Chapter 20
Curse
Aurora remains in place while I finish my shower. It’s hard for me not to look at her. Naked and wet and fucking celestial in her beauty. Her eyes are hooded as she leans against the wall. She does not speak. I wonder how much she’s regretting what just happened.
I don’t. I can’t remember the last time I actually regretted something.
She needed to see that little slice of what I’d actually do to her. And it really was just a slice. I didn’t go anywhere near my full desire for her. I held myself back.
Barely.
I don’t want gentle.
Yeah. She doesn’t have a fucking clue. Even if she did come. If it were good, and it were right, and it could make her happy, she wouldn’t be standing there completely fucking zoned-out like she is right now.
We will get married. We will have sex once. And then I won’t fucking touch her again.
It has to be this way. The divorce with its attached conditions is the perfect solution. I get what I want – to never have to watch her marry someone else.
And she gets to be free of me.
After a month, no one will gain anything by coming after her. She’ll be safe.
That’s what fucking matters, in the end. That she’s safe from all of them. And safe from me. Because my desire to protect her extends most of all to myself. But it’s being chipped at. Worn away by the hunger for her that I never fucking saw coming.
“You’re all packed?” I say when I turn off the water. She breathes in deeply, her wet eyelashes fluttering, and straightens up. Like I’ve just woken her from a dream.
“Yes. Pretty much.”
“Good. Bring everything you need. I don’t know when we’re coming back here.”
Of course, I can buy her anything she wants or needs in Ontario, too. But I don’t want her to be without something necessary because she’s left it behind.
“How long is the drive?”
“We’re taking the train. It’ll be five or six hours.”
Weather looks like shit between here and Toronto.
Not unusual for this time of year. We often get snow stretching into April.
But I’m not risking Aurora’s safety on the highways in whiteout conditions.
I’ve booked us a private train car, so we shouldn’t be bothered or spotted by anyone of consequence.
We’ll get to Toronto this evening and get the rest of this shit rolling.
“What time do we leave?”
“From here? 2:30,” I reply. “Train leaves the station at 3.”
She nods. “Guess I’ll go get ready, then.”
I want to tell her to stay. Again. I don’t. I need to start rationing her now. Experience her in little drips and drops. Learn to live in the spaces where she doesn’t exist. I did it for more than two decades. But I’m suddenly terrified that I’ve forgotten what it’s like not to be with her.
Terror. Haven’t felt this shit in fucking years.
I dry off with a towel, first my hair, then the rest of my body.
When I emerge into the bedroom, Aurora isn’t there.
She might have already gone down to the kitchen for something to eat.
I get dressed in silence – black jeans, black shirt.
Black gun strapped to my side. Black knife strapped to my hip.
This is the first time I’ve been out in public with her now that I know half of New York’s underworld is actively looking for her. Can’t be too careful. Not where she’s concerned.
I spend the rest of the afternoon packing my own bag and getting things in order. I’ve made arrangements for the marriage license to be ready by tomorrow morning. By tomorrow afternoon, she’ll be Mrs. Accursio Titone.
She never got the chance to change her name to Messina. I wonder, after the divorce, if she’ll choose to go back to Bianchi. Is that a thing women do after divorces?
I hope she doesn’t. She might not be married to me by the end of April.
But I want her to be a Titone for the rest of her life. Even if she isn’t mine.
By 2:15, Aurora is standing with a suitcase by the front door.
She looks different than she did this morning, when she was naked under the spray of the water, her entire body shuddering and bucking with the force of my thrusts.
No, now she looks composed. Nearly regal.
Her pale blonde hair is tied neatly in a tight bun at the back of her head, like a ballerina’s, with not a single strand out of place.
She’s got on a modest grey sweater with a high neckline, a pair of black leggings, and the winter boots I bought her.
“Here,” I say, opening the closet near the front door. I pull out her parka, as well as an old scarf that’s been in there for ages. I pass them both to her. “Keep the hood up at all times in public. And use the scarf to cover your face.”
She does so, winding the scarf around her neck and chin until it’s secure all the way up to her nose. Once the parka’s on, she pulls the hood up, too.
“Where are your sunglasses?”
She tugs the scarf down to answer.
“In the suitcase.”
“Get them out. Whichever pair is bigger and covers more of your face. And don’t do that again,” I tell her. She can’t be yanking the scarf down every time she wants to fucking talk to me. I don’t want her face seen by anyone.
I’m less worried about my face being seen, but even so, I strap on a new black medical mask, covering the lower half of my face.
Aurora lays the suitcase flat and opens it up.
She doesn’t have to rummage through it. Everything is perfectly folded and organized.
She grabs the two cases with the sunglasses right away, checking the contents of each before choosing the pair with big, bug-eye lenses.
Once those are on, and the scarf is back in place, most people wouldn’t have a goddamn clue who she was.
I would.
I think I’d recognize Aurora Bianchi even if she got hit by a bus and half her fucking face fell off.
I’d know the sound of her voice. The length of her neck and the shape of her hands and the way her legs move when she walks.
The heavenly fucking aura that seems to surround her at all times.
An invisible halo I sense more than I see.
She zips the suitcase up once more. I grip the handle, adjusting the strap of my own bag on my shoulder.
“Let’s go.”
It’s not a long drive to the train station. I make use of the long-term parking option there, but if for some reason that doesn’t work out, I can always have someone come pick up the vehicle for me.
I’m on high alert when we step out of the vehicle at the station.
My eyes don’t stop moving as I scan every person, every set of hands, every face.
Between balancing my bag’s strap on my shoulder and pulling the suitcase by the handle, I only have one hand free.
I wrestle with the decision of whether to rest that free hand on the gun beneath my jacket, or to hold onto Aurora.
In the end, I choose Aurora.
As if there could be any other answer.
When my hand closes over hers, she sends me a questioning glance from behind the massive, dark lenses of her sunglasses. I ignore her, too busy looking for people who might become a problem.
As far as I know, no one knows I’m the one who killed Marco yet.
They won’t be looking for her here. But there’s always a chance that some fucker with more brains than is good for him has made connections that I’m not comfortable with.
So I don’t let my guard down until we find our private train car and board.
A railway porter offers to carry the luggage up the small set of metal steps, but I wave him off.
I don’t want anyone else touching our shit but us.
There’s no one inside the train car, no staff to send away.
There are, however, doors at each end of the car that I’m not particularly fond of.
It’s likely just for porters to come through and bring snacks and drinks.
But that’s two points of entry for me to keep my eye on.
Plus Aurora makes three things to watch.
And I’ve only got two fucking eyes.
As I pull down the blinds on all the train car windows, Aurora unzips her jacket and looks around, seeming faintly pleased.
“This is nice,” she says. “I’ve never been on a train before.”
It’s not my preferred mode of transportation. I don’t typically like to be anywhere but the driver’s seat if I can help it. But this will get us to Toronto faster and more safely than driving will. So it’s worth it.
Once the windows are all blocked by the blinds, I give a quick security sweep of the train car.
There’s a small table with burgundy leather benches around it and matching burgundy carpet.
I don’t find anything unusual there. No explosives, no cameras.
There is one camera in here. Nothing out of the ordinary – looks like a normal security camera.
But I hold up my hand, silently gesturing for Aurora to keep her scarf and sunglasses on until I cover it, which I do immediately.
If anyone notices, I doubt they’ll give me any shit over it. The booking is under my name.
And the name Curse Titone means something to people around here.
There’s a third small door that opens into part of the wall that sticks out, but it’s just a tiny bathroom. There’s nothing to worry about in here, either. And obviously there’s no camera to cover.
“Can I take this stuff off yet?” Aurora asks. She lifts her hands, fanning herself. The small bits of skin on her face that are exposed, anyway.
“You can lose the parka. But keep the sunglasses on the whole time,” I say. “And the scarf.”
There will be no way to know when some bumbling porter offering us wine or crackers or whatever other shit they’ve got on board will come uninvited through one of those doors.
I put our bags onto the luggage rack while Aurora sheds her parka.
“I wish I’d brought a book,” she says after we’ve settled ourselves onto the leather benches. We’re sitting across from each other at the table. “I didn’t think about that until now.”