10. Valeria #2
Underneath the table, Nico hooks his foot under mine. He leans back in his chair, but he keeps his hand on the back of mine. “Why, you scared?”
I scoff. “We need to be spending as little time together as possible. We aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, we’re… business partners.”
“Yeah, sure. Business partners who fuck each other and are also engaged.”
A couple old ladies from a nearby table give us dirty looks.
“Nico, can you keep your voice down?”
“Sure I can.” He lets the implication—but will I?—hang in the open air.
“We should be discussing which women have caught your eye. Did you like Giorgia?” I take a sip of coffee to swallow down the acid in my throat. “I still think there’s a chance between you two. You’d probably get along really well.”
Nico blows out a stream of air. “Giorgia just wants my last name, and maybe my sister’s affections—”
“What? She’s not—”
“She couldn’t stop talking about Alessia. I’m telling you. She’s not interested.”
I scrub my face. That couldn’t possibly be true, though a few rumors I’ve heard about her suddenly make a lot more sense.
“Have you ever been to New York?” he asks suddenly.
I used to make collages of all the places I thought I’d visit when I grew up.
It always sounded so freeing to be able to go wherever my heart took me.
But the reality is, travel is expensive.
I could travel, or I could have a place of my own, so I’ve saved up for the second option, and now I make collages of other things. Simple pleasures.
I tried last night. I sat down at my desk with my art supplies in front of me. I cut out a few haphazard shapes, but my heart wasn’t in it. I gave up and watched Friday the 13th for the hundredth time.
“No.”
“Would you want to?” His foot wriggles under mine. I try to jerk my leg away, but he hooks me again. “My sister wants to meet you. We could fly over on the weekend and be back in time for your little job.”
“It’s not a little job. I’ve been working to get this role for years now. I love what I do.”
“Oh, yeah? You just love processing shit samples?”
I lean back in my chair, and his hand wraps around my shoulder.
I pretend not to notice. “I love that I get to learn something new every day. I love that I don’t have to work with the general public anymore.
Someone at work even brings their dog to visit on coffee breaks. And I like that I’m doing my part.”
“Your part of what?”
I glance at him and look away. “You don’t care.”
“I do.”
I ignore the squeezing in my chest at his words. He just wants to have sex again. Better I spit it out, and then we can move on to something more important. “My part in making up for the things my family has done. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to be a part of all this.”
He rubs his thumb across my neck. “But you are.”
I look out across the river, wishing I could fly as far away as I wanted, without limitations. “I am.”
Nico drops me off in front of my house after a long afternoon at the café. Time seemed to fly by while we were together—a dangerous concept. I need to go to my room and blast heavy metal or a scary movie so I can push all the warm thoughts about Nico off a cliff.
“You know, gas is pretty expensive these days,” Nico says.
Or maybe I can let him talk and ruin my feelings for him all on his own.
I’m not sure who he pissed off to get his Ferrari swapped for an old Prius, but the less I know about Nico’s personal life, the better.
I sigh and reach for my purse.
Nico catches my elbow. “I don’t want that. Let’s go on another date.”
“This wasn’t a date.”
“A business meeting then. Strictly platonic. I’ll text you.”
I didn’t even realize he had my number, but choose not to question it. I open the car door and step out. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Thanks for the company.”
I shut the car door and walk away before I say something stupid. I can practically feel his gaze burning against my back as I move up my driveway.
He asked me what my favorite wine was (merlot, but I’d rather have a pina colada). My favorite movies—every scary, gory movie I listed only made his smile grow brighter.
When I went to the bathroom, I saw they didn’t have BLTs on the café menu. Even now, the thought makes my chest ache.
We can not go on another date.
Once I open the front door, Nico drives off.
There’s been a robbery.
Stefano looks up from the middle of a pile of wreckage that used to be our living room.
“Val,” he says in a weak voice. His eyes are red-rimmed.
All of the paintings Dad’s collected over the years have been ripped down from the walls and broken. Mom’s vases, shattered. The coffee table was thrown into the wall. It looks like Stefano sat on the couch while a tornado ripped around him.
“What happened?” I drop my purse to the ground. My bedroom—my money. I can’t run and check, not with Stefano here. I dig my toes into the bottom of my shoes to keep from sprinting into my room.
“The Russians,” Stefano says. “Val, they took Dad.”
Like a flash-bang’s gone off, I blink and try to process what he’s just told me.
“The Russians? How do you—”
“Who else would it be? They have every reason to hate us, and now they’re finishing the job. I think there was a fight in Dad’s bedroom. He left his phone and wallet, but he’s gone. He ran, or they took him.” Stefano’s voice drops low. “Val, it isn’t safe here. They’re picking us off one-by-one.”
I look around the place. None of the windows are broken, and the front door works.
“How did they get in?”
“Who the fuck cares?” Stefano stands and walks over to me. “You need to go live with Nico, now. We aren’t going to be safe until you and him are married.”
I’m too stunned to register fear at Stefano’s nearness. “I’m not moving in with Nico. He… doesn’t want me to move in yet.”
Nico would probably demand I move in. Part of me wants to call him—he’d know what to do, right?
I swallow. I was supposed to move out next week.
Stefano grabs my arm and shakes me. “Then you need to fucking change that.”
I try to pull my arm away, but his grip is firm. “Stefano, you’re hurting me.”
Normally, that might make him laugh, but he lets go of me like he’s been electrocuted. For a moment, we just stare at each other.
Then, I realize—he’s scared. He’s scared of Nico.
The paradigm shift dawns on both of us at the same time.
He shakes his head with disgust. “I’m going to the bar. Do whatever you want.”
He storms out of the house, slamming the door behind him. The second he’s gone, I race to my bedroom.
Whoever came destroyed my room too, though not as extensively as the living room. My desk has been overturned, and my lamp, broken, but that seems to be it.
A lump swelling in my throat, I approach my mattress.
It looks untouched.
I lift it, and the moment I see green, I choke out a sob of relief. I lift it all the way. All the cash I’ve saved up for the past several years is sitting in one place, untouched.
Thank god.
I sit on the edge of my bed and take a minute to compose myself, scrubbing my face with my palms.
Stefano says the Russians came here, but I don’t fully trust him—whether he’s lying or jumping to conclusions, it doesn’t make any sense. If they wanted to take us out, they could just do that. This feels more like a scare tactic.
It feels like a message.
I tie half of my hair into a ponytail, go to my overturned desk, shimmy out one of the broken drawers, and pull on a pair of gloves.
I start with Dad’s room.
It’s been months since I’ve been inside his room, maybe even longer. It’s a little strange to step over the threshold, and stranger still to see it in such disarray. I wonder what Mom would say if I called her, if she would even acknowledge this in any way.
I could call Nico. I have his number now.
A part of me is worried he would tell me it’s nothing.
And an even bigger part of me is worried he would come pick me up, that he’d whisper sweet reassurances in my ear as he brought me to his place. I can’t live with him. I wouldn’t ever be able to shake us apart.
I tug up the edge of my glove. I don’t even know if I can trust him—if he wasn’t a part of this in some way.
It’s too much of a coincidence that all this happened while we were at the café.
Was this some fucked up way of forcing me into his arms?
My heart sinks. Would I put this past him?
He hasn’t done anything to hurt me. Not explicitly.
But I know he’s a bad man, and that means he can’t be trusted. It should be simple, but it twists into something complicated, riddled with shades of grey when I acknowledge the rest of the truth. He treats me decently. He likes me. We fit together like matching puzzle pieces.
I might be falling for him.
My stupid heart wants to ignore every red flag he waves in my face, favoring fantasy in place of reality. This is how women get trapped in horrible, loveless marriages.
I can’t be one of those women.
I set aside thoughts of Nico and walk through Dad’s room. The tornado touched down here. The side tables have been kicked over, lamps broken. One of Mom’s dresses, ripped and thrown to the side—had Dad been keeping that on his bed?
I try to focus on painting myself an image of what happened, how they taught us at school. I take out my phone and snap pictures like I’m collecting evidence at the scene of the crime.
It doesn’t look like a struggle happened. There’s no blood—no clear path of destruction.
The longer I take pictures and delicately inspect the room, my mind becomes more certain—this is a warning.
But for who? Dad? Stefano?
Me?
Nico, even?
As I look over each shard of glass, each splintered piece of wood, something catches my eye.
On the edge of one of the shattered lamps is a thin streak of blood.