Chapter 35 – Amanda
The suffocating vise of the panic attack dulled the events of the drive-by shooting. I was numb in the aftermath of the gunfight. It wasn’t until the harsh overhead lights made me bury my head into the living wall of darkness that I began to calm down.
Vincenzo lifted me with ease. It felt nice being putty for a change.
Just a minute more.
As he moved, I muttered something about not paying for the food.
It made him laugh. The sound relaxed me further.
By the time I risked peeking my head up, I realized we were exiting an elevator.
The walls were covered in plaster, painted a creamy shade.
Dim lights glowed over the space, and three cherry wood doors were situated at intervals.
Of course, Vincenzo walked to the biggest.
He tapped the digital panel. The lock clicked, and then we were moving into the shadowed space. I pulled myself up, trying to gauge my surroundings.
“Ssshhh….” Vincenzo brushed a hand down my hair.
Some wild animal yowled in the distance, but it didn’t approach.
“Where are we?” My throat was dry, and the words stuck.
“You’re staying here.”
I wanted to roll my eyes at the bossy command. But I was too tired to reason with him.
Vincenzo plucked my shoes off, dropping them as he walked. I was horizontal a moment later when he laid me on an impossibly soft surface. Warmth thrummed through my belly, and my core squeezed with want, but he pulled a blanket over my shoulders.
Not tonight, then.
“You’re safe here,” he murmured, running his fingers through my hair. The pressure felt nice. “Stay put, okay?”
I nodded sleepily. “Just going to take a nap.”
His fingers flexed against my scalp. “Amanda, that shooting could have been an assassination attempt.”
Dread hit my veins like a spike of caffeine. I went to sit up, but he pushed me down gently.
“I’ll find out,” he promised. “But until we know that your ex-fiancé isn’t coming after you, you need to promise me you’ll stay here.”
“Nnooo—” I wheezed.
He wouldn’t. Steven…wouldn’t. Right? But then again…. I almost married a man I didn’t know. A man who’d tried to buy me from my father and force me to move to England with him.
I closed my eyes and shuddered. Vincenzo ran his fingers through my hair once more.
“Dormi, fiore mio,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”
My brain tried to stay awake, but it smelled nice here. The last thing I heard was the door closing on another rumbling yowl. I inhaled leather, smoke, and musk. This was the place where a monster laid his head. Nothing would touch me here.
***
The bark of a rough curse sent me shooting straight out of a dreamless sleep. I blinked into the dark, knowing instinctually that it was daytime, but those blackout curtains hid the sun.
I pushed out of the covers as more curses, bumping, and thumping made a jilted symphony beyond the door. Pieces of last night formed in a scattered series of scenes. There was softness and nostalgia. That mixed with numbness and terror.
A long string of Italian filtered through the door.
Whoever was out there called someone’s mother a whore, their ‘bowels infected with worms,’ and a cursed the lineage of their ‘gangrenous ballsack offspring.’
It wasn’t Vincenzo, but the tone was familiar.
Opening the door, I peeked out. The space was an open loft. Industrial black metal trimmed roughhewn wood accents, and red-stained brick filled the primary space.
Bill scrambled around the back of a couch, the one and only piece of furniture. There was no kitchen table, not even a coffee or side table. The residence felt oddly empty. But not lonely. It seemed to be…waiting.
My random musings were cut short as a yowl broke through the space.
A flicker of grey shot across the floor.
Before I realized what the whizzing ball of fur was, it launched itself at me.
I yelped, but instinct took over, and I caught the animal.
It burrowed its little head in the crook of my arm, hiding and silently asking me to protect it.
“That fiend—” Bill pointed his finger at me “—stole my Egg McMuffin!”
I rubbed my fingers along the cat’s spine. From under the sleek, warm fur, a gentle purring began. The wee beast sounded triumphant.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, staring the Made Man down. “And where’s Vincenzo?”
Bill planted himself in the middle of the loft, chest rising and falling as he sniffed loudly. “After running errands all night, which included paying for your uneaten breakfast, I ask one thing!” Bill raised his hands to the heavens. “I just want a moment’s peace to eat!”
I gave him a dry look. “My condolences. Where’s Vincenzo?”
Bill sneezed. “In New York.”
My heart pattered in a sad rhythm. “Oh.”
“Your shit’s over there. I’m going to go get some more food. What do you want?” Bill pulled his keys from his pocket, rubbing his red, watering eyes with his other hand.
“I’m not hungry,” I said as my stomach pinched in protest. “And why are my things here?”
I moved farther into the loft, seeing my laptop bag and suitcase piled by the door. A stone settled in my gut. This was not how things were supposed to go. I needed to divorce my unwanted husband and invest my time escaping another equally bad marriage.
They say the devil you know is better….
I shoved that observation down. It was too complicated to stay attached to Vincenzo Messina, even if everything else in my life wasn’t a complete and utter clusterfuck.
“You’re staying here.” Bill’s answer dripped with the obvious.
“I am not!” Even as I said it, a part of me protested. “I have things to do.”
The henchman opened his mouth to speak, sneezed three times, then wiped his nose on a cotton handkerchief.
“What does it matter?” Bill grumped. “No one will touch Vincenzo’s girl. You’ll be safe here.”
Safe…warm. Comfortable.
Those three things made it so I had the best night’s sleep in ages. They fueled the part of me that wasn’t in a hurry to leave.
“That’s reasonable,” I conceded. “But only until he finds out if the attack last night was a hit on me.”
Bill studied me, his expression unreadable. “Right…. Okay, so I’m headed to the deli down the street. What do you want?”
“I’m good.”
“He said you’d be difficult,” Bill muttered in Italian with a ragged sniff breaking up the words.
“He wasn’t wrong,” I responded in the same language. “I’ll take a coffee, though, if you don’t mind.”
Bill nodded absently, marching out the front door. It slammed closed behind him. The cat poked his head up, staring after the recently departed henchman.
“Stealing his food made him grumpy.” I scratched the creature behind the ears. “That wasn’t nice.”
The most piercing green eyes turned up to me. It was as if the cat begged to differ.
A quick search found my fully charged phone on the L of the counter that served in place of a free-standing island.
There weren’t barstools there, though. I sank onto the sofa, the only place in the whole loft to sit.
The grey cat hopped off my lap, tail waving as it prowled across the cushions to the single throw pillow.
The beast paused for a moment before diving behind the navy square.
A bolt of white shot from under the space, the grey cat hot on its heels.
There were two of them.
I laughed to myself as the cats ran about. The white beasty had the remnants of Bill’s breakfast clamped fast in its jaw. It wasn’t until they leapt onto the kitchen counter, ready to climb on the fridge, that I shook myself.
“Wait! I know you—”
There was something vaguely familiar about their antics.
Instead of checking my messages, I tapped into my social media.
It wasn’t possible. It just…wasn’t possible.
Mad at myself that I didn’t follow the Instagram account that dreadful morning on the beach, I had to spend the time searching through my sister’s followers to find it. When I did, I sat back with a jolt.
Sure enough, Vinny15Sina had the exact same cats. And this was the same apartment.
“I found you,” I breathed.
Vincenzo had a tangible, digital presence after all. He was a cat dad, posting about his pets every so often.
“I don’t believe it.” A manic laugh choked out of me. “All this time.”
When I saw the names of the cats, my heart stopped beating. No. Just…no.
Those were the names a silly girl picked out with her boyfriend.
That was too much. Right now, I needed simple things.
Being here, in his loft, was as much as I could handle.
I clicked my phone shut, stood quickly, and began to explore.
After so many years, I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity to delve into the mind of the long-lost boy.
But the man who existed in the present was unfamiliar.
There weren’t any personal touches in the whole loft.
The second bedroom held a set of iron dumbbells.
The bedroom I’d slept in had a bed, some unimaginative clothes in the closet, and the basic necessities in the bathroom.
He didn’t even have a TV, let alone a video game console.
“Oh, Enzo, what happened to you?” I muttered.
What he had were two cats. Otherwise, he merely existed. But those animals were proof that the rough man who chased me through the dark had a soft side. The nostalgic pancake date, the cats—these messed with my head more than if this place was filled with life.