Chapter 46 Tommy
Tommy
The lights in Donovan’s office are too bright, but they always are.
I sit across from him, jacket folded over my lap, legs crossed, ignoring the buzzing of my phone as Vin texts me relentlessly.
Donovan is talking about policy platforms, media appearances, polling data.
I nod in all the right places, the smile quick and practiced at this point, thanks to Giovanna’s training.
People want to feel listened to. They don’t need the truth.
Just give them reassurances.
Giovanna. I haven’t seen her in six months, two weeks, and five days, not since I carved her orchid into her thigh, since she tore my soul from my body.
But she lives in my head, all day, every day.
Without everything she gave me, I wouldn’t be able to survive losing her.
The irony is not lost on me.
Donovan is looking at me expectantly, a wiggle in his eyebrows that says he just told a joke.
I try to laugh, and it doesn’t work, but the councilman looks pleased, and that’s the point.
By the time I step out into the hallway, Vin’s leaning against the wall, scrolling on his phone.
“Got you something,” he says.
“What?”
Vin’s idea of a gift rarely aligns with mine.
He jerks his chin toward the girl standing behind him.
She’s probably about my age, with long blonde hair, hands demurely folded in her lap.
Pretty, not beautiful like Gi, but then no one is.
“This is Una. She’s gonna be your new assistant.
”
“Did Donovan approve that?” I ask.
“Donovan doesn’t know his own shoe size.
Don’t worry about it. She’s good.” Vin pockets his phone and grins at me.
In a stage whisper, he says, “She’s good at a lot of things.
”
I blink at him. “What?”
He rolls his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Jesus fucking Christ, for being a fucking genius, you are pretty fucking stupid sometimes. Look, the best cure for heartbreak is to fuck someone else, and she’s a good fuck.
Trust me.” He winks at me.
My gaze flicks to Una, and her cheeks go pink.
I grimace at Vin. “You slept with her.”
“Yeah.” He shrugs.
“So?”
“You want me to sleep with a woman you slept with?” I’m genuinely confused why he thinks that would help me in any way.
“Pass.”
“I don’t see your problem. Matti slept with Valentina after I did.
”
“Well, from my recollection, he didn’t sleep with her.
” After Vin dumped Valentina for cheating on him with our father, she wouldn’t leave him alone, so he asked Matti to fuck her ass in a club in front of him to send her the message they were over.
I don’t know if it worked, but it’s not something I intend to replicate in any form.
Vin laughs. “Yeah, but this is a different situation. Relax, it’s not like you’re going to marry her or anything.
Enjoy yourself a little bit.”
“Is she a prostitute, Vin? Why are you assuming she even wants—”
Una raises her hand shyly.
She has a thick Irish accent that she tries to tone down.
“Don’t be offended on my account. I asked him about your situation.
I’ve seen your work in the press, and I quite fancy a date with you if you’re interested.
”
Vin shakes his head at me. “Don’t believe her.
She heard you have a dick so big you should be in porn, and she wanted to try it out.
”
“You’re an asshole,” I tell him.
“Been called worse.” He grins at Una.
“Hey, Una, if you’re lucky, he might even smile at you.
”
I look Una up and down, considering the advantages of having an assistant.
Gi took care of so many things for me that I’ve been a mess without her.
Maybe it’s not a bad idea.
“Una, you are welcome to the job that you were promised by Vin for whatever reason—I don’t want to know—but the first time you do anything outside the bounds of professionalism, you’re fired.
Clear?”
Her lips part. She’s pretty enough that she’s probably not used to getting turned down; it’s a look I’ve seen many times before on women like her.
But she nods fast. “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry.
”
“Good. What’s the first thing you can do for me?
”
I dispense with the formalities, any attempts at diplomacy.
Most of the time, I’m on the brink of locking myself in my suite at Dragovari Tower and drinking myself to death.
Smiling at people I could give a fuck about takes energy I don’t have, and if Una is going to be around me, she needs to understand that now.
She twists her hands in her lap and smooths her skirt, standing.
“Whatever you need.”
“Perfect. Leave.”
She blinks at me, then looks for confirmation from Vin, who shrugs and sighs.
Then she nods again and scurries down the hall.
Vin whistles low. “Cold, brother.”
I don’t answer, and he stands taller, giving me his serious look, the one that means I’m about to get a lecture.
“You don’t have to fuck anyone or kill yourself with work or get another fucking degree to get to a place where you can enjoy life again.
But you have to do something.
You can’t keep living like this.
It’s been almost a year since you guys split, and the New Year’s Eve gala is coming up again in a few weeks.
”
I shake my head. “No fucking way.” If Giovanna is there, there’s no fucking way I’m keeping my hands off her.
“No, you’re going. I need you there to help me finesse some people who could be useful in our upcoming war.
” He smacks me in the chest. “In the meantime, do what you have to do to find your purpose again.”
Giovanna is my purpose.
But I hear what he’s saying. I give him a short nod, and his eyes light up, happy that I’m actually listening to him.
**
Standing in front of the apartment I bought for Giovanna on the Upper West Side, I suck in a deep breath and steel myself.
I haven’t been back here since Gi left.
For the first few weeks, I drank myself into a stupor at my suite in Dragovari Tower until Vin and Matti came and pulled me out, put my knife back in my hand, and put me back to work.
There’s no such thing as healing after being with Giovanna.
But I have tools I’ve never had before: every social coping mechanism that Gi taught me, I’m using.
I smile when people bore me.
Nod when I don’t care about what they’re saying.
Come up with pithy small talk when I’d rather be just about anywhere else.
Now, in front of the building where she began the process of crushing my fucking life, I search for the right coping mechanism to apply: pretend to be okay, to be normal, until I get through it.
It’s time to reclaim our home.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get Giovanna back, but I will be here, in our home, waiting just in case.
Not rotting in Dragovari Tower.
With the turn of the knob, the apartment opens like a wound.
The air is stale, like it’s been holding its breath for the past year.
Every step echoes too loud. It’s too still, too quiet.
As I move through the rooms, I feel like an intruder in an alternate dimension.
This version of me shouldn’t be here, and I consider turning around and walking back out the door, handing the keys to a realtor and never looking back.
But I keep moving. My chest is tight, but my stride is even, measured.
In the bedroom, the smell of her perfume is gone.
There’s a layer of dust on everything, the bed sheets and blankets are rumpled, and the chair I sat in watching her sleep that last night is still in its place.
Touching nothing, I walk through, feeling like a ghost. Then I see it.
The ring I gave her. The one she said she’d give back to me at the altar one day.
It dangles from the chain she broke off her neck that night, a perfect circle of metal heavy enough to crush my soul.
I pick it up, and the air leaves me.
I tell myself it’s just a circle, perfect geometry, my specialty, a closed system with no escape.
I taught Gi about systems like that, how everything feeds back into itself, how some loops you can’t break without tearing the whole thing apart.
But here I am holding our loop, perfectly intact, while the relationship it represents is destroyed.
It’s cold in my palm. I close my fist around it, then open my hand, close again, then open, again and again.
I stare at it like this, disappearing and reappearing in my hand, for far too long.
I slide it onto my finger. Not my ring finger on my left hand that made Giovanna lose her shit all those years ago, but the ring finger on my right.
It’s heavy, solid. An anchor.
I’ll wear it until she finds her way back to me.
Until I make her see reason. Until I have her back in my bed where she belongs.