Chapter 8
Arya
Ten more unanswered calls from my mom, the entire salmon platter, eight frozen strawberries, and half a bottle of wine later, I’m still staring at my phone instead of watching movies or working harder on getting wine drunk.
Should I call Michael?
I’m dead curious about what he wants, I have to admit. I’m also pretty damn interested in taking an opportunity to get back at him. And as for the matter of the spy in my household... he’s doubtless giving up his own stooge. But as an opening offer, it’s... intriguing.
And it will vindicate me a little where my parents are concerned. It’s ridiculous that my father would rather scapegoat me than check out the possibility that there’s a spy among our staff. But if I serve whoever it is up to him on a platter, maybe he’ll finally figure out that he should listen to me more.
Or maybe he’ll just ignore the whole thing, as usual.
Trying to sort out life when I’m depressed isn’t easy. I mostly want to just lie here undecided and waste the hours because focusing enough to choose—listen to my mom’s bile-filled messages or just erase them; call Michael or lose his number—feels like trying to move a boulder with my tongue.
I pour another glass of white wine over a glass full of frozen strawberries and work my way through it, trying to gather courage. I eat the last strawberry in the glass before I find it.
I delete all the middle messages from my mother, leaving a few at the beginning of her tirade and a few at the end. That should cover all her main points, in case I decide I actually want to listen to them.
Then, after pouring more wine, I call Michael.
He picks up right away. “Oh, my God, you actually called me!”
I immediately regret doing so. “Why the fuck are you bugging me?” I demand.
“Not on the phone! You’re not the only one who has spies in your household right now!” His voice is hushed and urgent. If he’s playing some kind of messed-up prank, he’s putting a lot of effort into it.
“Look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’ve gone from seriously contributing to ruining my life to wanting to meet in person. If this is your idea of a booty call—”
“Um, no.” He suddenly sounds quite a bit more serious. “Not a booty call, nothing like that. I’m calling you strictly for business—and vindication. So... out with it. Can I get you to meet with me or not?”
I want with all my heart to tell this clown to go to hell. He deserves it. He could probably use the character growth. And I could use the satisfaction of doing it.
But... I really could use the name of that goddamn spy. I absolutely could.
“I’m in the South Bay. Where and when?” I don’t want him to know where my hotel room is.
He gives me the address of a nice Mexican restaurant. I make an irritated noise. “This isn’t a date. Meet someplace we can actually talk.”
We finally settle on a hotel room across town, near the San Jose airport. At 1 p.m. the next day. “We can get a nice dinner from room service,” he presses. I just plain don’t want to hear that, but I noncommittally grunt so I don’t have to deal with any arguing.
I can already tell that it is going to be a long night. But at least, I’m not meeting him in the morning.
I have to plow through exactly one bottle and one glass of wine and my entire bag of frozen strawberries before I can even think about sleeping. Even then, my phone keeps me up for a while. Even muted, the damn screen flashes on whenever there’s a call or message.
I know it’s from my family, probably my mother. I don’t want to care. I do care.
I finally have to put the phone in the bathroom before I can sleep. I have no idea why that works, but it does. Maybe it’s the lack of reminders.
My dreams are hazy. Michael’s circling me, flirting with me, laughing at me. He keeps saying he doesn’t mean any harm to me, but I don’t believe him. Can’t believe him. I’m naked and cold, and he teases me, refusing to hand me my towel. When I punch him, the dream dissolves, and I sit up to discover the fog’s returned and the temperature’s started dropping.
My mother fills up my inbox with messages again. I grit my teeth and go through a few with my morning coffee. There’s nothing in them that she hasn’t screamed at me before in the heat of anger. How I’m ungrateful, a brat, and how there’s something wrong with me. The new threat? How she and Dad are going to cut me off if I don’t come home.
They can do that. I’ve never exactly been high maintenance, and I’ve put away enough in cash and private accounts that even if I can’t find a good job for a while, I’ll be fine for years.
I wonder what a therapist would think of my family. I couldn’t spill every family secret, of course. Nobody needs to know that we’re mobsters. Nobody needs to know where my parents get their wealth. But what would a professional think of these phone messages, my mother’s obsessiveness, my father’s dismissal, and all their demands?
They’d probably be surprised I didn’t do this sooner.
That’s the crazy part about my family: I can look at what they’re doing and objectively tell it’s irrational and not right. Friends have said the same. But the longer things go on, the more I realize that my parents don’t just ignore that they’re damaging our relationship—damaging me—they’ve convinced themselves that they have the right, and that I deserve it.
So, why am I even thinking about going back? Why do I care about exposing the spy and vindicating myself with my parents? Because they’re family.
But maybe giving up would be smarter. Maybe it would hurt less than this.
I text Michael and tell him I need to turn off my phone for a while. He asks what’s wrong, surprising me. I simply say it’s fallout from the shit he’s pulled on me, and he goes quiet. I turn off my phone, reminding myself to check it in an hour and delete any more poison my mother might leave in my inbox.
At one exactly, I arrive at Michael’s hotel, a not-too-fancy spot near the airport that was probably the best he could do on short notice. Their room service menu, however, is four pages long, which may be why he has picked the place.
It’s early in the afternoon, but I’m already tired. Even though I’ve hydrated enough to avoid more than a token wine headache, I feel like I’ve wasted my time trying to drown my sorrows. It didn’t help anything. It didn’t even help me sleep.
Now, though, it’s about 15 degrees cooler, and all that does is make me want to take a comfortable nap without the air-conditioner roaring. Instead, this meet. Michael had better not be wasting my time, or I will personally kick his ass.
He’s waiting for me in the lobby. I see him before he sees me: lost in thought, pacing restlessly near the coffee bar, his expression uncharacteristically serious. He looks like something is actually wrong. He also looks like he might be worried that I won’t show.
It’s interesting seeing him distracted and without that annoying smirk. He’s a lot easier on the eyes when he’s not being a pain in the ass. He almost looks like a grown man. Though, of course, he’s in jeans, a leather jacket, and a band T-shirt, like a giant teenager.
Nice engineer boots, though. And a nice ass, too.
I push my gaze away from him, steel myself, and walk into the door, clutching my laptop bag close to me. I’m paranoid about losing it after everything, and the crime rate around here is way higher than in most rich neighborhoods.
He notices almost immediately and walks over, putting on a smile. I watch his approach skeptically but keep my expression polite. I’m in a dark purple skirt suit, not really dressed up, but still more than he is. I’m glad I didn’t wear higher heels; the lobby floor is slippery as hell.
“Arya! You actually showed up. This is awesome. I half-thought you wouldn’t.” And there comes the smirk, which seems to pop up even when he’s apparently being sincere.
“You’re lucky I did. Let’s go upstairs. We have a lot to talk about.” I keep my tone all business.
His smile falters, but then, he just nods and leads me over to the elevators. “That’s fine. Hey, how come you had to turn your phone off earlier?”
“I left for the weekend to clear my head, and my mother is losing her shit about it. I almost never do things like that, but we’re fighting, so now, she’s... being like this.”
His smirk fades entirely. “Oh. Shit. I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You’re partly at fault for it.” I follow him into the elevator as the door opens and move aside so he can press the eighth-floor button.
“Look, I know you probably don’t believe me, but... I’m actually really sorry for everything,” he starts.
I feel my blood pressure rise as he speaks. His apology is so inadequate it feels like an insult. “Just shut up about that for now,” I say in a colder tone than I mean to. “Even if you are sincere, words aren’t going to fix this.”
He looks a little taken aback but nods. “Fair enough.” I can see conflict in his eyes, though. He wants to go on, and I’m actually surprised that he’s holding back.
What he says next surprises me even more, though. “That five million I yanked from you, I’m going to put it back. But I need your help to get that done.”
As we walk out of the elevator, I look back at him several times, incredulous. When we get inside his small suite, I turn to him and say, “Okay, explain yourself.”
“Okay.” he sits on the edge of the bed while I take one of the chairs. “Like I said, my father ordered me to intercept that transfer of yours as soon as we got the news you were going to pull off the electronic heist. Once that was done, I didn’t really have a choice. You must know from having a high-ranking dad yourself. Their word is law.”
“Or, they sure fucking think it is,” I quip in an exhausted tone.
“You know what I mean, though.”
“I get that you say you were under orders, and you want to blame your dad for that.” Now, I’m craving another drink. Bad sign. I grab a bottled water out of his mini-fridge instead.
“I was. But I know I also went along with it, and I feel like shit about that.”
“You should.” I take a long swallow, wondering how I can be so damn thirsty now that it’s cooled down. “So, what about it?”
He shifts in his seat, looking uncomfortable, hesitating too long. By the time he finally speaks, I know it’s something that he doesn’t want to admit to. “It turns out we have a spy in our household as well.”
That makes my ears prick up. “Oh?”
“Yeah, and whoever it is helped someone steal that money from us in turn.”
What? I stare at him. “Say that again?”
“Someone stole the money that I stole from you. Which you stole from—”
“Yes, okay, I got that part.” It sinks in as I look at him. And suddenly, I’m laughing. I’m fucking laughing . His crestfallen look only makes me laugh louder.
“You lost the money? Someone fucking grabbed it from you?” I can’t keep the giggle out of my voice. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Seriously.
He rolls his eyes and smiles, but this time, it’s a tense, awkward line instead of his usual smirk. “Yep. They had skill, too. Snatched it during a transfer, just like I did from you. At first, I thought it was you, but I quickly realized you’d have done it sooner than instead of yelling at me.” He takes a deep breath. “I know you want to call it karma—”
“Oh, you fucking bet I do.” Now, I’m the one smirking. “After the hell I caught, the humiliation... shit, I’m in a hotel right now because I can’t take anymore. And they still won’t fucking stop. You want to listen to my damn phone messages? My mother’s being a complete psycho, between this and the fact that I haven’t pushed out any grandchildren for her yet.” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.
He looks genuinely shocked. “What the hell?”
“Exactly like I said. What, did you think that your humiliating me is the worst I suffered? No. They fucking fired me, and now, all they do is either berate me or make demands.” My voice shakes a little. This isn’t good. I should be enjoying gloating over the shit he’s facing. Instead, I’m mired in my feelings and hating it.
He stares at me for a long moment. “Fuck. I got the riot act from my father, but I thought that was all of what you’ve been going through.”
“Nope. They’d have to respect me for more than my uterus if that was the case.”
He’s looking at me in a way I don’t like. There’s almost pity in his eyes now. I hate seeing it almost as much as I hate him for what he’s done. “The fuck is wrong with them?” he manages after a few seconds.
I scoff. “You want a list? I only wish getting back in their good graces was as simple as getting the money back. But that, at least, would be a start, and you owe me, Rossi.”
“Yeah. I understand that. Just listen. Now, we’re both facing heat from our families for the same damn reason. The difference is, if we work together, we can get that money back and then some. We can get back into the good graces of our families and go our separate ways, each with our share of the money.”
I stare at him. It’s tempting. Especially if I can find a way to turn it all around on him and take advantage of the situation. That’s the real temptation, and it’s what he deserves exactly.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I say coolly. “You’re not exactly known as the most honest and helpful of guys, you know? And unlike you, I don’t have much chance of winning over my family now.” His fault. I was never going to let him live that down.
“Oh, come on!” He jumps up and paces in a small circle from sheer agitation, startling me. However, he doesn’t raise his voice or make any threats. He just looks frustrated. “What is there to think about?”
“Trusting you!” I roll my eyes as I stare at him. “Did you forget that you’ve given me no reason to believe you’re not setting me up to humiliate me again?”
He stops and holds up his hands like he’s trying to calm me down. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. I get it. You really don’t have any reason to trust me right now. But I can earn it. You just have to give me a chance—”
“You had a chance. All you had to do was not fuck up my life. But you wouldn’t do that. You wanted to make things hard for me.”
“No. My Dad wanted to make things hard for your family. He didn’t want them to have any confidence in the kind of heist you wanted to set up. He wanted them to give it up so we could swoop in instead and use it to enrich ourselves.”
“Yeah, he sounds like he could be related to you. You’re both fucking vultures.” I’m not even trying to hide my bitterness now.
He finally reaches the end of his patience. “What’s it going to take for you to believe me? Whoever is doing this, I need help stopping them. The payoff for this will be around five million. You can bring it back to your family to try and regain their respect... or you can walk off with it and go make a life for yourself well away from them.”
“I don’t need you to make that happen.” I don’t. All I need is to get details on another multi-million-dollar transfer, and I can grab another chunk of money for myself.
And yet...
“I’ll tell you what. Give me the name of the spy on my family’s staff, and I’ll consider your offer and get back to you tomorrow with my decision.”
That stops his agitation cold. He looks at me for a long moment as if he’s trying to figure out how serious I am.
“Look, the only quick decision you can possibly hope for with me is a ‘no.’ Consider yourself fortunate that I’m actually considering your proposal instead of rejecting it outright because it’s you.”
He nods slowly, calms a little, his expression thoughtful.
“I’ll give you my decision by tomorrow evening.” I finish draining the water bottle and set it aside, standing up.
“I guess that’s the best I can expect for now.” He sounds resigned. I don’t care.
“Yes, it is. But be ready anyway. If I decide to do this, I’ll want to get started right away.” The hopeful look he shoots me annoys me. I’m not giving him a definite yes.
But I’m not giving him a definite no, either. The truth is that the guy’s offer intrigues me. It offers plenty of opportunity—including the chance to completely screw him over.
That’s a chance I’d love to take. But for now, the chance to vindicate myself with my parents is enough.