Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Rian
Where is she?
I've been stationed outside my lovely Noemi's book store for hours now, and yet the window remains dark. One day, I could chalk up to her being gone. Maybe she's got a cold, or she made plans with friends.
I've never seen her with people. It's one of the things that draws me to her.
As much as I want to be here all the time, I can't. I have other duties to oversee. People to kill, crime scenes to burn to the ground. It's funny, though, that I should miss a single day of surveillance and then come back to a silent bookstore.
Now it's been almost five days. The shop door is boarded up, which is in itself not concerning. But there isn't any other sign that things are abnormal.
Standing across the street, in an empty second-floor apartment, I press my hand to the window.
I desperately want to get closer, see if there are any clues to her whereabouts.
But I can't blow three months of surveillance detail over the lovely Miss Caruso if she's just going to stroll back onto the scene tomorrow.
Five days, though. Five long days of watching and waiting. I've walked back and forth down the length of the apartment, peering through each and every privacy-coated window, trying to get a better view.
Something in my gut tells me to push further. And my gut is never wrong.
Pulling a small length of rope from my pocket, I knot and unknot it in smooth figure 8s. The act soothes me, helps to calm Beast, who whispers all day long.
Why am I so obsessed with this girl? I know why, but it doesn’t actually answer my deeper question.
Go find her. She might be hurt. She might be dying. She needs you. What good are you if you don't watch out for your woman? You're just a mad dog who will eventually be put down.
Beast isn't exactly a cheerleader, but he's not wrong, either.
Tipping back the last of a plastic bottle of water, I swallow and stick it in my messenger bag. The overriding need to track down my pretty girl and make sure she’s all right is a drum in the back of my mind.
Noemi.
I pull out my phone and flip through the photos I've taken surreptitiously of my girl.
In my favorite one, she's at work, holding a stack of books in her arms. She's tiny, five feet all told, and wears a floral sundress with a thin t-shirt underneath.
Her long dark hair is pulled away from her face by a complicated braid, showing off the graceful curve of her neck and making her cheekbones more pronounced.
She has eyes the color of freshly brewed coffee and a proud Roman nose, balanced by full pink lips and a quick but shy smile.
She's easily the most gorgeous girl I've ever seen.
From what I've seen, she has nothing to do with the Vitelli operations. Her uncle, Marc Caruso, has thrown open the barn doors and let all the wolves in, though. Thanks to a bunch of spy shit, I listen in on endless calls and conversations upstairs.
But I'm really focused on her. I feel like I know everything that goes on in Noemi's workplace, like I'm an unpaid employee.
Until this week.
I tie and untie my rope. The feel of it against my skin grounds me.
Fuck it. The Vitellis aren't doing anything that interesting right now. A few women count money. Two men in suits watch them closely, bored out of their skulls. What's new?
My phone buzzes. I check it to find a message from the boss of our crew, Ransom. It's an address in the meat packing district.
I text back. Is it busy? Meaning how many bodies they need removed.
The location is a mess, but no business. Someone slipped Gloss into the powder at a rave.
"Shit," I mumble. Gloss is the latest designer drug and people are going crazy trying to get their hands on it. In small doses, it has the euphoric and tranquilizing effects of Ketamine.
In large doses, Gloss users are immobilized, yet perfectly awake. Some even die. With the excitement of the drug, it's easy to overdose and take too much. Like heroin and coke, it's often corrupted with fentanyl and stepped on by street dealers.
I've cleaned a number of scenes in the last couple of months with ODing and dead girls who were supposedly on Gloss. Seeing the wide, terrified eyes of the victims gets under my skin, though I would never say it.
Importance? I ask.
48 hours.
Sending him a thumbs-up, I go back to my knots. This gives me plenty of time to stop by Noemi's little apartment and make sure she's okay before I head to scrub the scene of any trace that the Kings were there.
* * *
I look up at Noemi’s apartment building. The weather is volatile right now, gray clouds gathering, slowly blocking out the late afternoon sun. The lighting isn't kind to the sagging structure; if anything, the weather leaches away the last bit of color from an already-colorless building.
There's no light on in Noemi’s window.
A little old lady passes me on the street and gives me the eye. I'm 6'4", wearing a dark leather jacket, black motorcycle boots, and blocky sunglasses. So I get it; she has every reason to distrust guys that look like me.
I hustle up the steps and unlock the shared stairwell to Noemi's building.
Beast won't shut the fuck up about how my girl is being tortured as we speak.
He's a lying bastard, but I'm still apprehensive as I check her mail slot.
It's stuffed full of junk mail and bills.
While I'm here, I snag the real-looking mail and stick it in my back pocket.
If it's bills, I'll pay them. And if not, I want to know what my woman is up to. Who she talks to, what she says.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I wrinkle my nose at the smell of mildew that seems to be coming from inside the building's bones. I hate that my perfect girl lives here.
She should live in a fucking palace.
But I shouldn't claim her, so I have to stay in the shadows. Waiting. Observing. It's safer for her this way.
And keeping her safe is my reason for breathing.
She's the first door on the right, so I take a moment, getting my bearings.
I can't hear footsteps, so maybe her middle-aged neighbor isn't home yet.
I check my watch and realize that I've come at a bad time.
Work is just letting out for most people.
If I don't move quickly, someone that lives here will see me skulking around Noemi's door.
I've been watching Noemi for months without being noticed.
I'm sure as hell not starting now.
Pressing my ear to Noemi's door, I listen closely. Nothing. Not a bit of movement.
You're so close. You can touch her. Taste her. Finally fucking be a man and tell her you exist, then fuck her brains out.
Beast is full of brilliant ideas. Scare her off, more like.
I turn the key in the lock slowly, oh so slowly, my heart galloping in my chest. I've only been into her apartment a handful of times. Just to make sure she's safe, that she has everything she needs.
And a few times in the middle of the night, to reassure myself that she's still as innocent and beautiful as I remember. I find my hand trembling as I push her door open as stealthily as possible.
I love sneaking around, being the unseen protector. It excites me.
The second I step in and close the door, I'm enveloped in her scent.
Sweet citrus with a sharp floral note underneath.
I take deep breaths, filling my lungs greedily as I look around her small space.
A small kitchen on the right with chipped mugs in the drying rack and a small bowl of fruit on a drab Formica countertop.
Directly in front of me is her living room.
Several secondhand bookshelves sit with the lumpy floral couch and burnished floor lamp. Along one wall, I see photos.
There's no need to touch them or look at them. I took pictures and researched the people in them the first time I came here.
Noemi's petite frame, long dark hair, beautiful chestnut eyes, and heart-shaped face in nearly every photo.
I can see her mom and dad in some older photos when Noemi was younger, as well as more recent photos taken with her city councilman uncle and his wife.
As much as I would like to stay and stare all day, I've got business.
A reason to be here.
I turn toward the remaining two doors. One stands ajar, showing a peek of her darkened bathroom. I silently move to press the door open, checking. But there's nothing amiss here.
Find her. Take her home. Keep her forever, where she can be safe. Where you can have her anytime.
Ignoring Beast, I move to the second door. Her bedroom. My pulse pounds; I need her to be in her room.
But I'm not sure I'm ready for her reaction to me checking on her. It's unlikely to be good.
Pushing the tremor in my hands out of my head, I reach for the doorknob and turn it so slowly that Beast is screaming DO IT! DO IT! TAKE HER!
When I finally swing the door open, I find her little twin bed empty, its floral bedspread neatly made. The only other furniture is a bedside table and a straight-backed chair, over which she has draped a few items of clothing.
Squatting down, I check beneath her bed, but find nothing but a little dust. So too is the closet empty. I check quickly for missing clothes, but there's only one empty hanger in her barren closet. There's an inexpensive suitcase in the closet.
She didn't go on a trip.
Whirling, I walk out and check the fridge. There's a partially emptied carton of week-old milk, strawberries that have gone moldy, a plastic deli container of turkey breast that's growing something.
She didn't leave in a hurry. But she also has food rotting in her fridge. She probably hasn't been back here.
After a quick search for her purse or cell phone, I'm having trouble tamping down Beast, who is yelling at me to find her, find her now.
I walk back into her bedroom and allow myself to sink onto her bed. It's tiny and the mattress is old as fuck, but it smells like Noemi. I lie down, burying my face in her pillow, drowning in her sweet scent.
Beast wants me to wait in her closet until she comes home. He has a whole plan for it. But I tell him no. That’s too far over the line and chances are that she could find me skulking in her apartment.
It's difficult to string thoughts together when I'm here, surrounded by her things. I want to peel back the cover and rub myself on her sheets. My cock is aching and hard; the urge to free myself from my pants and come on every surface is choking me.
But I don't let myself do that.
Finding a pink scrunchie that smells like her glorious hair, I tuck it in my pocket as I make a phone call.
It rings exactly one time before Ransom picks up. "Rian?"
"Yeah." I know the words, but I hate saying them. "I need a favor, Ransom."
He's quiet for a few beats. "Personal?"
"Yes." I scrub a hand over my face. "I need you to locate someone."
He gives a bark of laughter. "When you got shot in the leg three times and were bleeding out, you didn't call me for that, even though you were doing family business."
I screw up my face. "I had that under control."
"Rian." He sounds amused. "You almost died on the table."
"Will you help me or not?"
"Of course. Do you have a name and address? Maybe a photo?"
"Yes." I pull up one of my favorite photos of Noemi. She's smiling, looking toward the camera, at a luncheon thrown by the Vitelli family. Getting the photo was tricky, but I love sneaking around and taking things that don't belong to me. I send the photo with her name and address.
I don't want Ransom to look at it, but if I'm going to trust anyone, I know it should be him. Plus, he's the best fucking spy in the entire city.
He whistles when he checks his phone. "That isn't who I expected you to be looking for."
I growl. "Can you find her or not?"
He waits a beat. "Is this the Vitelli daughter?"
"She's not a Vitelli," I correct him. "She's innocent of all their shit. She just happens to work in the building."
"Uh huh." I can hear him typing now. "And why are you looking for her?"
"Because she's been missing for days!" I spit out. "I need to know she's safe."
"O-kay." Ransom sucks his teeth. "When I really want info fast, I put out word that I'm offering a reward. Let's do that."
"You can pull from my accounts."
"Nah." More typing. "I got you. It's not like you've asked before."
An irrational feeling of anger surges through me. "I said use my money. I don't want your money to buy her info."
"Oh, Rian." He chuckles. "You have it bad for this girl, huh?"
"Fuck off," I tell him. "Are we done?"
"Not even close. I have a million questions about this girl of yours. How did you meet?"
I abruptly hang up, fuming. This, this is why I didn't want to ask a favor. But it's done now.
All I can do is wait for the phone to ring.
Lying in Noemi's bed, tormented by her sweet scent, I try to beat back Beast before he pushes me over the edge and into darkness.