties that have been flagged by the IRS, and we have to report any discrepancies to our boss.”

I don’t know where she’s going with this, but that warning chirp in the back of my mind is almost identical to the ones that I would feel when the stalker is nearby.

“One of his properties is a cabin far into the woods, and we have to make sure that he is paying his taxes so we would call him, but he never picks up.”

I hold back a laugh. Vito has this nasty habit of never answering his phone unless it’s me, and Cyrus has made several complaints that his friend is being obnoxiously annoying because then Cyrus would have to physically find Vito to speak to him.

He could have called me to relay the message, but I guess it’s about something beyond my comprehension, so I couldn’t explain it even if I wanted to.

“Um,” I begin hesitantly. “I don’t think I’m supposed to hear this. You know, privacy issues…”

She shakes her head as she fluffs my hair. “I’m not working there anymore so it’s alright.”

No, it’s not alright. Anyone with a shred of common sense would know to never leak out private information, and she could have a massive lawsuit coming her way when Vito finds out that she had accessed his information without his permission.

I’m not sure how it works where she works, but I’m sure there is some regulation at the DMV to prevent workers from accessing information. If there isn’t, then celebrities and their home address would be broken into multiple times.

“He’s not a good man,” she says with a cringe.

I’m beginning to feel uncomfortable around her. I have had people talk to me, and I had felt unnerved before, but this woman makes me feel unsafe.

It can’t be, I think to myself as the pieces begin to fit.

The notion is there, and it would be so easy to put Clarissa into the stalker role since she would fit perfectly with her access to the DMV and my home address. The DMV doesn’t work on weekends or holidays where I have the most contact with the stalker, and she knows where exactly the cabin is.

At this point, I”m so desperate that anyone who fits the description could be the stalker. But I always assumed that my stalker was a man. I never thought about how they could be a woman.

As she continues to curl my hair without picking up on the anxiety reeking off my skin, Clarissa continues to pin my hair into a bun. She winces when she pulls up her arms; the pain on her face is too real to have my suspicion to put it off as an act.

“Are you okay?” I ask while staying very still as she finishes the bun.

She takes a step back and smiles. I immediately jump up from the chair and turn to her, my hips knocking on the vanity table as she cocks her head.

“No, this is what your friend did.” Her accusation is clear as to who is she implicating.

“What?” I sputter with bewilderment and a commotion of my emotions raging in my gut. And it’s telling me to get away from this woman whose eyes begin to vary into an unblinking stare.

“I tried to tell you so many times that the man is not who you think he is!” she shouts, anger raging in her eyes as she grips the curling iron in her hand.

“Excuse me,” I say as I adjust my position to not be trapped. “You need to leave right now.”

“Don’t you see?” she scoffs, eyes widening even more. “He’s the bad one! He shot me!”

She frantically gestures to the arm that’s starting to bleed at her erratic movement. She slaps the wound and continues to do so until her hand is filled with blood.

I slap my hands over my mouth and swallow the gagging sound back down.

“He’s pushing everyone away from you; he wants you to himself! I did all those things to protect you—to warn you! I didn’t want to hurt you! Those flowers were supposed to be a warning, but I didn’t know that there would be a spider inside it!”

I’m going to be sick. This is the woman who had been stalking me. No one else would know about the thorny flowers and the spider that almost bit me. if Vito was the stalker, then Clarissa wouldn’t be able to mention that incident.

I’m assuming that she was also the person in black that I saw across the lake at the cabin. She had stalked me and followed me all the way to the cabin after the car incident.

“You’re… the car—you hit me with the car! My manager and I almost died!”

Clarissa snorts. “She deserved it. She wanted you to work harder and pay you less! That’s not fair to you! I know what you need, only I do and no one else. Not Vito!”

She screeches out the name like it had been her worst enemy. I don’t think she had known Vito at all or even met him, but she has this hatred in her eyes that only someone who had done unspeakable things to her.

“What?” I am beginning to go speechless at her logic. “You don’t know what—”

She screams at the top of her lungs. “I know! I know you! I know what I’m talking about! I’m the one that understands you. I am doing this for you! It was you that told me to wait until the time is right!”

“I-I don’t even know you!” I back away more.

She throws the curling iron down on the ground, and the clanking sound jolts my heartbeat. “You spoke to me through ‘Morning Six’! I got the message! You were looking for me. I know you were. And I’m here now!”

Morning Six? What is this woman talking about? I have never played that piece before, but I have heard of it. If I remember correctly, it’s a piece that was anonymously recorded and put out into the world.

People thought it was me, but I assured them that I would never take credit for a beautiful piece that I did not personally put the effort it.

Another thing that I don’t understand is how she thought that hurting me and putting my life in a cycle of vicious paranoia was to protect me from Vito. Her logic and thought progress are unimaginable even if I tried to understand where she’s coming from.

Her blood-stained hand reaches out to me. “Don’t you see? I have been trying to warn you that Vito is taking advantage of you. He wants to be the only person in your life and make you a prisoner.”

I hiss, glaring at her as I dodged her hand. “He’s protecting me from you!”

“No, no, no,” she repeats with crazed eyes. “I didn’t mean to hit your car so hard, but I wanted to teach her a lesson. Then you left before I could apologize. I wanted you to know that I’m your guardian angel, and that’s why I sent you ‘Pandora’s Star’ because I knew you would understand the message!”

I make a quick pass at her hand and left her stumbling into the cart of clothes.

“The flowers were for you, and it was my apology, and the picture—the polaroid, it’s so you know that I’ll always protect you even if that barbarian thinks he’s doing my job.”

I have heard stalker stories that aren’t necessarily from celebrities, but they are the ones that got the spotlight because of their fame, so their stories are popularized. The ones that stuck with me are the ones that say it only takes one fleeting moment to become the foundation stone for an obsession.

This is what happens to this woman, and I am positive I have never been to a DMV in this city.

I can’t stay here. I need to leave before she becomes inconsolable. The moment she twists out of the clothing rack, I spin around and make a run to the door. Her voice is demonic in my ears as I struggle to open the door, but she had locked it.

I fumble with the lock with a pounding heart and trembling limbs. Her hands sink into my arm and turn me around to slam me against the door. My lungs burn as the air flies out of me, stars burst behind my eyes, and I push her shoulders away.

“Why can’t you see?” she demands through her delusion. “I do so much for you, and all you can think about is Vito. He’s not good for you! And that stunt he pulled at the gathering? He kissed you so he can use you for money. He doesn’t care about you—”

During her mid-rant, I struggled with her and fixed the door’s lock. One swipe and the door opens, we both fall on the ground, and the back of my head smacks loudly on the floor.

The people busy running around stops and come to help me. They take the screaming woman off me, and a pair of warm hands wrap around me. I crack an eye open and sigh in relief when I see Vito.

His expression is closed-off, angry, and sinisterly cold. The grayness of his eyes seeks refuge through a crackling sour mood as he sets me on the ground.

Clarissa’s wild tantrum becomes despairing when she sees Vito. She’s shrieking, recoiling as security takes over to hold her while they drag her away.

“He’s the one—ask him! Ask him! He’s one of us too! He’s worse than me! He doesn’t deserve you! I do! I have known you for longer! I watched you longer!”

I gasp with a short jerk, the rolling chills snapping at my skin like rubber bands. They hurt, but they keep me awake as I focus on Vito’s hand caressing my bare shoulders.

This isn’t the time to be worried, now that he’s here, he can take care of the woman. I can’t let this opportunity go to waste because of this incident.

This woman had already taken years of ultimate freedom from me by letting me rot in fear and paranoia. I don’t need to grant her another thing and especially not this performance.

“I got this,” Vito whispers into my ear and leans down to press a reassuring kiss on my quivering lips.

I nod and dart back to the room that still gives me the chills. I come back out with my violin and a relieved smile on my face. Throughout the struggle, the violin was not damaged, and I’m glad that something good came out of this.

I watch Vito quietly speaking to the head of the security officer, and I wait until he is done. I hold my violin to my chest and close my eyes, the hasty heartbeat presses against the instrument as I get to the breathing exercises.

Normally, I would think about apologizing to the guests for not performing, but I want to push through this and make everyone proud. It’s not just about me anymore. I have others that are counting on me to allow this performance to set my name on the twenty-fifth anniversary of this music hall.

Vito cups my chin and presses his thumb on my bottom lip. I smile back at him; the easy flow of calmness runs through me when I’m with him, and I’m not scared anymore.

The stalker is caught, and Vito is with me until the end. This will work out just fine as long as I put my heart into it.

“I’m ready,” I say.

He chuckles. “I will be right there with you.”

A big part of me thought that he would stop me from performing since I did just have a close encounter with my stalker, but I’m determined, and he must have seen the stubbornness in my eyes as well as the undeterred tone of my voice.

He escorts me backstage with the curtains drawn. The heaviness reflects the emotions in my stomach as he stands with me, arm around my shoulder and lips finding mine to seek comfort in his own way.

“I’m okay.” I rub his cheek and trail down his strong jawline before tracing the thick scar on his neck.

“Why didn’t you call for me?” he asks, voice rumbling and deep as it shoots a thrilling shiver down my toes.

I shake my head. “It was my mess, and I wanted to deal with it on my own. She wasn’t there to hurt me, Clarissa wanted me to know why she did what she did. In a way, she was looking out for me, too.”

He grunts, eyes narrowing at my explanation. “She wasn’t protecting you. She was trying to kill you through fear.”

“Maybe,” I hum quietly, brushing the smooth surface of the violin. “In her mind, she was protecting me from you because she thought that you were bad for me.”

“I’m not,” he denies.

He doesn’t have to tell me. I know from the bottom of my heart that this man is everything I need, and Clarissa is just a fan who had indulged in her fantasy for far too long without help.

“I’m here for you, and I will always put you first.” His kiss seals the promise, and I greedily hold onto it as I smile against his lips.

“When you come back,” he says as he takes my hand and rubs my ring finger. “I want to ask you something.”

The insinuation is obvious, and I laugh with happiness. Blissful glee simmers in my belly as I nod at the no-so-mysterious ambiguity.

“Make sure to watch me,” I tell him as he begins to pull away.

“I never stopped.” He goes to stand by the edge where the crowd can’t see him, but I can when I need emotional support.

The curtain draws open. Bright lights shine through the stage as clapping roars through the hall.

This is the transition into a new beginning. No more stalking and paranoia, no more wallowing in misery at my parents’ disapproval, and no more doubting myself. I have made it this far, and it’s all because of the people I cherish who supported me through rough times.

I had hoped that my parents would come to see this performance, and maybe they’ll understand why I love the violin so much, but I don’t see them in the seats that I had reserved for them.

That’s alright, I think peacefully as the lights dim. My eyes follow the crowd from one end to another before I make eye contact with Vito.

He smiles.

I’m ready.