Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Deuce
Valentina has been off all week. I doubt anyone else has noticed. She’s good at putting on a front, acting the way she thinks others want her to show up, but I know her. Something’s going on in that brain of hers and I’m just waiting for her to spill it.
I mean, she told me she hoped my yolk was dry when I opened the bag of bread to make us eggs and toast the other day. She didn’t even bother to put some venom behind the lame words. Her insults have lacked heat and creativity all week, and that has me more worried than anything.
“Valentina?” I call up the stairs. I hear her door crack open right before she answers. “I put a lasagna from Dad’s coworker in the oven. Want to come with me on a run while it cooks?”
She pauses for a second. “Sure. But why are we eating your dad’s food?”
That makes me grin. For as coldhearted as she tries to come across, I can tell she likes my father. “He can’t eat the dairy in it. Didn’t want to tell Brenda after she took the time to make him a homemade meal. Don’t worry, I took over something to replace it.”
“Okay. Just give me a minute to change.” And then comes the click of her door closing again.
When she comes back down, she’s in black running shorts and a sports bra, her long lean legs and torso on display.
Her olive skin is even darker since coming to Heaven.
She’s got her raven-black hair slicked back in a ponytail on top of her head.
She could be an athleisure wear model if she wanted to.
She looks up from her phone and realizes I’m staring at her. She pops a hip out and glares at me. “I hope your headphones short out the minute you step outside.”
I grin like a fool. “What’s wrong with me staring at the most stunning woman I’ve ever laid eyes on?”
She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks take on a slightly pinker hue. I know I’ve gotten to her when she marches past me, making sure her elbow whacks me as she goes. She always resorts to violence when flustered.
“Let’s go, Romeo,” she snaps.
We head out, both of us with headphones in as we jog through my neighborhood and then increase the pace when we get to the dirt trail that leads to the park.
It doesn’t take long in this summer humidity to work up a sweat.
By the time we hit the park, we’re both breathing hard and actively trying to keep sweat from dripping in our eyes.
We head straight for the bars to hit some pullups.
I wait until we’ve both completed a set before I try to pry out of her whatever has had her flatlined this week. “So, what’s going on in that head of yours, V? You gonna tell me or do I have to torture it out of you?”
She scoffs. “As if you could.”
I reach over and tuck some wayward hair behind her ear. I drop my voice and leave behind the teasing. “Seriously, V, what’s going on? I want to help.”
She hesitates a little longer, but then her shoulders drop and she opens her mouth.
“I got a call from your girl Georgia.” She gives me a deadpan look.
I shake my head and motion for her to continue, panic starting to flare in my gut.
She and I both know Georgia is not “my girl,” so I don’t bother taking the bait.
“Anyway, she said from my bloodwork, it looks like I might be experiencing…”
I lean in because I didn’t catch that last word. “Experiencing what?”
“Perimenopause!” Valentina whisper-shouts it right in my face.
I jerk my head back. “Oh. Okay.”
I study her, trying to take my cues from her reaction because I don’t know the first thing about menopause, peri or otherwise. She fidgets with her phone, zipping and unzipping the pocket where she has it tucked away.
“Is that…a bad thing?” Why do I feel like I’m stepping my way through a minefield with my eyes blindfolded?
Valentina huffs and paces in front of the pullup bar. “I don’t know! But she said it might explain my panic attacks and that I need to see a doctor for further care.”
I step closer, halting her pacing. “So, is that what’s been bothering you this week? That you need to go see a doctor?”
“No!” Valentina swipes her forehead, clearly agitated.
“It’s the idea of menopause that has me freaking out.
Like, what do I want to do before I’m old and useless?
Even your dad asked me what I want out of life and I couldn’t answer him.
What kind of woman reaches menopausal age and doesn’t know what she wants? ”
I take a tentative step forward across the minefield.
“Probably a lot of them? I mean, everyone is faced with these questions at some point in their life. I don’t think it’s weird to be questioning what you want out of life.
Everybody should.” I reach out and put my hand on her shoulder.
“But what makes you think being older makes you useless? Look at my father. He’s old. Do you find him useless?”
Valentina’s eyes fill with tears and I watch as she dashes them away angrily. “No. I love Marcel. He’s lovely and exactly who I’d want for a father if I could choose.”
I squeeze her shoulder. “Exactly, so why do you think you’re becoming useless, just because your body’s not producing certain hormones like it used to?”
She holds my gaze and I see the answer there. We both say it at the same time.
“Bettina.”
“Okay.” I step back from her, the injustice of what’s been done to Valentina over the years making me angry.
And if I’m honest with myself, I feel partially responsible.
I left her in that environment at seventeen, never coming back to check on her or to perhaps be a good influence when she had none.
“Let’s put all the Bettina, mob-boss, crime-family bullshit on the table. ”
Valentina wrinkles up her nose. “What are you talking about?”
I duck down and pick her up in a fireman’s carry.
She yelps and beats her fists on my back as I walk us over to the kiddie playground.
I don’t put her down until we’re at the top of the tower with a view of the whole park.
Our options are going back down that ladder, sliding down the fireman’s pole, or going down the slide.
For now, I invite her to sit next to me on the edge of the platform, our legs swinging.
Thankfully, she does without arguing with me.
“You need to go through the reprogramming my father did with me every fall when I came home from summer vacation in New York. He’d take me to the park and we’d shoot hoops while he talked me through all the things I’d seen or done living with Bettina.
He set me straight right there on the court, not disparaging Bettina but also not letting me carry her bullshit beliefs into the rest of my life. ”
Valentina bumps me gently with her shoulder. “Your father’s a badass.”
“I know,” I say softly. “You didn’t have a Marcel. So let me be that for you. No one’s here but you and me. Get it all out there.”
Valentina sucks in a deep breath and straightens her spine. Her gaze is focused on the copse of trees on the far end of the park, but I doubt she even sees them. She’s too focused on her past.
“Let’s see. Old people are useless because they get physically weak and lose their power.
You have to be even more ruthless to combat the supposed frailty.
Trusting people is stupid and could potentially get you killed so don’t ever do that.
Love is for saps who don’t have the balls to do what needs doing.
Respect, earned through following up on threats, is currency and something to be sought after. Oh, and the Feds suck.”
My laugh is a bit pathetic. “Feds do suck.”
Valentina joins in, though I can hear the sadness in her tone. “That’s about the only belief in there that doesn’t make my chest ache.”
“Because all the other ones are cold and ruthless and straight from Bettina’s playbook.” I turn to look at her. “Have you always felt this way about mob life?”
She tilts her head, thinking. “Honestly, no. But for the last ten years or so? Yes.”
“Wow. You stayed a long time after you stopped believing in it. What made you stay?” I left the second I was an adult and could make my own decisions.
“Bettina adopted me, Deuce. Kept me from being yet another kid in the system.”
“You were just a child when she adopted you. That doesn’t mean you owe her your whole life. You can be grateful and still choose your own path.”
“Easy for you to say. You were her actual biological child. She’d never fully turn her back on you, even if you told her you hated her. I was one wrong move away from being cast out.”
Now that truly makes my heart ache for her. She’s right, I never worried about arguing with Bettina. She could kick me out and that would have been fine with me. I always had Papa. Valentina had no one.
“And I bet she used that over the years to get you to do what she wanted.” I reach over to hold Valentina’s hand, my fingers squeezing hers. “That’s not love, V. That’s manipulation, and Bettina’s the queen of it.”
Valentina wipes a tear away that slips down her cheek.
She’s no longer looking at me, but I know she heard me.
I know it’ll take some time for her to sort out what she wants to do with her life and where her loyalties will lie.
All I can do is be a sounding board for her.
Not another person to manipulate her, but someone she can learn how to trust. If she’ll let me, I’d love to find a good therapist she can talk to.
It will take a lot to unpack an entire childhood.
It’s a good ten minutes later that Valentina finally speaks again, her gaze on the trees. “I’m actually thinking of staying here in Heaven.”
Hope ignites in my chest. I’m head over knife in love with this woman and of course want her to stay here with me, but I can’t tell her that quite yet.
I want her to make her own decisions about her life without anyone else’s opinions.
For once in her life, she deserves to make a decision without pressure from outside forces.
So I choose my words and tone carefully.
“Only you can choose what to believe and how to live your life, V. Don’t let me or Bettina or anyone else influence you or manipulate you.
” I squeeze her fingers so hard I’m afraid I might be hurting her.
“You have to choose it for yourself. That’s what love is.
Giving space for the other person to be themselves and loving them through it. ”
Valentina turns and finally looks at me, her gorgeous blue-gray eyes drilling into mine. I haven’t said the words, but I know she understands. I love her, but I won’t use those words to manipulate her.
“When you know what you want, I’ll be here to support you, whatever it ends up being.”
“Thank you,” she says so softly I barely hear it. Then she lays her head on my shoulder and swings her feet back and forth in the air.