29. Georgia
29
GEORGIA
W hen we came out of the shop into the afternoon light, I couldn’t bear the thought of being locked back up in that creepy old mansion again.
I whirled to Elio and clutched his hand with my free one. The wrist closest to him was already handcuffed to his. The psycho.
“Can we take a walk?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Please, just a little… We could eat something.” I hated the plea in my voice, but I couldn’t stop it. I was close to getting on my knees and begging.
He shook his head again, and something inside me snapped.
I stopped on the street, only jerking forward when he tried to keep walking and found my weight pulling against the cuff.
He frowned at me.
“Even prisoners get more yard time than this,” I snapped at him, barely holding it together.
He tilted his head to the side. “What the fuck do you know about prisoners and their yard time? The closest you’ve ever been to being inside is watching a drama on TV.”
I snorted. “Okay, fine, and you’re an expert?”
It had just been a comeback, some kind of response to the shots he fired at me nonstop, but this one struck.
I could see in his eyes as soon as the words left me, that they were true. I felt it in my gut.
Elio had served time. The man who’d never wanted to end up like his father, had ended up in prison at some point after all.
He stared at me, and I stared right back.
“When?” was all I could manage. My questions had formed an impossible pile of dry kindling, and any second, a struck match could light the thing on fire and burn down the life that I’d known.
“Ask your father,” Elio said.
Scratch. Hiss. Whoosh.
What the fuck?
“What do you mean?” I asked, wanting to know but also scared to find out.
Elio broke eye contact first. He peered down the street. His free hand pushed through his hair. It was shorn short these days, precise and no-nonsense. But the movement was the same as the past, when he had chocolate-brown waves to tumble across his forehead.
“There’s a pizza place down the block.” His voice was quiet.
Then he tugged me forward, and we were walking.
“What were you talking?—”
“If you want to walk, drop it,” he told me in a tone that brooked no argument.
I did want to walk. I didn’t want to drop it, but it seemed I had little choice in the matter.
We walked in silence, my cuffed hand tucked in the small of his elbow, like we were any other couple out for a stroll down a pretty tree-lined street packed with boutiques. I tried to ignore the screaming questions in my head. There was a display window on the way that caught my attention.
I hesitated at the glass, and Elio stopped, too, following my gaze.
“All that time married to a millionaire like Conti, and you never made your designs available for sale.”
“I never finished any of them.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You had over ten years.”
I sighed. “Things didn’t really go to plan. I take it yours didn’t either.”
“What makes you say that? I’m rich, as you pointed out, powerful, second in line to New Jersey and a good chunk of New York.”
“And yet you’re so happy you play Russian roulette with yourself at night,” I blurted out before I could think twice.
Elio continued to stare at the window display. The only sign he was bothered that I’d seen his little hobby was that ticking muscle in his solid jaw.
“Yeah, well, take comfort, topolina . One night, maybe you’ll get lucky. Being a widow suits you. Maybe one day soon, you’ll be mine.”
“Don’t say that,” I snapped at him, my temper flaring even as my heart dropped.
He gave me a sidelong glance. “Why not? It’s the truth. You already mourned the husband you really wanted, the one you chose, so I don’t think you’ll shed many tears for me.”
“Elio,” I started.
But he was turning away.
“There’s the pizza place. I’m not taking the cuffs off, so eat one-handed or don’t eat at all… Be the talk of the town, it doesn’t bother me.”
We crossed the street, the moment in front of the shop lost. My heart felt like it was being tossed in turbulent seas, and my chest was an ocean of regret and confusion, and terrible, cutting longing. Longing so deep I felt it down to my very bedrock.
The pizza place was authentic and smelled delicious. It was standing room only. Elio battled to the front, letting his arm trail back so I could stay out of the fray, and managed to order, pay, and carry two bendy paper plates with slices. We sat outside on the curb, surrounded by others doing the same. There were teenagers messing around with friends, and some couples kissing. The pizza place sat in a small square, and there was even a fountain in the middle. On that sunny evening, we could have been in Naples.
A family of three passed by us, and the little girl in the stroller dropped her toy giraffe. The mom stopped pushing the stroller, and the dad jogged back for the toy. He handed it to his daughter and threaded his hand through his wife’s. They beamed at each other.
Such simple, honest happiness. A display of richness that money couldn’t buy.
I watched them until they disappeared around the street corner, and then I turned to find Elio watching my handcuffed wrist. The skin had turned pink and irritated underneath.
He sighed. “Promise me you won’t run off and I’ll remove it.”
I considered his words. Running away wasn’t even on my horizon right now. I was too intrigued by figuring out what had happened in his past to go anywhere.
I held out my pinkie to him. “Okay, but you have to make me a promise, too. You have to swear it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What promise?”
“You won’t play that game again.”
He jerked like I’d slapped him. His pale-green eyes fastened on me, demanding somehow. “Why do you care? I told you, it’s the best-case scenario for you.”
I shook my head. “I need protection, so I need you. I can’t risk you leaving me alone in a den of wolves. You brought me here. You’re responsible for me.”
He stared at me so long, my hand wavered in the air between us.
“Are you asking me to save you, Georgia?” His deep voice made me shiver. No one did pure, unbridled power like him.
“Hmm, maybe the second time is the charm,” I quipped and wriggled my pinkie. “Swear, and I promise not to run away.”
Slowly, he brought his pinkie to fasten around mine.
“Deal.”
After freeing my hand, he turned back to his pizza.
I’d devoured my pizza, even faster than he’d eaten his. Now, I wiped at the grease around my mouth, suddenly self-conscious. My cheeks felt hot. I was suffering through a second adolescence around this man, and it wasn’t any easier than the first one. Only he could ruffle me like this.
He reached out and rubbed the corner of my mouth with a tissue. I found myself holding my breath.
He dropped his hand.
“We better get home.” He helped me to stand, which turned out to be a good thing because my legs had fallen asleep at the curb.
I groaned at the leg pain and the thought of going back to Casa Nera.
“Is it too much to hope that that place burned to the ground while we were out?” I complained.
Elio just smirked faintly. “Let’s go and see, shall we?”
Ten minutes later, we pulled up at a tall, swanky apartment building overlooking the harbor.
“Where is this?” I wondered when the car stopped outside, and the driver got out.
“I told you we were going home… not to Casa Nera.”
“Wait, Casa Nera isn’t home?” I asked, eagerly following Elio out of the car.
He stood on the pavement and waited for me.
“It is to Renato… but not to me, and not for us. This will be our home, for now.” He inclined his head toward the huge glass apartment building.
I couldn’t fight my relief when we got into the elevator. Elio pressed his finger against a sensor, and a chime sounded.
“You didn’t even press the floor button,” I pointed out.
“It’s programmed to my fingerprint. No one unauthorized can access the floor.”
“Which floor?” I asked. The glass elevator shot upward, carrying us higher and higher. “The penthouse?”
“Only the best for the new Mrs. Santori,” Elio stated flatly.
“Very funny,” I said, but I couldn’t deny I was happy not to be going back to Casa Nera.
The elevator opened into a sleek dark hallway. Guards stood on either side of an impressively fortified door.
“Sir.” Both men saluted Elio with tight precision.
Elio saluted them back.
“Does Renato know you have your own private army?” I asked as the locks disengaged on the vault-like door.
“Well, I am the mercenary, after all,” Elio murmured and ushered me in.
Once we were inside, the men locked the door behind us.
“You don’t have any security actually inside?”
“I don’t need security inside,” he said, leading me down the hallway to the huge open-plan living room.
Night had fallen. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the Atlantic City marina, neon skyscrapers reflected endlessly on the black water.
“So confident.”
“No. Just experienced.” Elio turned down another hall. “Let me show you to your room.”
My room.
“Wow, this hostage is moving up in the world. I’ve got my own room and everything.”
I followed behind him until we came to a door. He pushed it open and waited for me to enter.
It didn’t look like the rest of the penthouse, from what I’d seen so far. This room was warm and inviting. Pale sage walls and dark wood surrounded a wrought-iron bed. The covers were terra-cotta and cream linen, and a thick wool blanket was tossed across the end. Wait. Sage? I glanced around the walls. The silence felt too thick as I met Elio’s eyes. One day I want to paint our bedroom sage green… it makes me feel safe. My childish optimism and confidence felt like mocking as the memory hit me. My favorite color… the same color as Elio’s eyes. Why’d he paint the room this color?
How long had he been planning on finding me and keeping me here, in the room next to his… his prisoner… his hostage… his wife.
What really happened to you? I wanted to ask, but I was scared to. Tell me about the years I’ve missed… because something terrible enough happened that the boy with laughing eyes and a silver tongue became hard and cold… and yet still remembered the color I wanted to paint our bedroom one day.
My heart softened. I watched him. His face gave nothing away about the simple gesture, but the way he avoided my eyes, it was clear. We both knew it meant something. That something was making my chest feel fuzzy.
The past sat like a boulder, holding my hope pinned down. I needed to know what had happened to this man. I knew in my gut that once I did, nothing would ever be the same, and I wasn’t sure I could cope with that.
“Make yourself at home. I have to go out.”
“A sottocapo’s work is never done,” I muttered, and then a terrible thought occurred to me. “Unless you’ve got somewhere else to go? I never thought about it before… since I’m your hostage and not your wife… if you had a girlfriend already.” The thought made me sick with jealousy, though I’d never admit that out loud.
The silence was deafening.
Elio was impassive. I couldn’t get anything from that guarded facade. I wanted to crack his head open and peer inside.
He stepped back into the hallway.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said quietly. “Don’t try to run. You wouldn’t get far.”
“I believe you,” I sighed, sinking down on the king bed. It was massive and cold.
I don’t think I ever did, I admitted to myself. Not then, and not now. I hadn’t got far.
I was still right here.
Waiting for him.