Chapter 12 #2
First editions of her poetry collections cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. They were printed in limited runs and haven’t been available in literal decades because she passed away in 1970.
He doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t need to when my eye catches on the familiar, slight tear in the upper-right corner of the dust jacket.
I glance up at Priest in shock. “This is my copy.”
“It is.”
Looking into the bag, I see my hardback of The Granite Pail as well. “They’re all mine. How did you get my books?”
Priest doesn’t answer, so I look back at him. He’s watching me, unsmiling. There’s darkness in his eyes. Mysteries I shouldn’t want to solve.
“You broke into my apartment? When? How?”
“I didn’t break into anything, topolina .”
“One of your minions, then.” I wave my book at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Your belongings were carefully packed up and are being sent east. I took the liberty of having your books shipped faster. I thought you might want them.”
What the fuck? I know Priest is heavy-handed, but this is some next-level shit. I’m outraged.
“You can’t just have your men go into my apartment and empty it. It’s my apartment. Those are my things.” I try not to think of strangers packing up my underwear drawer. “My rent is paid up through the end of the year. I need to go back.”
“You’re not going back.”
“You don’t own me.” I start pacing. “I need access to my email, Priest. I need to ask for a leave of absence.”
“Your university has been informed of your change of plans.”
“You can’t just contact them like that.”
He stares at me, unsmiling.
Telling me without words that he can, and that he did.
I pace back toward him, grinding my molars. “I’m going back to school.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m finishing my MFA.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
He’s being super calm, and the calmer he is, the more I want to scream and hit him. But I know Priest well enough by now to understand that attacking him won’t do me any favors. I decide to try reasoning with him instead.
“Look, I married you to protect my father and myself, but he’s gone now.
The danger to me should also be gone. We’ll file for divorce, I’ll go back to Iowa and forget this ever happened, and you can carry on being a gangster.
I’ll sign an NDA or whatever it is that mobsters use these days.
I won’t file charges. I won’t breathe a word about anything that’s happened to law enforcement. It’s a win-win.”
He shakes his head, exuding danger the way some men wear cologne. “Wrong. Because your father has been killed, the danger to you is greater than ever. We’re not just at war with Amedeo now. We’re at war with the Bratva and the other families too.”
At war.
My level of panic, which was already higher than the Rockies, shoots practically to the moon. For the last week, I’ve been telling myself that this is temporary. That the smoke will clear and I’ll be released from this subterranean gangster lair and go on with my life.
“There is no we in this, mobster. I am not at war with anyone. I’m just a graduate student trying to finish her degree.”
I hold the Lorine Niedecker volumes against my chest like I’m a six-year-old with a stuffie to ward against the nightmares.
He crosses the room to me, thunderstorms in his eyes.
“Listen to me, topolina . Do you know what I witnessed today? No? I’ll tell you.
I saw my cousin and two of my guys, lifeless on the floor of an East Side kitchen, with holes drilled in their heads and their tongues and eyes cut out. They died slowly, tortured to death.”
My stomach lurches.
Priest is unrelenting, his face harsh as his head dips lower toward mine. “And do you know what the note on them said?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to know.”
“I’m going to tell you anyway,” he growls.
“Because you need to understand that Luna Revello is dead. She died the day you got on the plane to meet your father. Luna Andriani is who you are now. The old Luna is gone, and she isn’t coming back.
” Priest dips his head, his lips against my ear.
“Because the note on my cousin’s body said you’re fucking next. ”
His breath is hot against my ear, but I’m frozen with icy fear.
Suddenly, I’m on my wedding day again, standing outside the cathedral with the sun shining so brightly I’m squinting, and my father is taking me in his arms as a shot rings out.
And there’s blood everywhere. So much blood.
On him, on me, the scent of it, the stickiness.
This can’t be real.
The books drop out of my hands and hit the floor.
“You need me, Luna.”
He kisses the side of my neck, and I’m struck by a weird combination of hunger and terror. His hands clamp on my waist, holding me to him. Realization hits me then, in a way that it somehow hasn’t. Not through the violence of my father’s death or through the resulting shock.
Priest isn’t wrong.
My old life is gone. My friends, my work, my writing, my professors. Even my family. All I have left is a distant cousin who may or may not be trying to kill me and the mobster I married.
My bestie Isla is likely out of her mind with worry right now. It’s been over a week since I last answered a text. She’s probably tearing through the local police department, demanding I be found.
A hysterical sob bubbles up inside me. I try to swallow it down, but an embarrassing noise that’s half hiccup, half dying mouse comes out of me.
“They might as well get it over with,” I tell him harshly, angry with myself for not being able to control my emotions. “I’d rather die than stay here, trapped in this hellhole with you.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He kisses my temple, still holding me close, enveloping me in his warm strength. “And I’ll get you out of here eventually. But we need to know you’ll be safe first.”
“I don’t care if I’m safe. This is not a life.”
He pulls back, tucking his chin down to study me. “You want out of the room?”
That he’s even asking me is a shock. But maybe he’s not entirely evil. He did get my books shipped to me, even if he managed to do so using nefarious means and against my will.
My God.
What is wrong with me?
“Of course I want out of this room. It’s making me go crazy.”
He gives me a stern look, his brow furrowed. Then he surprises me again by releasing me and stepping away. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
Priest starts to leave, and new panic hits me. Suddenly, as much as I don’t want to be stuck in this room with him, I also don’t want him to go. I don’t want to be here in the silence, alone with my thoughts.
“Wait,” I manage. “Don’t leave me here. Please. Take me with you.”
My heart pounds, and my chest feels tight. I can’t stay here alone. And as much as it pains me, Priest is all I have.
He stops and turns back to me. Whatever he sees must be proof that I’m a mess. With a low, muttered Italian curse, he stalks back toward me and takes my hand in a firm grip. “Come with me, topolina .”
“Where are we going?”
As desperate as I was to escape this room, now that he’s willing to take me, I’m suspicious.
“You’ll see,” he rumbles, his voice low and sexy.
Even panicked and fucked up as I am, my ovaries flutter to life. If only this man weren’t one hundred percent sex. It would make hating him like I’m supposed to so much easier.
I dig in my heels, hitting the brakes like my childhood dog Daisy would when she wasn’t ready to go back inside after a walk in the summer sun. “Tell me.”
He makes a sound of irritation and gives me a look that I imagine more than a few of the men he’s tortured into spilling their guts have seen. “Do you want out of here or not?”
“Yes.”
A hundred million zillion fucking times, yes.
“Then you have to trust me. Can you do that, Luna?”
I tense up, feeling like this is some kind of fucked-up test. Like, regardless of what I say here, it won’t matter.
He catches my chin in his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to hold his gaze. “Don’t look away when you answer. Look me in the eye and say it.”
“Have you given me a reason to trust you?” I demand.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Still kicking.”
He rubs his callused thumb over my lower lip, one sensual stroke that makes me ache. “Then that’s your reason. Because if I wanted you dead, Luna Andriani, you wouldn’t be here now.”
He’s right. But I don’t like that he has the upper hand yet again.
I don’t even think about what I’m doing. I bite his thumb. Not hard enough to injure him, but hard enough to make it hurt.
He chuckles, the last reaction I wanted. “You didn’t even draw blood. I’m disappointed.”
And then he releases me, pulling me by our still-linked hands. “Come.”
“Hang on.”
I go to my precious books, still on the floor, and scoop them up, setting them on a table as he watches me like I’m losing my mind. And maybe I am.
“Next time, I’ll bite harder,” I warn him as he tugs me to the door a second time.
My heart beats a little faster, because maybe—just maybe—being on the other side of this perpetually locked door will take me one step closer to freedom.
Priest just laughs, tugging me along.
Who am I kidding? This gorgeous, fucked-up gangster isn’t the slightest bit afraid of me.
Somehow, I’m going to have to change that.