Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
LUCIE
Iwake up rested.
And completely freaked out.
With rushed movements, I pull the tee-shirt back over my body and find my panties at the foot of the bed under the covers, putting them on before I get to the bathroom.
The light assaults my eyes. It’s too harsh, and my heart rate is too high, too loud.
My reflection stares at me, disheveled and well fucked.
I press a hands to my chest, willing the organ to calm. I can feel it in my throat.
That was so unsafe.
I bite my lip.
And so exhilarating.
Nothing like what I should do and everything I wanted. I followed my pussy instead of my brain. The fear and danger made it all the better.
I thought he might feel the raised skin on my legs when he touched me, but the darkness made me bold. It’s better if he never finds out. I have a feeling he wouldn’t like it. He’s made a point to protect me.
When I get back into bed, his scent lingers, somehow familiar. Lemony with an edge of darkness I can’t pinpoint. It’s comforting and I inhale deeply, trying to remember where I know it from and failing when sleep claims my exhausted and well-pleasured body. It’s official, I’m losing my mind.
But it’s too late now. It’s like I’m watching a train wreck and can’t stop.
For days after, the attentions of the mysterious man don’t dwindle.
Not a day goes by without a post-it note, a flower on my table and nightly visits.
I sleep through them but when I wake up, his cologne is all over my bedroom.
I don’t get off at his command again. It’s like he’s making a point of not waking me up and having a repeat.
I’m disappointed but it might be for the best. What would happen anyway? He’s still a stranger that breaks and enters my home while I’m asleep and watches me sleep like a creep. My creep.
It’s a grim and rainy Tuesday evening when Mina and I enter my flat to study together, and she stops short, picking up the stack of post-it notes I left on my entrance table. The door closes slowly behind her and she raises a brow.
“It’s… uhh…”
I don’t have an answer for her. Admitting out loud that I’m getting attached to a stalker who could very well kill me in my sleep is beyond reckless, and I’ve known Mina for months now. She’s anything but reckless.
“Do you have a boyfriend and didn’t tell me?” she asks, playful accusation tainting her voice.
“No! It’s not what you think. I… I…”
She remains silent, just like the mafia men and women in my family have always done when they want to pressure someone into an answer. It’s uncanny how she even looks the part, eyes narrowed like an hawk ready to snatch her prey. She’d fit well with Irina.
“I have a stalker,” I blurt out.
The pieces of paper fly off her hands as she rushes towards me, her hands clasping around my biceps.
She’s frantic, looking at each corner of the room as if he were here with us.
“Are you okay? Why didn’t you say anything?
Are you safe? Did he threaten you? You can tell me.
I can ask my dad for protection. You should move in with Jay and I. ”
“Stop. Stop. Mina.” It’s my turn to wrap my hands around her arms. I give her a smile that I hope conveys how much not in trouble I am, how safe I feel but she still regards me with that skeptical look. “I’m okay. He’s… harmless.”
I wince at my choice of words but don’t take it back. My stalker is far from harmless but he would never harm me. I think.
“Are you out of your mind? Lucie, someone is following you. Did you tell your family? Has he entered your home?”
I grimace.
“Lucie!”
I understand where her concern is coming from.
I step out of her arms and turn my back on her so she doesn’t see my blush. I prepare some crackers with jam, honey, and cheese so we can nibble while we study.
“He’s not dangerous to me. He does groceries for me, and he was the one who helped me when Chris decided that touching me without my consent was a good idea.”
Mina knows about the episode from the party a few weeks ago and has since refused to see Josh again. He and his friends barely even look our way now.
“Loulou, I’m not sure this is healthy,” she says, trying to placate me.
“I know. But I don’t feel unsafe. If I ever do, I’ll let you know. Or my cousin. But, right now, I… I like it, okay? I feel like I know him. And he knows me.”
It’s weird to say it out loud, but somehow, I almost hope he has a camera inside my house and hears me defending him.
As much as I’ve loved the silent protector thing these past few weeks, my mind and my body are starting to crave more.
More connection, more little notes. Just more. It feels selfish, but I can’t stop.
Mina stares at me, gobsmacked. I wither under her unflinching gaze. Then, she shakes her head. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. You’re my friend, Lucie, and if you say you feel safe with your mysterious stalker who sends you cute as shit notes and fills your fridge, I believe you. Doesn’t mean I support it, though.” She points an accusing finger at me. “Do you think any of your neighbours knows who he is?”
“I don’t know,” I say, frowning.
The itch to peel the mask—quite literally—has been getting under my skin as I wake up every day to his scent surrounding me. It drives me mad not managing to pinpoint where I know it from. Every time I think I figured it out, I get distracted by school, exams and him.
“Earth to Lucie?” Mina waves a hand over my eyes and I snap out of the weird trance.
“Sorry,” I tell Mina. “I guess some of the neighbours might have seen him. He obviously has a key of the flat. They probably think he’s my roommate.”
“Or boyfriend, more like.”
I smile, and she snickers. “You’re a lost cause. Let’s go ask them.”
“What?”
“At least the people on your floor.”
“And say what? ‘Excuse me, what does my roommate look like to you?’ That’s ridiculous.”
She rolls her eyes. “I want to make sure he’s not dangerous. Even if you feel safe, maybe your danger radar is broken.”
“And yours isn’t?” I joke. The way she sobers has me frowning.
“No. It isn’t.”
It isn’t the first time she acts like she has someone on her trail. And not like I do. She’s trying to escape something and my hackles rise. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Mina?”
She averts her gaze, but the clench of her jaw is unmistakable. “You don’t have to tell me,” I say. “But I know what it’s like to try to escape a role you don’t want.”
She nods and opens the door, knocking on the neighbour’s door before I can stop her.
“That one is probably empty. It was my bodyguards’ flat but they’re not on duty anymore.”
I clamp my lips shut. Shit. I want to distance myself from the mafia but some things are so ingrained in how I function, it’s hard to filter them for normal people. She’s going to freak out.
Mina doesn’t even flinch and moves to the next door. I wonder if she comes from a rich family and that’s why bodyguards don’t seem to be extravagant to her.
No one answers her knocks. After trying three times, she frowns and climbs the stairs to the next floor. There are three doors, mirroring the ones on mine. No one answers her calls. She leans against one of the door, placing her ear on the wood.
“You’ve watched too many movies,” I say.
“And you, obviously not enough.”
Crouching, she takes a pin from her hair, bending it this way and that. From the pocket of her jeans, she pulls a flat, thin piece of metal. I can’t believe it. “Are you fucking joking? How do you have a kit for opening locked doors?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” She retorts without looking back at me, focused on the task at hand.
I’ve seen some crazy shit in my time training with my father’s men and rescuing Dante from his ordeal.
I mean, we opened a metal door with a power saw, and that was pretty impressive.
But nothing prepared me to watch my friend pick the lock of a fancy residential building.
Her secrets are hers to keep but now I know for sure she has many.
A click resounds between us and the door opens on a creak.
Mine doesn’t do that. My lips kick up as I realise my stalker must have oiled the hinges so the door would be silent.
It’s a true testament to how fucked up my head is that I find that romantic.
At least he doesn’t wake me when he comes and goes.
I shake my head and follow Mina inside the flat, prepared to apologise and pay my neighbours hush money for the transgression. Except there’s no one to pay. The flat is empty.
Light switches on and both Mina and I yelp as we flatten ourselves to the floor. I keep my eyelids shut, ready to get the beating I fucking deserve, yet no footsteps follow our entrance.
“What the fuck,” I hear Mina say as I right myself. I follow her gaze to the electricity plug down the wall of the living area.
“What is that?” I ask.
“It looks like an automatic light switch.”
My shoulders drop as realisation dawns on me. “Get the other flats open.”
Mina’s smile is downright wicked as she stomps to the the other flat, across from the one we just entered.
Darkness welcomes us as we enter but the light doesn’t switch on this time. Yet, we find the same tool, plugged to the wall. As we do in the other flat on that floor, the one across from mine on the second floor and all three on the first level.
My hands tremble when we make our way into my flat and sit down at the table in silence.
The entire building has been emptied. I doubt Dante had anything to do with it. Actually, I know he didn’t. Just in case, I text him and outright ask. He answers negatively, and I spiral.
It’s one thing to come into my home, take care of me in his weird little way, threaten whoever wants to harm me, and a completely different one to un-house an entire block of flats.
I feel Mina’s gaze on the side of my face. If I look, I’ll see concern. I’m starting to feel it for myself too. This has gone too far. Fear threatens to drown me but I’m stuck, seated at my table with my books open, the words blurring in front of my eyes.
“Have your panties disappear or any weird shit like that?” Mina asks.
“No.”
Though, the thought is far from disgusting. I imagine him stealing the underwear and jerking himself off with them. Gosh, that’s fucked up. But no less fucked up than letting him finger me into oblivion knowing he’s dangerous, obsessed and maybe worse.
“Maybe I need a break,” I admit, both aroused and unsettled by my overactive imagination and the memories. After all he did, this transgression seems like more. Yet, the fear isn’t enough to override the side of my brain that finds excuses for him.
“My family owns a little cabin next to Loch Lomond. Why don’t we go this weekend? Study there, get out of our routine. I think if I’m with you, he won’t come close.”
“Mina?”
“Yes?”
“Are you from the mafia?”
There’s too many things happening all at once today and an overwhelming urge to flee and leave it all behind takes over. I already know what she will say and tears prickle the back of my eyes. She sighs and I blink them shut, willing myself not to cry.
Of course the only friend I make is from the mafia. There’s no escaping your upbringing or Cosa Nostra.
“Which one is it?”
“Which what?” she asks, her voice defeated.
“Which faction?”
“Lucie.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I scream and immediately regret it. I finally face her. Her features hold a heaviness I recognise. I see the same one in the mirror most days. “Please. Tell me. No more lies.”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Lying by omission is still lying,” I retort.
“You’re not the only one trying to escape your fate, Loulou. I promise it’s not about you. I’m not from any mafia family you know. And I didn’t know who you were until after we started being friends, I promise you that.”
“Then, who are you? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“For the same reason you would have not told me your real name if the situation was reversed.” She’s got me there. I nod and she takes my hand in hers, an urgency in the movement. For me to believe her, maybe. I stand and grab my friend, tightenning my hold around her in a fierce hug.
“Whatever you need,” I say, framing her face with both hands. “I’ll be there for you.”
Tears line her beautiful brown eyes, collecting on her thick lashes. We hug once more.
“So, we both have fucked up families?”
“Something like that,” she says with a wry smile.
A phone chime interrupts us. It’s mine.
Unknown
I can explain
Heart beating wild, I block the number.
Whatever happened between me and my stalker needs to stop. I can never know if I’m truly safe with someone I don’t know.
After our study session, which turns into a wine drinking session, I pack a small bag with essentials for two days, and texts my family where I’m going and not to worry.
I tell Mina and myself that I need time away to escape this man who follows my every move. But my subconscious has a very different opinion.