Chapter 22 Jessiah
I wasn’t lying when I told Helena the restaurant was just around the corner—but swooping in nonchalantly to play her savior had been a facade.
I wasn’t chill at all. On the contrary, I was scared shitless when I noticed she wasn’t in the club anymore, even more so when I finally found her outside, pinned against the wall by Pratt with his hands around her neck.
I’d had to seriously control myself to make sure I only knocked the guy out instead of sending him to the hospital.
No, that wasn’t true. I’d had to control myself not to kill him.
I could have told myself that it had nothing to do with Helena.
That I found violence against women abhorrent and would have done the same in any situation.
And of course that was all true. But these feelings, this intense fear and anger that had turned into an almost uncontrollable fury…
that was more than just moral courage. It was her.
Luckily, Helena didn’t seem to notice the storm raging inside me as we made our way to Bella Ciao.
“Why did you call me that?” she asked softly.
I’d wrapped my arm around her again when I saw that she was still in the grip of shock and cold—and she’d put her arm around my waist, too, for something to hold on to.
It felt alarmingly intimate. Anyone watching would have thought we were a loved-up couple on our way home.
If it wasn’t for the blood on her neck and my chest, and the fact that we were both soaked to the bone.
“Call you what?” I replied.
“ ‘Fair Helen.’ That’s what you called me, just now.”
I smiled. “Well… after Helen of Troy. They say she was so beautiful, her face launched a thousand ships.”
Helena gave a little snort. “I don’t think my face could ever manage that.”
If only you knew.
“It’s right up ahead.” Another fifty yards, and I steered us toward the plain-looking door that was Bella Ciao’s side entrance.
It was eleven thirty by then, and there weren’t many customers left as we went in.
Taddeo looked happy to see me at first, but then his gaze fell upon Helena and he stared in horror.
“Dio mio!” he cried. “What in the world happened?”
“It’s just a scratch,” Helena repeated my words from before. Then she seemed to remember her manners and added a polite, “Sir.”
Taddeo shook his head, but before he could say any more, I raised my hands in defense.
“I’ll explain later, okay? But first, could you bring us a change of clothes? Something that’ll fit her… and me too, if you have it.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll find something.” Taddeo nodded. “Go to the office. I’ll bring some clothes right away. Leonora! Get the oven on again, we need pizza!”
I led Helena into the back of the restaurant before Taddeo’s wife could catch a glimpse of our Halloween-costume look.
Taddeo’s office was a small room crammed with an old sofa, a desk, and a ton of filing cabinets.
I’d tried to educate him on the benefits of a paperless office many times—but no luck, apparently.
Before Helena and I could say a word to each other, Taddeo was back, pressing a pile of clothes into my hands. “Employee uniforms and a few things from the lost and found, all freshly washed. Most of it is probably too big, but still, it’s warm and dry.”
I thanked him, he left, and I took a quick look through the pile before choosing a sweatshirt and a long pair of pants in a soft material. I gave them to Helena and pointed to a narrow door next to the desk.
“That’s the bathroom. If I know Taddeo, there’ll be fresh towels in the little closet on the right-hand side in the back.”
She smiled gratefully, a little more color in her cheeks as she disappeared into the bathroom.
I swapped my jeans for a pair of the slacks worn by Taddeo’s waitstaff, then pulled my shirt carefully over my head and hung it over the heater.
The place where Pratt had caught me with the knife burned, but it really was just a surface wound.
I took the first-aid kit down from its spot next to the window, soaked a cotton ball in disinfectant, and rubbed it over the area, then covered it with a large dressing so as not to get my fresh clothes dirty right away.
The door opened and Helena came back in wearing the sweatshirt, which practically drowned her, her wet hair twisted into a knot on top of her head.
Despite what she’d been through, I noticed she couldn’t help her gaze lingering for a moment as I searched half-naked through the staff shirts for one in my size.
But then she realized I’d noticed, and her face went conspicuously blank before she sank onto the sofa and let out a sigh.
“What a shitty night,” she muttered, rubbing her hands across her face. She seemed to have taken her makeup off in the bathroom, but there were still dark smudges under her eyes.
“Well, what do you expect when you fuck around with the shadiest dealer in the city?” I pulled on a restaurant-branded polo shirt and doused another cotton ball in disinfectant. “Can I take a look at that?” I motioned to her throat.
She nodded tiredly and lifted her head as I sat down next to her. I took a good look at the wound, and as I dabbed the blood carefully away, I saw that it wasn’t all that deep. If she was lucky, it wouldn’t even scar.
“It’s not so bad,” I reported.
“Told you,” Helena replied quietly, waiting for me to finish putting a dressing on it before she lowered her head again.
She was very close, just inches away. I should have pulled back, but I didn’t, and neither did she.
Something sparkled between us then, sending a surge of heat through my body that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
But I did the right thing and put some distance between us, getting up from the sofa to throw the cotton ball in the trash.
“I’ll go check on the food,” I said, disappearing through the door in the direction of the kitchen. Leonora and Taddeo stood in front of the oven, talking together quietly. When I came in, they stopped.
“The pizza is almost ready,” Taddeo announced with a grave expression. “What happened to the poor girl, Jess? She looked awful.”
“Don’t tell her that, whatever you do.” She was a Weston, after all; they were obsessed with being perfect. I leaned against the worktop. “She was attacked by a drug dealer in the alley behind the Glowfly.”
“A drug dealer?” He wrinkled his forehead, while Leonora opened the oven and took out a couple of pizzas. “What did she want with him? She’s not into that, is she?”
I shook my head. If there was anything I could say with certainty, after everything that had happened with her sister, it was that Helena Weston kept well away from narcotics.
“No. I have no idea what she was doing with him. But I made sure he won’t be a threat to her anymore.
” The grimness in my voice made Leonora stop what she was doing and look up.
“You like her, don’t you?” she asked.
I paused for a moment. Did I like Helena?
If only that were an easy question to answer.
She was stubborn, she only told the truth when it suited her, and, up until this point, we’d fought with each other at every opportunity.
And yet there was something between us that drew me to her like crazy.
Even if it would be insane to act upon it.
“Liking her isn’t an option,” I replied simply.
“Why not?” asked Leonora, outraged. “You’re such a good-looking boy, smart, and polite. Any girl would be lucky to have you.”
I leaned down and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Thanks, Leo. But even if that were true, it doesn’t apply to this girl.”
Massimo, one of the servers, stuck his head through the pass. “The last customers are gone; I’ve closed up.”
“Oh good, so you can eat out front.” Leonora lay the pizzas out on large plates and shooed me away to let Helena know. I went back into Taddeo’s office and found her still sitting on the sofa, studying a menu she’d found.
“The pizza is ready, and Leonora requests our presence in the dining room,” I announced. Helena glanced down at her outfit, but before she could wonder whether or not it was appropriate, I waved away her doubts. “The restaurant is empty. No one will see you.”
She looked relieved and stood up slowly, as if making sure she didn’t feel faint. But she seemed to be coping with Pratt’s attack remarkably well—and a second later she brushed past, touching me lightly on the arm.
“Are you coming?” she asked, sounding almost a little impatient.
I shook my head with a grin and followed her to the main dining area.
Helena Weston was obviously tougher than I’d given her credit for.
I had no idea why that surprised me. But I did know that every minute I spent with her, I was sinking further into danger, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d have bigger problems than a furious drug dealer.
But the strange thing was, I didn’t mind—in fact, it was the opposite.
For the first time in forever, I felt something—felt myself again.
And I was damned if I was going to give that up.
No matter how this ended.