Chapter VIOLET
The next day…
"Don't," I tell Marcello, slapping lightly at his fingers playing with a strand of my hair while I change his bandages.
"So silky," he remarks, ignoring my request.
Over the last couple of days, he hasn't made any more direct advances, but his indirect ones are hitting me deeper, like this right now, where he's holding part of my hair hostage.
"You're making it hard for me to focus," I complain.
"Ah, so I am having an effect on you?"
I roll my eyes, "Of course that's how you would interpret my comment. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your advances are making me uncomfortable because you're my boss?"
He laughs. He actually laughs.
"Ah, Violet, I love your sense of humor."
For the hundredth time today, I reach for outrage, but no, nothing, nada. Not even a hint can I summon to my defenses, not even when I think of Mom and how I should feel guilty. Luciano enters with a stack of documents in his hands, distracting me from my mulling.
"What's that?" I ask.
"Put them on the desk," Marcello orders.
"I know you've been out of the house," I pull the sticky gauze off his hip wound. "This is fresh blood. You aggravated your wound."
"Busted," Luciano snarks from the desk.
Marcello doesn't even try to look guilty.
"Since you won't help me with my… other needs, I had to go somewhere to have it taken care of."
Abruptly, my head turns up. His words slice into me like a knife. They shouldn't, but did he really just say he went somewhere to have sex?
It's none of my business. None. He's your patient.
"Does that bother you, Violet?" His voice is low and teasing.
"Why would it bother me?" I ask, not looking up as I clean the seam, checking to make sure it doesn't need to be restitched.
"Hmm."
Oh my God, his little sound caresses me like a lover's hand.
"It doesn't," I assure him, finally meeting his gaze. "It only bothers me because you managed to delay the healing process by probably a week."
"Is that so?" He smirks.
Oh, how I wish I could wipe that smirk off his face.
"That's so." I nod. "As a matter of fact, I have a date tonight, too."
His expression tightens. "Since you're working for me for the moment, I need his name to have him vetted."
Fuck. A name?
I was just throwing it out there. I have no idea why I thought it might bother him. But his little admission threw my mind into an emotional twister, and I wasn't thinking straight.
Lies have short legs, my mom always said. Stumps, I think, in my case, they're stumps.
"Felix," I raise my chin defiantly. "His name is Felix." So, there. That's not even a lie, because I do have a night planned with Felix.
"Felix…" he dangles, waiting for me to supply a surname.
"Felix," my eyes fall on the medicine cabinet. The bottle of Amoxicillin. "Moxy. Felix Moxy."
"Strange name. Check him out, Luciano."
"Sure, boss."
Yeah, good luck with that. I turn my head to hide my smirk.
"There, all done." I pat the adhesive gauze and rise.
I start to put the pill bottle back into the drawer, but stop when Doctor Waspo's name catches my eye.
"Oh." I hold it up.
"What?"
"About Doctor Waspo?"
"What about him?" Marcello cocks his head.
"Well…" I know he's still alive, at least as of this morning; otherwise, I'm sure I would have heard something through the hospital grapevine.
I may not work there anymore, but I still hear some of the gossip.
I'm not sure how to ask if Marcello still intends on killing him. Either way I phrase it will sound… bad.
I draw a circle on the floor with my foot. "Are you… Are you still…"
Both Marcello and Luciano stare at me with amused expressions.
"You're going to make me say this, aren't you?" I demand.
"Since I have no idea what you're asking, I guess so," Marcello smirks.
"Fine. What are you going to do to him?"
"Hmm, what did you suggest, Luciano?" Marcello turns to his friend.
"Slowly dipping him in acid?"
"No, the other one." Marcello keeps an eye on me.
"Oh, you mean the burying alive in cement?"
"I don't know..." Marcello moves his head back and forth.
"You guys are impossible," I fume, realizing they're making fun of me.
"Ah," Marcello snaps his finger. "How about a simple bullet to the head?"
I pale. "Please. Don't. He was just scared."
"He was ready to kill me." Marcello points out. "He would have, had you not interfered."
"Something I'm starting to regret," I mumble.
Marcello chuckles. "You don't mean that."
I don't, but he doesn't need to know that, so I keep my mouth shut.
"How about we talk about it over dinner?" Marcello suggests.
"A dinner? Like a date?" My insides slowly liquify. A date with Marcello? Uhm, yes please, my pussy screams. Have you lost your ever-loving marbles? My mind chimes in. Absolutely not, Violet, Mom gets a say too.
"Sure, yes, a date, if you want to label it." Marcello's grin creates even more havoc with my insides. "Tonight." He challenges.
"But… I already have a date tonight," I manage weakly, very aware of my earlier lie and very, very aware of his magnetism over me, but trying desperately to hold onto my mother's warning.
Marcello arches an eyebrow at me as if he already knows it was a lie.
"You just broke up with your fiancée," I speak before I can stop myself. But I'm proud of myself. Proud of reminding myself how things end up for women who fall for this man.
His expression darkens. "You really do have a hangup about Mina, don't you?"
"A hangup?" I repeat, feeling the heat of a different kind move through me. This man is infuriating. "How can you be so callou—"
He raises his hand, interrupting me, "Stop. Before you embarrass yourself further, let me explain. Since this seems so important to you, Mina is nothing but a gold digger. She thought she could wrangle me into marrying her, and her plan failed."
Is that how he justifies his behavior? It was Mina's fault? I cross my arms over my chest. "You're un-fucking-believable. You asked a woman to marry you, that means—"
He raises his hand again, and God help me, I want to shoot him. I've never held a gun before, but I really, really want to shoot him.
No you don't, my pussy pouts.
"I never proposed to Mina." His voice is tight—too controlled.
"She showed up with a ring and declared us engaged.
We were at a ball, there were hundreds of people.
" He scoffs, but oddly, there's not much heat behind it.
"If I were really the cold bastard you think I am, I would've shut her down right there.
Humiliated her. But I didn't. I waited to deal with it privately. "
He pauses. Just long enough for the silence to stretch a little too far. "Then I got shot."
That shuts me up.
The words hang between us, sharp and quiet.
My mouth opens to fire back another retort, but nothing comes out.
Because what the hell can you say to that?
I deflate a little. Not visibly—at least I hope not—but inside, something shifts.
A crack opens wide enough for me to look at him not as a callous mafia boss but as…
a man. A man who's been shot. A man who bled.
A man whose so-called fiancée announced their engagement without his consent and then disappeared the second things got messy.
I fold my arms tighter, more to hide my own discomfort than out of defiance. Maybe I misjudged him. Just a little. You think? Again, my pussy thinks she gets a vote here. I glance at his shoulder—the wound I've been tending to, more or less professionally.
When I finally speak, my voice is quieter. "That must've been… a lot."
He cocks his head, eyes narrowing just slightly. Not in irritation this time, but in interest. He felt the shift, too.
"I don't need your pity," he says, but there's no bite to it. "Unless it gets me something useful."
I straighten. "Like what?"
A slow, lazy grin spreads across his lips, arrogant and predatory. "For starters, dinner."
My eyebrows rise.
"Come on, Chirps. You're feeling a little guilty now, aren't you? Misjudging me. Thinking, I proposed to some vapid gold digger when really, I was the one being ambushed by a publicity stunt. While bleeding out in a parking garage, no less."
I hate how good he is at this. He twists things just right, making it hard to tell when I'm being manipulated and when I actually want to say yes.
He leans in, eyes sharp and knowing. "You owe me."
My eyes narrow. "I don't owe you anything."
He turns to Luciano. "Didn't she once say something about wanting to protect innocent lives?"
Luciano doesn't get a chance to reply.
"Oh well," Marcello shrugs his shoulders. "Poor Doctor Waspo," he says, looking at Luciano again, this time with faux solemnity.
I grit my teeth. "You're blackmailing me with a man's life."
Marcello lifts a hand, palm up. "You call it blackmail. I call it incentivized empathy."
"Oh fine!" I yell, throwing my hands up. Not even my mom could argue that someone else's life isn't worth going on a date for. And if it ever comes up, I'll go with that too.
"I'll pick you up at seven," he says smoothly, already victorious. "Alejandro has your address?"
"He's been picking me up all week. He better," I mutter, spinning on my heel.
"Good," he says behind me, amusement lacing every word. "It's settled then. Poor Felix."
I stop in the doorway, turning to glare at him. "Felix is my cat, by the way."
"I knew he wasn't real," Marcello says, utterly unrepentant. "But I was going to shoot him anyway."
Luciano snorts.
I walk away, cursing the universe. And my ovaries. And myself.
Because God help me… I'm looking forward to dinner.
"I have no idea what to wear. This is such a stupid idea. Stupid, stupid," I tell Felix, who is intently watching me.
I can't believe I agreed to a date with a mafia boss, which is bad enough, but oh no, it gets worse. I'm also compromising the health of my patient, who should be in bed, not gallivanting through town with me, and who is also… here's the real kicker: My boss.