Chapter 2 #2
“Do you know just how much danger I’m in, Rocco Fausti?” I whispered.
His eyes roamed over me as he took what seemed like measured steps toward me, and I took almost clumsy steps back in comparison.
A dance. Always a dance between us, him always leading.
My back hit the wall, and he set his arm over my head, his other running over the bottom of my hair, as gentle as a breeze.
He took a strand, wrapping it around his finger.
“Tell me,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, “piccolo ladro.”
My breath trembled out. “I may never leave this house again. Only you will ever see me again. Everyone will wonder where Ari went to, and when I do leave this world—”
His mood went from romantic to ruthless in the span of the breath it took me to almost get out that last sentence.
“Do not ever speak to me in such a way.” His voice was low but lethal.
All I could do was nod, swallowing down the lump in my throat, and attach my hands to his collar. “Okay,” I whispered. “No more talk of that.”
He closed his eyes, like he was pained, and came in close to press a lingering kiss on my forehead.
I still had him clasped by the collar as I closed my eyes, trying to settle the feeling that had passed from him to me.
It was almost a completely crazed desperation that made me feel empty and mad at once.
Like my heart was locked in a box, and no matter how many times I banged, no one was coming to save it.
It took him a while to get over it. He kept my hand in a vise-grip as we made our way downstairs to meet the group who were staying with us.
Mac and Mari had arrived, and I gave Mari a one-armed hug before we left.
I thought about thanking Mac for the exploding boat on the island, the one that saved us from a sea attack, but what was I going to say?
Hey, pal, thanks for lacing that boat with explosives and setting them off right before the bad guys got to us!
It just didn’t sound right in my head no matter how many times I went over it.
So, I left it alone, and settled on “Hi, Mac!” before we met our crowd out in the street.
All the women seemed to match their husbands, as far as relaxed styles went, and I was glad I’d gone with a black bodysuit and a leopard wrap-skirt that tied on the side.
The only thing I was uncertain of was the amount of jewelry we were all wearing.
New Orleans, like any big city, had its fair share of crime.
Rocco had given me thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, not to mention my wedding rings, on both hands.
Someone might try to strangle me for the lion’s sacred heart pendant around my neck alone.
As we walked toward the restaurant where we were having dinner, though, the guards with us fell into a natural formation, and so did our men, creating walls, boxing all the women in as we made our way through the Quarter.
I was thankful that it wasn’t all that busy, so the men didn’t have to waylay too many people trying to come between their strong formation.
I breathed a sigh of relief when we entered the restaurant and were led to a private room on the second story for dinner.
The room was dim, the walls matching the aged cobblestone outside.
A long table, long enough to fit fifty, was the center of it.
Hurricane vases lit with tea lights shimmered against the dark wood.
The scents in the air spoke to the hunger inside of me, reminding me that these were the smells of home—spicy seasonings, seafood, and an underlying scent of chicory coffee.
A live jazz band played downstairs, and the music swing-danced up to us.
Everything about dinner went down smoothly.
Fun conversation. Flirty drinks for the women while the men nursed bourbon and whiskey.
Dishes that far surpassed all our hungers.
Rocco fed me dessert, crème br?lée, and by that time, I was warm on drink, being full, and my husband’s presence.
His cold mood had finally melted, and all seemed right in our world.
Life had returned to us, instead of the cold void of death that my earlier comment had prompted.
My husband’s hands were on me even when his eyes weren’t the entire time.
I leaned into him, my hand locked on his thigh, the entire time.
And when “Down in New Orleans” played, I stuck my pointer finger up and did some kind of jazz move with it on one side of my head. My other hand refused to leave his leg.
Rocco roared with laughter, pulling me closer, kissing my temple, like he couldn’t get enough of me.
“I’m the cutest thing you ever saw, right?” I scrunched up my nose and smiled at him.
He laughed even harder, speaking to the pulse in my neck in Italian, words of love, sighing after, finishing the rest of his bourbon, sharing it with me before he swallowed the last drop.
His tongue in my mouth was both sweet and spicy, and the entire world faded when he kissed me the way he was.
When I opened my eyes, the entire table was staring at us.
It wasn’t gawking. They were in awe. In the eyes of all the women, I saw nothing but happiness shining back at us.
The women and I laughed almost the entire way back, hip bumping, singing together, as the formation kept us boxed in again.
I barely noticed we had arrived at a new place.
A bar. Until we were halfway through the door and I was standing in the middle of it.
I went to turn around and leave, but my husband’s chest blocked my exit.
“Ah,” I said, almost stuttering the breath out. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Me either,” Scarlett said, standing closer to me.
Her husband blocked her exit.
Eva took my other side, and her husband blocked her.
Dario and Carmen went to the bar. Romeo took Juliette by the hand, and his raspy laughter lingered behind him as they followed Dario and Carmen.
“We should stay for a drink.” Rocco nodded toward the bar.
“I’ve had enough.” I crossed my arms over my chest, mostly to hide the shaking.
Don’t let him be here. Don’t let him be here. PLEASE! Don’t let him be he—
“Apple Blossom,” the familiar voice came through the whispered chant.
My eyes were already closed, but at the sound of his voice, my fists clenched.
Remy Mestengo, better known as “Remy Mustang” to all his friends.
The guy I went on a few dates with before I left for Italy.
Better known to me as another one who bites the dust because he could never reach my impossibly high standards.
Remy, out of all the guys I’d dated, which truly wasn’t a lot, wasn’t daunted by my “it’s me, not you” speech.
He almost took it as a challenge. I thought for a while we could be friends, and he’d hung around when I was writing the thriller, but being friends was not enough for him.
It was almost too much for me.
He was intense, but almost in a creep kind of way.
Ladies seemed to love him, though, which was why the bar he worked at always seemed to be filled with flirty women, especially ones who were ready for a fun night out.
He was an attraction, especially when he put on a show behind the bar.
What he could do with his tongue and a cherry was almost obscene.
Rocco’s eyes were on me, but I could tell he had that compartmentalization thing going on—he was watching me while watching Remy.
In this situation, it was better known as the fish-stealing big cat.
I had to do something though. If I stood with my eyes closed, fists clenched, it was going to make me look guilty, like I’d truly had something with this guy that I never mentioned to my husband.
Or…even worse…Remy was going to think I hadn’t heard him and reach out to touch me.
On a spin that sent my head whirling, I faced him and gave a little wave. “Hey, Remy.”
“Apple Blossom.” His eyes took me in from head to toe. “Long time no see, baby girl. Where’ve you been? You ran away from me.”
“Tell him, Apple Blossom, where you have been.”
This from my husband, almost like he was instigating the conversation to see what was going to come of it.
“In Italy.” I lifted my left hand. “I’m married now. Rocco, my husband, this is, an, ah, old acquaintance of mine, Remy. Remy, my husband, Rocco Fausti.”
Remy seemed to be sizing my husband up, but my husband already seemed to have his number.
Whatever my husband found, he found severely lacking, but that still didn’t stop the cold wall from forming around him.
Neither man nor boy, which Remy seemed like compared to my husband, held a hand out to the other.
Remy nodded. “Glad to see you around, Apple Blossom, married or not. Make sure you stay for my show.” He winked at me and then tore through the crowd, jumping over the bar like he was in Risky Business and was too cool for school.
I was waiting for the women to fawn over Remy, but they didn’t.
Not like usual. Eyes were bugging out from all sides of the room—the Italians had entered the scene, making Remy seem just like I’d described.
A boy compared to a man. New meats had been added to the menu, and their names all ended in o.
I went to leave, but Rocco took me by the shoulders, keeping me in place.
“We should stay for the show, Apple Blossom,” he said, and ordered us two beers after a stunned-eyed waitress asked if there was anything she could get him.
Even though it was simple, the waitress seemed to have a hard time computing our order, but she nodded like she got it and went in the opposite direction, toward the bar. We were probably going to get two Fuzzy Navel drinks instead of what we had ordered.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, almost seething, and I wasn’t sure why.
Maybe because he was acting like he had caught me in the act of something?
I wasn’t sure, but it was making me vibrate.
“I’ve always hated it.” And that was the truth.
It used to grate on my nerves. I even told Remy that once, but he said I was just being cute.
It was more than tolerable when Rocco implied or called me that, cute, but when Remy did it, it made me want to hit him over the head with a glass bottle.
The barmaid brought Rocco a glass of bourbon, on the house, saying he seemed more like a bourbon man, and totally forgot about me.
Rocco drained the glass in front of her, pulled me close, and shared it with me—mouth to mouth.
She had disappeared in the crowd before I even opened my eyes. I was dazed.
“I only went on a few dates with him.” My voice reflected my mental status. “That’s it.” I wanted to add no contact at all, but that wasn’t the truth.
He’d taken my hand once, and I had to slip mine out of his hold, pretending I needed to protect my digits since I was writing.
It had been so effing lame, and he knew it, but it was all I had in that moment.
And once, we fast danced. Oh, and he tried feeding me a bite of his burrito one time, too, but I lied and told him I had a bean allergy.
That was it.
I had a feeling, though, that would be too much to my husband, even though he’d been with Rosaria, and almost the entire female population of the world, when all this went down between Remy and me.
Rocco said nothing in response to my admission, and even though he was as still as that hidden underwater monster that lived underneath the surface of his eyes, I could still feel the tremble of his bones. It was like the pressure was building, and once he was set loose on the world, God help it.
His eyes were on Remy doing his stupid-ass cherry routine. And it almost seemed like Remy was really getting into it to antagonize Rocco.
Remy lived upstairs. He was close to the exit. Even that wouldn’t save him if Rocco had enough. But it almost seemed like Rocco was watching it on purpose. Saving all the images for later.
Scarlett had her arms crossed, her eyes glancing back at me every so often, as Brando drank a beer and stared at the bar.
A vein in his forehead was swollen, and a muscle ticked in his jaw like Rocco’s did.
Eva was almost in a similar stance as Gabriel nursed water and watched.
Rocco’s brothers were watching, too, being exceptionally quiet.
It was like the Fausti men were seeing this same scene twice. Gabriel too. Mac stood with Mari, a hand on her, his eyes glued to the show as if he was seeing it for the first time and didn’t find a second of it impressive, his blue eyes chilling.
What made me the most anxious?
All the Fausti guards were standing close to the door, like they would block it in an instant if Rocco looked at them a certain way.
Remy finished his show to lame applause, even though he ate up whatever he could get, because that meant more tips. Then he bowed his head to me and disappeared behind the door leading to the kitchen and up to his apartment. Maybe he’d felt the intentions coming for him.
“Okay,” I said to my husband. “Show’s over.”
We left, but a feeling lingered in my gut.
I knew the show was far from over.