2. Lydia
LYDIA
Gravesend hasn’t changed one bit since I left seven years ago. Well, maybe it’s changed some.
The trees have gotten taller around Avenue V, and the bodega around the corner has had a facelift since the last time I saw it. Old chainlink fences have been replaced by white-painted cast-iron.
But the sidewalks are still cracked where I remember them. Satellite dishes are still jutting out of rooftops at random placements but all pointing in the same direction.
As I get out of the car, I look up at the power line that I threw dad’s old running shoes over after coming home from his funeral thirteen years ago. A pang squeezes my heart when I see that they’re gone.
They had still been hanging there when I left home, and for whatever reason, I thought they might still be there waiting for me.
Guess some enterprising city worker must’ve removed them over the years.
On the plane ride over, I’d taken advantage of my first class seat’s services to connect to the internet and try to get in touch with my Mom. But she never responded to any of my texts.
But they just kept saying Delivered instead of Read.
It must be morning now in France, which means brunch is about to start. For a moment, I imagine Nico showing up with that shit-eating grin of his and waiting to say something to me, only to find that I’m gone.
Will he demand to know where I went? Or will he cock an eyebrow and pretend like he expected this all along?
However Nico D’Ambrosio might react to my absence, that’s neither here nor there. I’m not wasting any more brain power on him, even if I spent the better part of that entire flight dreaming about him.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I almost wish that he’s here next to me.
I clutch the handlebar of my luggage just a little tighter than I used to as I stare at the house I swore to Mom that I’d never return to.
It looks so ordinary. That’s the part that fucks with me.
If you were anyone else looking at this house, you’d be forgiven in thinking that it looks no more remarkable than the thousands of single-family homes in this part of New York.
Just another sagging two-story box on a street full of them, with an assortment of random stuff strewn about the front like they’re meant to be there, and a porch light that’s clinging desperately to its final days of work.
But me? Even now, I can hear Mom’s screams amidst the rough laughs, and feel her tears soaking the front of my shirt as she sobbed in my arms on the bathroom floor.
I pull out my phone and look down again, expecting my texts to Mom to still remain on Delivered.
But to my surprise, now my texts say Read.
My heart starts to beat faster. If she read them, why isn’t she responding?
The hair on the back of my neck rises slightly, and I swear I can feel somebody is out there watching me.
A slight shudder moves down my spine and I turn my head instinctively to look behind me, only to find nothing. The street is silent, and none of the cars make a sound. Not even the ping and hiss of an engine coming down after a long drive.
I should leave. I should just turn around and leave while I still can.
But I got this far, didn’t I?
I tap the call button and hold the phone up to my ear. The phone rings. Once. Twice. Nobody answers.
But in the upstairs window, I see light pulsing against the curtains.
Mom…
Her phone is inside. Which means she must be inside as well. That’s the only impetus I need. It's like a floodgate has unlocked, and suddenly, I’m practically rushing forward to the front door.
I test the knob and find it unlocked. Pushing it open, the familiar smell of the final years of my childhood greets me after seven years. Instinctively, my shoulders curl inward at the scent and my breath goes shallow.
"Mom?" I call out into the dark. "Mom, it's me. It's Lydia."
Silence greets me.
I leave my luggage bag by the entrance, step inside, and let my eyes adjust. The streetlight outside bleeds through the curtains just enough to see by. Not that I need to see. I can navigate this house blind.
My foot finds the bottom of the staircase, and without meaning to, I step over the second one to avoid making it creak.
Something glints in the corner and I turn my head towards the light, and all nervousness dissolves away into implacable rage when I see the photo in that cheap gold frame Frank loved so much.
It’s Mom on her wedding day to Frank.
She stands in a white dress with flowers in her dark hair. Her skin is clear. There's no flinch in her shoulders, and no split to her lip.
God, she was beautiful.
She’d always been beautiful, and it was something that everyone in the neighborhood knew. Before Dad died, people kept telling him about how lucky he was and about how he was punching above his weight.
I overheard more than my share of all the fucked-up comments both men and women made behind her back.
If anyone dared to talk like that about me to Nico, he’d put a bullet in their head. The thought comes out of nowhere, and I freeze on the stairs as soon as I think it.
Because out of all the possible reactions I can have to that thought, I sure as shit didn’t expect a surge of savage satisfaction running down my spine at the thought of Nico killing for me.
I look at the photo again at Mom’s smile. If I put my hand up to cover the bottom half of her face, she might as well be crying.
“Mom?” I call out again, a little louder this time.
She still doesn’t answer.
The sense of wrongness is suffocating now. This is a mistake, the little voice in my head whispers. Get out. Get out now!
I’m halfway down the stairs when I see the front door opening, and a man stepping inside.
It’s a cop.
He fills the doorway in full uniform, badge glinting in the dark. His thumbs are looped casually through his belt. For a second, I think that it’s Frank, having gotten fat over the years.
But the moment he starts to walk, I know that it’s not.
He scans the darkened interior slowly, and then stops when he catches sight of me frozen on the steps. But he doesn’t look surprised at all when he sees me.
Instead, a smile breaks out across his face, and I can see his white teeth in the dark.
"Well, well, well." His voice is slow and pleased. "Look who’s finally home."
"Where's my Mom?" I ask from atop the stairs as he starts walking towards me. "Who are you?"
"Your mom?" He shuts the door behind him without looking at it, and then he locks the door for good measure. "Mommy’s not here, sweetheart."
The world starts spinning beneath my feet. "Where is she?"
"Captain said you’d come running if mommy sent the right message." He steps calmly towards me and I back up with every step he takes. "The boys called bullshit on it. Even placed bets on whether you’d come back."
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
His smile widens and he licks his worm-like lips. “Turns out the old man did know you after all.”
It wasn't her! It was never her. It was bait, and I was stupid enough to swallow it. I fucking flew across an ocean to a house full of monsters because I was too emotional and stupid to stop and think!
"Stay away from me.” I keep backing up the stairs, but I’m starting to run out of room.
The cop smiles one last time, and suddenly bolts up the stairs with terrifying speed. A meaty hand slams me back against the wall hard enough to knock the breath clean out of my lungs.
He pins me there with one forearm across my collarbone and his face swims into full clarity from the streetlight outside. He licks his lips again.
"Captain said you were pretty," he murmurs, and his breath is hot and sour against my cheek. “Bastard was underselling it.”
With a practiced motion, he flips me until my face is pressed against the wall. His free hand rakes down my side, and I struggle uselessly under his weight.
"He ordered me to bring you back alive." He presses his body against me and squeezes my ass painfully. "He didn’t say shit about bringing you back unused, and I don’t do sloppy seconds.”
I open my mouth to scream and suddenly, the unmistakable sound of a door being kicked open fills the air. The weight on my back pulls away slightly.
“What the fu–”
The cop never finishes his sentence when a roar of thunder fills the tiny space. The world suddenly detonates in a spray of hot red. Something warm hits my cheek. The forearm pinning me goes slack, and I turn just in time to see my would-be rapist’s body crumple to the floor.
Blood pours out of a hole in his head and I stand there with my back against the wall while my ears are ringing. My mind flat-out refuses to make sense of what the fuck just happened.
Then I look past the body and see the last person I expect to see in the world standing in the doorway.
Nico D’Ambrosio.
His handsome face is twisted in rage. The scar down his jaw is glowing silver in the streetlight. But the grin I’ve come to expect from him is no longer on his face. He’s traded his suit for a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms.
His raised hand is holding a pistol, and there’s a thin curl of smoke rising from the barrel.
His amber eyes flick over me once, head to toe, and inspect every inch of me for damage.
Then, the stair creaks as he walks up, steps past the dead cop, and comes to a stop in front of me.
"Did he hurt you?" There is a very real anger surging underneath his calm, quiet voice.
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. My eyes drop to the body on the floor and the dark spreading pool. That’s when my knees finally decide that they’re done holding me up.
He catches me as I start to slide down the wall. A thick muscular arm coils around me just like it had three months ago when he carried me into my shower. And just like three months ago, the moment his warmth comes close, it sends a violent shudder through my body.
"How." I taste copper on my cracking voice. "How are you here?"
“I asked you first.” He taps the tip of his gun against my chest. “Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head, and his shoulders slack slightly. He gives the dead man one last look of disgust and nudges the body as if to check that he really is dead, before he turns back to me.
"I followed you," he says. "From the second you walked off that lawn."
"I told Bella not to—"
"She didn't have to tell me anything, piccola." His jaw clenches. "You know I would never let you out of my sight. And I saw you leave in a damn hurry."
I should be furious. Some distant part of me knows I should rip myself out of his arms and rage at him for following me, for spying on me, for treating me like something he thinks he owns.
But that part of me is very far away right now.
Because he just saved me, and he’s the only damn thing keeping me on my feet.
His eyes leave my face and move past me to take in the details of this house. I can see the questions churning one by one behind those amber eyes.
Why are you here, Lydia? Whose house is this? Who is he, and what did he want with you?
I clamp my jaw shut until it hurts.
I won’t tell him. I would rather choke than hand a single thread of my past to the Don of the D'Ambrosio Family for him to pull on whenever it suits him.
"Don't." My voice shakes, but I get it out before he can speak. "Don't ask me."
Something flickers across his handsome face. Surprise, maybe. Or respect. He studies me for one long second, and then, to my shock, he lets it go—the questions folding back down behind his eyes, locked away for later.
"Fine," he says softly. "But we need to go."
Somewhere out in the dark, sirens start to sound–far off and climbing. Someone must’ve called the cops.
Nico tucks the gun behind him, and bends down to pick up the casing of the bullet, all without ever letting me go. His hand remains soft and gentle as he carries out the bloody work with practiced efficiency.
Then, he returns to me, and drags his left thumb gently across whatever’s running down my cheeks. Tears or blood, I don’t know and I don’t care. Not when his touch leaves a ripple of warmth through me that’s slowly bringing me back to life.
And with it, my voice returns. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
"You don’t have a choice, piccola." His voice rumbles in my chest. "You can hear the sirens same as me. You know as well as I do that not a single badge walking through that door is going to be your friend."
My eyes dart towards the lifeless body of the dead cop. Sloppy seconds.
Nico’s right.
"So." His lips curve up into a ghost of his familiar grin. "Your only choice is me. Come with me now, and stay alive long enough to be pissed off at me later. What’s it going to be?”
The sirens are louder now. I know I don’t have a choice left.
“You,” I tell him. “I’ll come with you.”
He laces his fingers through mine. “Good girl.”
The sirens swell, and he's already pulling me toward the door.