12. Paige
So glad my boss has her quarterly management update today. She won’t notice me taking an extra-long lunch hour. Her meeting gives me just enough time to run home, change, then get back to my desk for five-and-a-half more mind-numbing hours of document review.
With my ‘special guest’ at home, I skipped laundry night, so I had to wear a push-up bra I bought for nights out, not for long days sitting at a desk. The thing is killing me. It’s a 32B, a band and a cup size smaller than my actual size that I bought on super sale. But the scalloped lace on the top edge of the cups is gorgeous and has a delicate fringe that peeks out slightly with some of my going-out tops. Looks sexy as hell.
It’s great for a few hours of drunken clubbing, but absolute hell for a full day sitting at my desk. It’s like there’s a pretty python squeezing every breath out of me, digging into my sides. Plus, Jared wouldn’t stop staring at my boobs all morning, which was slowing down our team’s doc review rate.
The thing is so awful that I don’t even take the stairs like usual, opting for the slowavator instead. I need to get this thing off and probably need to throw it away too. Or donate it.
Or maybe these cups can make comfy little beds for my next squirrel or baby bunny? If I rubber band the underwire part around a plastic takeout soup container, the bra cup could be like a little hammock.
I think that will work great actually. I should design things for real.
Pretty sure I have a clean sports bra in my drawer. At this point, even uniboob is better than suffocation. Or I’ll grab the least dirty one from my laundry basket.
I go over my in-and-out-quick plan as I walk down the hallway, stepping over the zug under the rug. Run in, change bras, grab the last pack of strawberry Pop-Tarts to eat on my trek back to the office, and get back before Marci’s meeting is over.
As I open the door, it occurs to me that if my sports bra is right where I think it is, I might even have time to—
Couch guy is sitting at the table.
Awake.
“Oh my god. You’re up.” I drop my keys and bag on the floor and stumble toward him.
Holy shit, I did it. I actually saved him. “You’re alive.”
And he stayed. He waited for me.
He’s sitting at the table, holding a chicken wing up to his mouth, about to take a bite.
Wait . What?
He stands up, chicken wing in one hand, Romeo nestled in the crook of his other arm, sound asleep.
Why is Romeo so calm? And where did the takeout come from?
I move toward him. “No, sit. Save your energy. Don’t make yourself dizzy. Sit. When did you wake up? How are you feel—”
“Dom,” comes another man’s voice from my bedroom . “I’m not going to wipe my ass with takeout napkins every time I take a shit here. I promise you, she’s not going to notice missing toilet paper. Next time, I—” The guy stops talking when he steps into the room and sees me.
“ Who are you ?” I look back and forth between the two of them.
“Cazzo.” Bathroom guy looks over to couch guy. “Come vuoi giocarci?”
“What’s going on?” I take a step back toward my front door.
‘Dom’ tosses the chicken wing into one of the takeout food containers.
I look at his very healthy-looking body. He’s wearing a sweat jacket, unzipped, no shirt underneath, and joggers that fit him perfectly. Those aren’t Tom’s old clothes that I had left on the end table in case he woke up while I was at work.
This guy did not just wake up. No way.
“What is happening?” I whisper. I thought he was broken. I thought I was fixing him.
Dom’s face is serious. Lips tight. He is not excited to see me.
“How long have you been awake?” I barely hear my own voice. I take a deep breath, fold my arms. “How long have you been lying to me?” I should call the police.
Dom looks at the other guy. Bathroom guy’s eyes shift to the table, mine follow.
The gun I hid that first night is on the table next to the food containers.
I have got to get out of here.
“Come sit down with me, Paige. Let’s talk.” His voice is strong, his accent heavy. Nothing like the raspy sounds he could barely make that first night.
And he knows my name.
I take another step backward toward the door.
“Come sit down. Please .”
I shake my head and take another step toward the door.
“I insist.”
“I need to go.” I turn toward the door.
Chk-chk.
My feet freeze in place, but the rest of me slowly turns toward bathroom guy.
All I see is the end of a gun. The rest of the room is blurry, but the square black end of a gun aimed at me is in perfect focus.
“No, we insist. Sit.” He motions toward my table.
I close my eyes. This can’t be happening.
“Put it down, Salvo.” Dom sounds calm, maybe even annoyed.
“She can’t fucking leave, man.”
“She’s not going anywhere. Put the gun down. Paige, take a seat.”
Dom steps between Salvo and me.
I take another step back toward the door, stumbling over my purse. I have to get out of here.
“For fuck’s sake, Paige, stop running away and come talk to me.”
“I need to go. I need to get out of here.” I take another step back. My apartment has never been this big before. How have I not reached the door yet?
“You really don’t give a shit about your own safety, do you? He pointed a gun at your head, and you’re still trying to leave?”
I shrug my shoulders and take another step back. I reach behind me for the doorknob.
I’ll go to Gina’s and—
Salvo steps toward Dom. “I said, you can’t leave.” He presses the gun into Romeo’s fluffy back, the rabbit still nestled in Dom’s arm. “Take a seat.”
Dom pushes Salvo’s arm away. “The fuck, man?”
Romeo lets out a big toothy yawn, clearly not caring about anything happening around him. But I have to protect Romeo.
I rush over and grab my rabbit off Dom’s arm. “What kind of monster are you?” I pull Romeo in close, shielding him with my body even though he’s clawing to get away from me.
Salvo moves across the room and blocks the door out of my apartment.
Now I’m trapped in here with them.
“Who are you people?”
“That’s Salvo. He’s leaving. Now . I’m Damiano. Damiano Zucco. Put the rabbit away and sit with me. We need to talk.”
Damiano and Salvo argued in what I realize might not actually have been Spanish, then Salvo left. I put Romeo back in his cage while Damiano put his gun away somewhere.
Now it’s just the two of us, sitting at my table. It’s never looked as tiny as it does with him at it.
I let out a long breath. Now that the other guy is gone, I can relax. Damiano won’t hurt me. I’m absolutely sure of that.
In fact, he’s just staring at me. A few seconds staring at my mouth, my cheeks, my eyes. Like he’s memorizing my face with those hypnotizing green eyes.
My phone has been vibrating almost nonstop from inside my bag by the door. I point over my shoulder with my thumb. “That’s either my boss wanting to fire me for not coming back or my friend, Gina. If it’s Gina and I don’t answer, she’ll eventually show up.”
Damiano nods. He gets up—with no struggle at all, not even a wince of pain—and grabs my bag. He lays my phone on the table and answers it on speakerphone.
“I know who he is,” Gina says, followed by a loud slurp on a straw. Most likely her iced pumpkin spice latte afternoon pick-me-up.
“Yeah?” This information would have been more helpful before I got home.
“Yup. He’s the enforcer for the Galliano crime family, Damiano Zucco. Told you he was Italian, not Mexican. I knew it. I totally knew it.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know what this means?”
“That you were right and I was wrong?”
“No. I mean, yes. But I’ll gloat about that later. I’m being serious right now, Paige. Have you heard of the Galliano Famiglia?”
“No. Should I have?”
“I mean, you? Maybe not. You didn’t grow up here. But for those of us who did? Yeah. Definitely. That name is a big fucking deal. Everyone born and raised here knows about the four families that pretty much run the city. When I was a kid, there were five. I don’t know why, but now there are only four.”
She takes another loud slurp. “They’re the mob, Paige. Like Al Capone. Or Donnie Brasco, or what was the movie with the horse head, the one with James Caan when he was hot as fuck? Or the Ray Liotta one when he was a gangster and he was hot as fuck? Is that the same movie, or was that a different one? I don’t remember. But somehow, all the mob guys are hot as fuck, your guy included.”
Damiano dips his head a little, smiles. His stupid, gorgeous, bearded smile. And his glittery green eyes that I keep trying to look away from but don’t know how to.
Don’t forget he’s been lying to you, probably for days. Maybe this whole time.
It’ll be easier to be mad at him if I’m not looking at him. No doubt that face lets him get away with anything. I turn toward the one window this room has.
Why are my plants on the windowsill?
I look around. All my plants have been moved. I lean forward to look into the kitchen. The little pothos is missing from his spot on the counter.
They’re all on the windowsill or on a stack of books next to the window.
“You still there, P? Did Marci walk by? Hello?”
“I’m here.”
She whispers this next part, “I’m pretty sure he kills people, Paige. That’s why he had a gun. Not for self-defense. And that’s why he didn’t want the police or the hospital. He wasn’t worried someone would come finish him off, he was worried he’d get arrested.”
He doesn’t look offended or upset by anything Gina is saying.
“Don’t go home after work today, okay? Come to my place so we can figure out what to do.”
“Maybe.”
Damiano reaches for a notebook from the small stack of them on the table. He scribbles “how does she know this?” in tight, perfect cursive. I was saving that notebook. I don’t know what for—I hadn’t figured out what was special enough to write in it yet. But now that he’s written on a page, the whole book is ruined.
He taps his scribbled note with the pen.
“How did you figure out who he is?”
“I was thinking about it more and more—that all signs pointed to him being part of the Famiglias, except the Mexican flag tattoo part. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I needed to get my nails done anyway, so I went to Lucinda’s Cresta since that’s where all the mafia wives and girlfriends get their hair done.”
“Why do you even know that?”
“Everyone from here knows that.”
Damiano nods.
I close my eyes for a second. I’m such an idiot.
“So these two girls our age walk in, already fully dolled up walking into the salon, and I’m like, jackpot. I was trying to figure out how to ask them if they knew anything about some guy getting all shot up in the park when they start yapping away about him on their own. The first one was saying her boyfriend was going to earn some huge prize for finding Damiano and bringing him to their boss and then he was finally going to buy her the ring she wants. Actually sounded like a really tacky ring if you ask me, but that’s not my point.”
Damiano pulls a phone from the pocket of his hoodie— since when does he have a phone? —and texts something to someone. My body slumps low in my chair. Am I actually this gullible? I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was helping a stranger in need.
“Then the other one said that there was no way the first one’s boyfriend could take Damiano out and that he’s crazy if he’s going to go up against the Galliano enforcer. Then something about Damiano’s wanted for shooting a couple of their guys in the park —that’s how I knew I was right—so why would her boyfriend think he has a chance against him and that he’ll probably end up dead trying.”
Damiano’s barely reacting to any of the things Gina’s saying, like it’s all no big deal to be accused of those things.
“Then the first one asked why the two of them don’t just find some dentists to marry because life would be easier. Then they had this whole conversation about how, since a dentist gets some medical training, maybe one would actually know what to do with a girl’s clit and, you know what, Paige? I think they were onto something there, because remember that—”
“Gina, did you talk to them at all? Did they know you were listening?” No way she kept her mouth shut.
There’s a pause.
“I mean, I totally joined in on the clit conversation, because remember that X-ray tech I was seeing a while back? He could—”
“Gina.”
“What? Oh, come on, who doesn’t love a good clit-lashing? Oh wait, Tom wasn’t a giver. And don’t even get me started on Spencer. You really need to start demanding some reciprocity, Paige. Woman the fuck up already. Did you practice saying what you want with your houseguest?”
Damiano tilts his head slightly, smiles at me. Oh my god. He’s heard everything, this whole time. Maybe he can use his gun to put me out of my misery.
I close my eyes. “I have to go, G.”
“Okay. Yeah. Call me when you’re done with work. And come straight to my place, okay? Don’t go home until we figure this out.”
“Love you.” I press the end button on my phone. I stare at Damiano for a long minute, my arms crossed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me she has it all wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Most of that was right. Or close.” His obviously Italian accent is so strong now that I feel like an idiot for missing it in the car. “But there’s more to it. Let’s start over.” He reaches his hand out to shake mine.
I mean, I guess we are just meeting.
I reluctantly take his hand. It’s big and warm. And was on my boob, and I totally perved out over it. And I touched his dick. While I thought he was in a coma, I touched his dick. But he was awake for that.
“Pleasure to meet you, Paige.” He isn’t letting go. He’s staring at my mouth. Is he thinking about his hand on my boob too? Or my hand on him?
“Hmm,” is all I manage. I pull my hand back. “If you’re so Italian, why is your tattoo the Mexican flag?”
He shakes his head. “This?” He points to the flag on his chest. “This is the ensign for Italy’s Navy. Il Tricolore plus a crown and coat of arms. Mexico’s flag has an eagle in the center, no?”
Maybe he’s right. Now that I think about it, I think I remember Mexico’s with a bird on it.
“Why are people trying to kill you?”
“I don’t know.”
I don’t have patience for being lied to anymore. I really don’t. I stand up. “Okay, well, it was nice knowing you. You should leave now.” I walk over to the window and grab my little fern and put it back on the coffee table. Then I go get the pothos and return it to its little spot in the kitchen.
Damiano sits silently, watching me.
I move two more plants back to their normal spots, then look over my shoulder at him. “Oh, you’re still here?”
“I don’t know why people want to kill me this time , Paige. Someone from another Famiglia is claiming that I killed one of their guys and shot another in the back. I promise you that didn’t happen.”
“Right, because a guy who carries a gun and breaks into someone’s car completely covered in blood would never shoot anyone.”
“Not in the back. I’ve never shot anyone in the back.”
I just stare at him, blinking my eyes intentionally.
“I aim for the throat if I need someone to die immediately and aim for the thigh if I just want them to fuck off. The night you found me, angel, I took one throat shot and one leg shot. Both hit exactly on target.”
He’s got to be joking. No way he’d just casually admit to shooting people. He’s too calm about it. He actually seems more concerned about whether or not I believe him than he is about confessing to murder.
“The guy I shot in the leg, he crawled to his car and hightailed it the fuck out of there, I assume to get medical attention. Exactly the point of the leg shot.”
I did see an SUV speeding away, but that doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth. “And the other guy? Doesn’t sound like he crawled away.”
Damiano shrugs his shoulders. “He shot me first. In the back , you might have noticed.” He points to his shoulder. “I shot him in self-defense.”
I grab another plant from the window and take it back to its correct spot. “So you kill people? For a living? That’s, like, your actual job?” I’m trying to act as casual about this as he is.
“That’s not how I would describe it. I keep order, keep things running smoothly. I keep the people I care about safe.” His eyes follow me as I go back and forth from windowsill to shelf, windowsill to table, putting my little greenies back where they belong. “Fewer people die when I do my job.”
“Yeah, sure sounds like it.” I pick up two plants, then stop. I look him dead in the eyes. “When did you wake up?”
He hesitates. “Paige.” He walks over, stopping right in front of me. He’s got at least six inches on me. I have to crane my neck up to see his face. He looks from one eye to the other, searching.
His lips part like he’s going to answer, but then he doesn’t. Instead, he takes the plants out of my hands and walks them back over to the window. “Your plants aren’t getting enough natural light. These need full eastern exposure.”
He goes into the kitchen and grabs the pothos, too. Then the fern from the coffee table.
Every plant that I just put away, he’s putting back by the one window this room has.
What the hell?
I step in front of him. “Don’t touch those. They’re mine. And they’re finally doing really great. They’re—”
I stop.
I look over at the window, then back at the shelf on the far side of the room where most of them normally live. Where they’re definitely not getting direct sun. “Have you been taking care of my plants? While I thought you were lying there half-dead?”
While I thought I was taking care of you, you were taking care of my plants?
He doesn’t say anything. He puts the bonsai tree on its usual spot on the shelf, even though it’s obvious he wants to move it back to the window.
“You moved them to the window each morning, didn’t you? Then back to their normal spots before I got home?”
He doesn’t deny it. He just looks at me like he’s sorry I suck so bad at life.
I slump down onto the couch, dropping my head into my hands. Defeated. “Were you even in a coma at all?” I peek up at him.
The look on his face— pure pity —answers my question.
I wasn’t helping him. I wasn’t even helping my little plants. “You didn’t need me.”
Damiano moves in front of me. Lowers down onto his knees. He reaches up and tucks my hair back behind my ear. “Of course I needed you, Paige.” With his stupid, perfect accent, it comes out like ‘beige’ but with a ‘P.’ A part of me loves it.
“Uh-huh.”
His thumbs rub the outsides of my thighs. “You got me out of the park.”
I swallow hard, fighting back tears. “So you needed my car.”
He smiles. “You hid me.”
“You needed my apartment.”
He shakes his head slightly. “You stitched me up.”
I stare at him a long minute. “Did I though?” My stitches never look as evenly spaced and perfectly sized as the ones on his shoulder do. Mine always look shitty, like the ones on his back. “How did you even learn to do stitches like that?”
“Six years in the GOI.”
I shrug my shoulders. No clue what that means.
“Special forces in Italy’s Navy. Gruppo Operativo Incursori. Like the U.S. Navy SEALs, only better dressed,” he says with a wink. “Medical training is a part of the program.” His eyes drop down to my lady parts for a long second. “Six months of medical training.”
Oh my god, he’s thinking about what Gina said.
And now so am I.
Damiano lets out a long breath. “I needed you, Paige.” He slides his hands up onto my thighs, parts them slightly. His grip on my thigh tightens. He licks his full lips. “I still need you.”
Even with him kneeling in front of me, wedged between my knees, I try to squeeze my thighs together to stop that tingly feeling.
“You did such a good job taking care of me. Let me take care of you now.” He leans forward and kisses the inside of my right thigh, just above my knee. He looks up at me, his bright green eyes twinkling with mischief. “Let me show you exactly how grateful I am.”