Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
STEVIE
By Wednesday, I’m done being Beth Taylor, data entry specialist, consumer of adequate nutrients, owner of a teal blanket and a flour container that’s actually full for once.
Done pretending that survivable is the same as living.
Instead of doing anything reasonable, like responding to work emails or watering the succulent Saul brought me or generally behaving like a functional member of witness protection, I’m in my kitchen making cookies.
Not the usual stress-bake peanut butter chocolate chip situation.
These are the kind of cookies that make PTA moms weep and food bloggers orgasm. Cranberry orange white chocolate. Delicate, dangerous.
The kind that say I was thinking about licking your jaw instead of I made these at 2 AM while having a breakdown.
I package them in a nice container. Write a note on an actual card this time, because apparently I’m evolving. Growing. Becoming a more sophisticated stalker.
Still okay? - S
Simple. Casual. Definitely not desperate.
Which is a lie in cookie form. I am extremely desperate.
It’s 2 PM on a Wednesday and I’m about to drive four hours to break into a mobster’s house and leave him cookies like I’m canvassing for cult recruitment with sugar and citrus zest.
I get in my car anyway.
The drive gives me four and a half hours to talk myself out of this.
I use exactly zero of those minutes on rational thought. I use them to plan increasingly unstable cookie-delivery scenarios.
Knock on the door? No, that’s insane. Leave the cookies on the porch like a Girl Scout who’s lost all sense of boundaries? Maybe. Peer through his windows like a raccoon casing a dumpster? Probably.
I don’t have a plan.
I have cookies and a death wish and a desperate need to exist in his orbit for five minutes.
This is fine. Everything is fine.
I park down the street. Check my reflection. Blonde hair, hat, sunglasses. The holy trinity of terrible disguises.
I look like a suburban mom with a body in the trunk and an alibi she rehearsed in the mirror.
Which is exactly what I am, minus the suburban mom and body part.
I grab the cookies. Get out of the car. Start walking toward his house like I’m just a normal woman delivering baked goods to a mobster in the middle of the afternoon.
Act natural. Be cool. You’re not breaking any laws yet.
There’s a wreath on his door. Tasteful. The kind of wreath that says I have disposable income and opinions about seasonal décor.
I reach for the doorbell.
Stop.
What am I doing? I can’t ring the doorbell. I can’t just show up at his house and say, what? “Hi, I’m the witness who destroyed your life, I brought snickerdoodles? Wanna kiss?”
They’re not even snickerdoodles. They’re cranberry orange white chocolate.
God, I’m spiraling about cookie classification while standing on a mobster’s porch.
My hand, apparently operating independently of my brain, tries the doorknob instead.
It turns.
The door opens.
It’s unlocked.
I stand there, frozen, staring at the crack of open door like it’s a portal to another dimension.
Who leaves their door unlocked? A mobster. A crime family member. A man who definitely has enemies and should know better.
Is this a trap? Did he know I was coming? Is there a team of armed guards on the other side.
Or maybe he just forgot to lock it, Stevie. Maybe he’s a human being who makes mistakes like everyone else.
I should leave the cookies on the porch and go.
I push the door open instead. Step inside. And close it quietly behind me.
Jesus Christ on a criminal record. I just broke into a mobster’s house.
I’m in Dario Marchetti’s house.
I just... walked in. Like this is something normal people do.
This is breaking and entering.
The entryway is hardwood floors and cream walls. There’s a small table with a bowl for keys, empty right now, which means he’s not home. A coat rack with one jacket hanging on it. Everything neat. Organized. The home of someone who has systems.
I stand frozen, listening.
Silence.
He’s not here. The door was unlocked but he’s not here.
I should leave the cookies and go. Right now. Immediately. Before I do something stupid.
I walk further inside.
The kitchen is to the right.
Modern. Clean. Granite counters in a dark grey. Stainless steel appliances that look like they’ve never been used, except, there’s a mug in the sink.
Just one. Dark residue at the bottom.
Espresso.
He was here this morning. Standing right here. Drinking espresso from this mug before going to wherever mobsters go during the day. Mob meetings. Pasta logistics. Coordinated suit-wearing.
I stare at the mug like it’s going to tell me something.
He holds it with his right hand probably. Drinks it standing up because he’s too busy to sit. Rinses it but doesn’t wash it because he’ll use it again tomorrow. Same mug. Same routine. Same…
I’m building a psychological profile off espresso sludge.
I need help.
I set my cookies on the island. Prop the card against them where he’ll see it.
And then I just... stand there.
This is his kitchen. His space. Where he exists when he’s not being a mobster or living in my internal porn reel.
I pick up the mug. Wrap my fingers around it. Imagine his hand where mine are. The strength of his grip. The way his fingers might feel on my chin, tipping me up for a kiss.
The rim of the cup presses against my mouth. I tip it. Sip. That last little bit that touched his lips.
Bitter. Strong. His.
My nipples could cut glass.
I just drank Dario Marchetti’s backwash.
This is indirect kissing. This counts. This is basically third base in stalker metrics.
What the actual fuck, Stevie? His backwash? This is where we are now?
I set the cup back in the sink.
Time to go.
I’ve delivered the cookies. Mission accomplished. Time to go back to my car and drive four hours home and pretend I didn’t just mouth his coffee cup.
Instead of leaving I walk into the living room.
What are you doing? I’m looking. Just looking. I’ll leave in a minute.
The living room is beautiful. Understated. A dark leather couch that looks expensive and comfortable. Bookshelves with actual books. Not decorative, real books with cracked spines and dog-eared pages. A coffee table with a few magazines stacked neatly.
Everything in its place.
Like him.
I walk closer to the bookshelves. Tilt my head to read the spines.
The Count of Monte Cristo. The Art of War. Three different books about wine. A biography of Napoleon. Something in Italian I can’t read.
He reads.
Of course he reads. He’s a weaponized lifestyle brand with a pasta schedule and an espresso addiction. Of course he has books.
I want to touch them. Want to pull one off the shelf and see if there are notes in the margins, if he dog-ears pages or uses bookmarks, if…
Leave. You need to leave.
There’s a hallway, leading to what must be bedrooms.
I should absolutely not go down that hallway.
I go down the hallway.
The first door is an office. Desk. Computer. Filing cabinets. Very professional. Very this is where crimes get organized.
I don’t go in. Even I have limits.
Okay, I clearly don’t have limits, but I’m pretending I do.
The rest of the rooms are closed. But there are stairs.
I go up.
The second door past the landing is slightly open. Just a crack. Just enough to see a sliver of dark grey bedding.
His bedroom.
Don’t. Stevie, do not.
I push the door open. And forget how to breathe.
It’s not extravagant. Not the gold-plated mob boss fantasy I’d half-imagined.
Just a large bed with dark grey sheets, perfectly made.
No handcuffs on the headboard. (My pussy is a little disappointed in that.) Nightstands with lamps.
A dresser. A door that probably leads to a bathroom.
Another door that’s definitely a closet.
It smells like him.
That cologne. The one I caught a hint of in the restaurant. Cedar and bergamot? Sandalwood?
The bed is right there. Dark grey sheets pulled tight. Military corners. The kind of bed that says discipline, control, and possibly really excellent orgasms.
I walk to it. My hand reaches out. Touches the comforter.
Cool under my fingers. Expensive fabric. The kind you sink into.
I picture him here. Sleeping. Shirtless probably. Those broad shoulders against the pillows. That jaw relaxed. Hair messed up from sleep.
Or not sleeping. Awake. With someone. Me. Doing things that make the sheets come untucked.
I press my palm flat against the mattress.
Imagine his weight. The dip his body would make. Whether he sleeps on his back or his side.
My hand is on Dario Marchetti’s bed.
I’m touching where he sleeps.
My therapist is going to need a therapist.”
I walk to the closet.
Suits. So many suits. Organized by color with the precision of someone who takes clothing very seriously. Dark grey. Charcoal. Navy. Black. A few lighter options, stone, taupe, that he probably wears in summer.
Shirts hung perfectly, arranged by color and sleeve length. Ties on a rack, silk, patterned, solid, more ties than any one person could possibly need.
Maybe he has a tie fetish.
That’s why there were no handcuffs. He uses fancy silk ties like a goddamn gentleman dom. On the wrists, at the ankles, around my throat, as a gag.
Focus, Stevie.
My hand reaches out before I can stop it. Touches one of the ties.
Deep blue. Cool under my fingers.
Don’t.
I take it off the rack.
What are you doing?
I loop it around my neck like trying on possession, pretending I belong to someone who should absolutely never belong to anyone.
The silk is cool against my throat. Smooth. Expensive.
This tie has been against his neck. Against his skin. He’s tied it a hundred times, a thousand, his fingers working the knot while standing in front of a mirror.
And now it’s on me.
I tighten it. Imagine his hands doing this. Wrapping it around my wrists. My throat. Using it to pull me closer, tilt my head back, make me look at him while his fingers slide into my cunt.
I’m wet.