23. VIN
VIN
The Arsenal smells incredible, like garlic and lemon and roasting meat, but so far I don’t see Sophie anywhere. Her staff is freaking out that I’m here, flitting around me, trying to stop me as I head back to the kitchen. Good luck with that.
Since she hasn’t come barreling out of the kitchen to yell at me, I’m assuming she’s in her apartment so I head up the stairs.
The door is unlocked—not loving that—but the little space is empty. I stop for a second and just take in how she has filled the place, recognizing some of the furniture from her old house. It’s a little messy, laundry on the couch, dishes in the sink.
But I spot something that makes me stop short: on the windowsill sits a little opalescent basil plant.
I wonder if it’s the one I shattered on the patio here.
Did she rescue it? I don’t know why, but it makes me happy to think she found it worth saving.
Like maybe that means she’ll think I’m worth saving too.
As soon as that thought settles, another one, more panicked replaces it: I may have just started a war by telling Ashlyn things are over between us and Sophie doesn’t know it yet.
Where the fuck is she?
I head down the stairs back to the restaurant and push through the kitchen door, passing the dish room and stop. It’s not Sophie. It’s Rocco.
He’s at the prep station, breaking down a crate of tomatoes.
What the fuck? I haven’t seen him since he left me hanging from rusty ass pipes in an alley over a year ago. And I’ve been looking.
I have him by the collar and slammed against the stainless steel counter before he gets his hands up, tomatoes scattering across the floor in a red mess.
His elbow catches the edge of a sheet pan and sends it clattering.
He goes rigid, smart enough not to fight back, which is the only reason I don’t put his head through the cabinet.
“What the fuck are you doing in her kitchen?”
“Vin—Vin—” He gets both hands up between us, palms out, voice desperate. “I work here. I’m on staff. Sophie hired me back.”
“Sophie hired you back.” My forearm is across his chest, and I lean into it. “You left me strung up, Rocco, then disappeared. And Sophie hired you back. How’d you swing that?”
“I don’t know.” His voice cracks slightly. “She doesn’t know about… that. But I came to her before the restaurant opened, and I apologized. She was really fucking nice to me and she didn’t have to be.”
“No shit.” After everything this fucker did to her, she took him back? But me she avoids like the plague? What the fuck?
“I’m the dishwasher, man. That’s it. She gave me the worst job in the building, and I say thank you and show up every day.”
I stare at him for a long moment. His fucking eyes are different. Every time I see this fucker, something different is going on with him. When I first met him, he was an entitled asshole. When he grabbed me with his guys, he was calm and controlled. And now he just looks fucking scared.
God damn that woman, throwing this dipshit a rope. I hope he fucking hangs himself with it.
I let him go and step back, straightening my jacket.
He exhales and peels himself off the counter, rubbing his sternum where my forearm was.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“I don’t—”
“Rocco.”
He hesitates, dropping his gaze. “She had a date with the linen guy, Gavin.”
The name lands like a fucking rock. The idea of her sleeping in his bed, of him fucking her, of any cock in her mouth that isn’t mine—I want to fucking destroy everything I see.
I grab Rocco by the collar again, rage coursing through me. He throws his hands up immediately.
“She had a date with him last night and she’s not back? Where?”
“I don’t know about last night. But she went out with him today. Said she’d be back by the lunch rush. But I don’t know where they went, I swear.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here or why. But I will fucking find out, and when I do,” I lean in close, dropping my voice to a growl, “you better run.”
I throw him back on the counter and slam the kitchen door so hard it bounces against the wall behind me on my way out. The haughty stares of the staff follow me through the dining room and out the front door.
When I’m outside, I pull out my phone and stare at Siena’s name for longer than I need to. She’s going to enjoy this. She’s going to make me suffer for every second of it and I’m going to have to fucking take it.
I press call.
She picks up on the second ring. “I assume you’re calling to apologize.”
“Where is she?”
She pauses. “Where are you is the question?”
“I’m at the Arsenal, and she’s not fucking here.”
“Hmmm. Interesting. I guess last night’s date went well.”
“What the FUCK, Siena?”
“Don’t you ‘what the fuck’ me! I should be ‘what the fuck’ing you! I’m the one who convinced her to go out there and help your sorry ass, and I heard what you fucking did. Women don’t like to be fucking held captive, you fuck.”
“It’s not like I held her in a dungeon. Don’t be fucking dramatic.” The fact that I tried to keep her on the island is immaterial to this conversation.
“Vin, just let her be with someone who is not a fucking asshole for five minutes.”
“Gavin? That Irish fuck isn’t the guy for her,” I huff. “He’s a user, Siena.”
“Like you?”
I stop pacing.
She lets the silence sit between us.
“I did a lot of fucked up things,” I say quietly. “But I never used Sophie.”
Other than her pussy, her mouth, and her ass.
“And for all that I did wrong, I want her…” I swallow hard. Saying this out loud especially to Siena is not easy. But I need to know where my girl is. “I want her forgiveness.”
I’m standing on the corner outside the Arsenal, one hand in my hair, when my gaze lands on the big front window of the sandwich shop across the street.
She’s right there, seated at the window table. Her hair is down, fuck. She almost never wears her hair down. But she wore it down for him.
She’s gesturing with both hands, telling a story, and across from her Gavin is paying close attention. She laughs at something and reaches up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. She’s self-conscious with him. Shy. FUCK.
I hang up on Siena, and just stand there like an asshole in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at her.
She shakes her head at something he says, smiling, then turns her coffee cup in quarter circles.
Gavin leans in toward her, and I stop fucking breathing. If I have to watch this fuck kiss her—
I look down at the phone in my hand. Maybe Siena is right. Maybe I should leave her alone.
From behind me, a woman’s voice brings me back to the present.
“Stalking again?”
I turn.
Valentina is standing there, arms crossed over her chest in a dress so low cut it barely covers her. She’s wearing a brown fur coat over everything, the collar framing her neck and jaw.
I roll my eyes. “What do you want?”
“You’ve been standing on this corner for a very long time,” she says with her bitchy smile. “I’ve been watching.”
I look back at the window. “You’ve been watching me? So who’s stalking who, then?”
Ignoring my question, she moves beside me, following my gaze. “She looks happy.”
I growl, glaring at Sophie and Gavin, and Valentina laughs.
“But you don’t want her to be happy?”
“She’s with the wrong person.”
Valentina tilts her head at me, then moves to stand in front of me. If she were taller, she’d be blocking my view, but she’s not, so I keep my gaze steadily on Sophie.
Valentina runs her hands over my chest and I swat her away. “The wrong person, or a person who isn’t you?”
“Same thing.”
She blinks then goes up on tiptoe, planting a kiss on me before I even fucking realize what’s happening.
It’s not like it’s the first time, but the way she does it is completely different than ever before.
Usually she’s on me like a fucking leech, jamming her tongue down my throat and ripping at my clothes.
But this time, she kisses me softly. When I lean away, she laughs, her hand brushing my cock. Fucking psycho.
“I’ve known you a long time, Vin.”
“Yes, you have.”
“I’ve seen you with a lot of women.” Also true. ”I’ve never seen you standing on a corner in the freezing fucking cold watching someone through a sandwich shop window.”
I say nothing.
“Not with me,” she continues. “Not with anyone. You never blink once you’re out the door.”
“Valentina—”
“I told you the night of that party when she walked in carrying all that food, I told you she was perfect for you. Do you remember what you said?”
I remember. She’s not my type. I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my life.
“You fucked this up,” she says simply. Factually. “More than once, from what I hear and with some real creativity.”
“I know.”
“And you’re in love with her.”
I don’t confirm or deny it, and Valentina nods once.
“She wanted me from the beginning, and I took her for granted,” I say, before I can stop myself. “But now I want forever, and she won’t even look at me.”
Valentina’s eyes widen before she regains her composure. She laughs. “Vin, stop being a fucking pussy, and go get your woman.”
I look at her.
“She is your woman,” Valentina says. “Whether she’s decided to acknowledge it or not, whether you’ve made a complete catastrophic mess of it or not. And she will forgive you. But you have to put in the work. That’s what happens when you fall in love with a nice girl.”