Chapter Twenty-One
MONIQUE
––––––––
Things were not going the way she'd hoped.
When Monique made it home after trying to get into Raz's casino, she should've felt down and out because she'd failed. Instead, she was excited because she had a plan to end this BS breakup between her and Orazio once and for all.
That excitement dwindled the moment she and Toya tried to convince Meka to help them. Seated on Monique's living room couch, Meka stared at the television screen, watching cartoons and eating a bowl of cereal.
So far, she hadn't responded to any of their questions or comments. She ignored them the same way she ignored Cas. It was annoying as heck. Yet, Monique wasn't ready to give up yet.
Seated on one side of her, with Toya on the other, Monique stared at her bestie. Monique noted the bags under Meka's eyes. It looked like she hadn't been getting much sleep. It also looked like she'd been crying.
Maybe they needed to leave Meka alone. Everyone processed things differently. And it was clear that Meka was still trying to process what had happened to them. Just as Monique was about to apologize to Meka for bothering her, Toya opened her big mouth.
"Meka, my love," Toya started. "I love you like we both came out of the same twat. But if you keep ignoring us, I'm going to knock that big ass bowl of cereal out of your hand. Do you hear me?"
Meka continued watching TV, showing no signs of having heard Toya at all. They'd been at this for an hour now. It was clear she wasn't going to help them. They'd have to find another way to achieve their task. Toya reached for Meka's bowl. Oh, no!
"Touch it, and I'll drown you in this milk," Meka snarled, eyes still on the screen.
Toya froze. "Violent wench, would you really drown your best friend in milk?"
Meka snapped her head in Toya's direction. "Inconsiderate wench, are you really asking your best friend to contact a man who is part of a crime family, a family that your friend wants nothing to do with, and ask for his help in kidnapping his brother? Really? Is that what we do now? Are we just as insane as them now?"
Toya opened her mouth and then closed it. She opened it again to say, "When you put it like that, it does sound kind of crazy. But..."
"It sounds crazy because it is crazy," Meka cut her off. "And I don't want any part in it."
"But it's for Monique," Toya started.
"Then let Monique call him. Why do I have to do it?"
Monique swallowed. It was her turn to speak up. "I just thought Cas would be more likely to help if it was you who asked."
Meka turned her cold glare Monique's way. An instant chill crept over her.
"Did you stop to think that maybe this would only hurt Cas in the end?" Meka asked. "Helping me and then getting ignored by me again would only make him feel worse. It'll make him feel used. Did you stop to think about that?"
"I don't understand why you're ignoring him. It's clear that he likes you," Monique told her. "Yet, you're being so mean to him."
"Oh, my gosh!" Meka yelled. "Is that what we're telling women now? If he likes you, you must be nice to him. If he likes you, you have to put your own feelings aside to make sure he doesn't get hurt. Fuck how I feel, his feelings are more important than mine, right?"
"Of course not," Monique started.
"Obviously, they are because that's what you and Toya keep telling me."
Monique and Toya started to speak again, but Meka spoke over them.
"Fuck Caspari and his family. Fuck the entire Cattaneo crew. I want nothing to do with them. And I won't be forced to get involved in any of your craziness. If you were my real friends, you wouldn't try to make me do it either."
Toya sighed and then said, "Talking to him could be therapeutic."
"Fuck your type of therapy," Meka said. "Are you not listening to the words coming out of my mouth?"
Through clenched teeth, Toya continued. "Meka, you can't continue being a weak bitch about this..."
"I'm weak?" Meka yelled, almost causing milk to slosh over the rim of her bowl. "I'm weak for avoiding danger? Toya, you stupid as fuck for running toward the danger. No one in their right mind runs toward the threat. If this was a horror movie, you'd be the hoe who dies first."
"But this isn't a horror movie, and Cas isn't a threat," Toya pointed out. "He's not the one who tried to hurt us. He saved us."
"Threats cling to him and his family, Toya. Danger follows them like a shadow. If that's what you and Mo are into, that's fine. Do you. I'm not into that. I don't date bad boys. Fuck drug dealers, and scammers, and men who are in the mafia. If I brought a kingpin drug lord to meet y'all, wouldn't you pull me aside and tell me I needed to let him go?"
Meka's gaze moved from Toya to Monique. Monique chewed her bottom lip, knowing she'd have a fit if Meka brought a kingpin to meet them.
"Right, your silence is your answer," Meka said. "So why is Cas better than a King Pin?"
Again, Monique had no answer. He was better because they knew him. Well, she hadn't known him for long. Damn it.
"He's not better," Meka answered for them. "He's no different. Look, if you all want to be in with the Cattaneo family, I won't stop you. But please respect my decision not to be involved with them. And it's not just because I fear their lifestyle. It's because I don't agree with it. I don't want to be with a man who could possibly be kidnapped or beheaded on any given Tuesday. My anxiety is too bad for that. I'd be a nervous wreck every day. And what makes it worse is that I know Cas's anxiety has to be shot. From our past discussions, I know he doesn't handle this type of shit well."
"It seems like he handles it pretty well to me," Toya mumbled.
Monique glared at Toya, wishing her friend could read the room better.
Toya shrugged. "What? I'm just saying he handled himself well if you ask me."
"Looks can be deceiving," Meka told her. "He may have looked calm and collected, but inside, he was dying. I could see it in his eyes."
"It didn't look like that to me..." Toya started.
Monique's glare silenced her.
"Trust me," Meka whispered. "He was hating himself. And I know that because I know Caspari Cattaneo better than his brothers do. Do you want to know how I met Cas?"
Monique and Toya's gazes met, shock registering in both of their eyes. They'd asked Meka a dozen times about how she and Cas met. Each time, Meka avoided the question. Was she really about to tell them now?
"Do you want to know or not?" Meka asked.
"Yes," Toya and Monique rushed to say.
Meka sighed and then said, "Okay. I'll tell you how I came to know Caspari Cattaneo. And I'll tell you how I know he doesn't want to do the things he does for his family. It all started with a late-night phone call that turned into so much more."
This sounded like it was going to be good.
"Y'all know, I used to work for a hotline that took calls from people who were thinking of committing suicide, right?" Meka asked.
Monique and Toya nodded.
"Sometimes we got calls from people who just needed someone to talk to. I usually worked from home instead of at the call center. One night, I was feeling down and out. I was listening to some gospel songs to uplift my spirit. The work phone rang, and I answered it without turning the music off. The caller told me he wasn't suicidal, but he felt like he was losing his mind."
"Was it Cas?" Toya asked.
"Just listen to the story," Meka snapped. "With the music playing in the background, I started talking to him. And because I was going through some stuff also, I overshared, which was against the rules. But he actually talked me through my issue. At the end of the call, he asked me what that song was in the background. I told him. He asked if he called again, how could he reach me. I told him my extension. We ended the call with both of us feeling better."
"Awww, it was Casper the ghost, wasn't it?" Toya asked.
Ignoring her, Meka continued. "He called again the next night. This time, he had that same gospel song playing in the background. And we talked for hours. This went on for a few nights until I got an email from my supervisor asking me to come into the home office for a meeting."
"So, that's why you got fired from that job," Toya mused.
"I didn't get fired. I quit. And no, that's not what happened at that meeting. I went to the meeting and was pretty much told what I already knew, that I was getting too close to a caller. Of course, they monitor our calls and periodically listen to some. She listened in on one of him asking me for my cell phone number. I didn't give it to him, though I was tempted to. But he rattled his off to me. And my dumb ass wrote it down, despite telling him that I wouldn't. When my supervisor told me that she would be routing calls from his number to another member of the team, I was happy."
"Happy?" Monique asked. "Why happy? Clearly, you two had a connection."
"I was happy because I didn't have to end the nightly calls myself. Someone else would do it for me. So, those nightly calls ended. And that was good. It should've ended there. But one day, I had a bad day and needed someone to talk to."
"I feel like I'm reading a romance book. No, I feel like I'm listening to a romance audiobook!" Toya exclaimed, folding her legs under her and resting her head against the couch. "Keep going, Ms. Audio Book."
Shaking her head, Meka continued, "Instead of calling one of you and discussing my problems with you two, I searched through my desk drawer and found his number. I called him. He didn't answer."
"Oh, no!" Toya gasped.
"So, I left a voicemail."
"Yay!" Toya cheered.
"Be quiet!" Monique yelled.
"Sorry," Toya whispered.
With a sigh, Meka continued. "In the voicemail, I only said four words. I need to talk. That's it. No name. No context. Just those words. I thought he wouldn't call back. Part of me hoped he wouldn't because I didn't even know this man. But he did. That night, he called me back. I recognized the number and answered quickly." Meka swallowed, tears swimming in her eyes. "After I answered, he only said three words, and those three words caused me to burst into tears."
"What did he say?" Toya whispered.
"He said , I missed you ." Meka wiped tears from her eyes.
Monique found herself blinking back tears of her own. "That's why when he met you at the casino, he recognized your voice. Didn't you recognize him?"
Meka nodded. "I tried to play it off, but then he did what Cattaneos do. He kidnapped me."
"That wasn't a real kidnapping," Toya drawled. "It was a lite kidnapping or maybe just a borrowing."
Meka rolled her eyes at Toya.
"Even so, you defended him when ol'girl showed up," Toya pointed out.
"Of course I did. During our phone conversations, he'd told me all about her and what she'd done to him. That's not all he told me. He talked to me about so much. And now it all makes sense. For instance, he told me that he doesn't like what he does for a living. He never told me what his job was, but he told me it was family-run and that he was tired of being a part of it. He said he felt like a puppet being forced to live the life chosen for him. His brothers don't even know that he likes photography and taking pictures. He even has some of his pictures featured anonymously online. He's even won awards under the pen name he uses."
"Cas has?" Monique asked.
"Yes." Meka nodded. "He's so much more than the man I met at the casino. But he's forced to live according to his family's plan. He's forced to be someone he doesn't want to be. Why would I sign myself up to be a part of his life when even he doesn't want to be a part of it?"
Meka wiped her eyes again. "I'm so mad at him because seeing him in real life is so different than talking to him. I now see why he was okay with not rushing to meet me in real life. I set the rule that we wouldn't meet outside of our phone conversations until I was ready, he agreed to it, and never pressured me. Instead, we took our time getting to know each other. He allowed me to see the real Caspari. He recited poetry to me over the phone. He wrote poetry with me. He texted me pictures he'd taken. And he can draw. He drew pictures for me. We had cooking dates over the phone, where we'd both look up a recipe online and then try to cook it together while on the phone. Then, we'd send each other a picture of the dish we created to see which dish looked better. And then we'd eat together while on the phone. That man is the man I liked. I liked Anonymous. I don't like Caspari Cattaneo. And he doesn't like himself."
Monique's gaze moved to Toya. Both friends remained silent. There was so much to unpack from that. Poor Cas.
"Meka," Monique started. "Don't get mad at me for saying this, okay?"
Meka sighed and placed the bowl on the center living room table. She then relaxed against the couch and closed her eyes.
"Okay, go ahead. I won't get mad," Meka promised.
"Meka, you don't have to help me with the Raz kidnapping. Toya and I can figure that out on our own. And yes, it's crazy. But I guess this is what it means to be crazy in love. Don't worry about me and Raz. Worry about you and Cas."
"Mo...." Meka started.
Monique cut her off. "Just listen, sweetie. You and Cas found each other in an unconventional way. I mean, what were the chances of you two meeting over the phone and then ending up at the same casino and recognizing each other? If that's not destiny, I don't know what it is. And yeah, some bad stuff happened along the way. But you just said that Cas doesn't want this. You just said that he hates this life. Well, maybe he needs a gentle push to help him let this life go. Maybe he needs you. I mean, you're the person he turns to when he needs someone to talk to. And now the person he needs to talk to about what he's going through is ignoring him. That has to be hard on him. And it's hard on you, too. You said it yourself, he was the person you called instead of us. Which means, you're also missing the person you'd usually talk to when you're going through something. You two need each other. Yet, your fear is holding you back."
"If I would've died while kidnapped," Meka whispered. "Cas would've blamed himself. Cas would've had to live with that guilt forever. Cas would've shut himself up even further. That's if he chose to continue living at all."
"What do you mean?" Toya asked.
"When he found me that night, when he hugged me close, he whispered in my ear that if I would've died, he would've killed himself." Meka swallowed. "He said he wouldn't have been able to live with himself. That's what I fear. I fear that his lifestyle will claim me, and then he'll claim himself. I fear that for a lifestyle he hates, we could both lose our lives. How senseless and pointless would that be? I don't want to live a life with that hanging over my head."
"I understand," Monique told her. "Just answer this question for me. Do you love him?"
Meka swallowed but didn't open her eyes or speak.
"Do you?" Toya asked.
A tear rolled down Meka's cheek. Meka licked her lips before whispering, "I do." More tears spilled from Meka's eyes. "I do love him. So much."
Monique smiled, happy that her friend could finally admit her true feelings. "I have one more question," Monique said. "Are you truly willing to give up on him?"
More tears crept down her bestie's cheeks. Meka was slow to answer. Monique hoped her bestie didn't let fear ruin what could be a good thing for Meka and Cas. But Monique understood Meka's fears.
Those same concerns drifted through her mind a few times a day. She knew that Raz was experiencing those same fears right now. The only difference was Monique refused to give up on true love.
She wasn't going to let Orazio give up. And she wasn't going to let her bestie give up, either. They all deserved a happy ending. And she truly believed this type of love was worth fighting for. If she had to, she’d fight for all of them to have their happily ever after!