Chapter 11 – POSY
POSY
I race to the bathroom, and kneel over the toilet, retching. By some miracle, the eggs stay down. The tears come, though. I’d held them back—I have no idea how, but sitting on the bamboo bath mat, slumped against the tub, they stream down my cheeks.
This is my own damn fault.
If you pet a vicious dog, and it bites you, you shouldn’t be surprised.
And Dario was right about that, wasn’t he? Time after time, I put myself in this position. I see the pit, and I walk into it. What’s wrong with me?
A bleak darkness cracks open inside me. Threatening. Tantalizing. I want to throw myself into it; I want to soothe all the heartache with self-loathing. It’ll make it all go away. Better than any drug. I never run out. I never have too much.
It’s right there, but for some reason, for once in my life, I can’t fling myself into it. I’m stuck.
I’m stuck on why .
Why did I let Giorgio Busco take that video? Yeah, I was young and stupid, but I’ve let most of my boyfriends record us if they asked. Hell, I sent videos to Vincent Ricci when he was down at the shore for the summer.
Why did I let Dario do whatever he wanted? Why did I let any man who called me his girlfriend use me however he liked?
I didn’t just take it. I volunteered. I was an enthusiastic partner in whatever they wanted. I never stopped to consider whether I wanted it. Of course I wanted it—if it made them happy.
I don’t hate myself. It’s not some kind of self-flagellation. Is Dario right? Am I so desperate for what seems like love that I’ll do anything?
And how fucked am I because I have no idea how to not want to be loved.
So why am I beating myself up about it? Because Dario ripped me up for it? He’s a dick. If it bothered his principles so much, he could have turned me down. This is bullshit.
I struggle to my feet. This is a trap. This is the pit I walk into. I let people make me feel like trash for doing exactly what they want me to do.
It’s so obvious when you think about it.
It’s brilliant, really, and so messed up.
A man dangles love. The girl leaps. She does what he wants.
He castigates her for it. And then he dangles love again.
How much higher will she leap? Because she has no other choice, right? If she wants what he’s offering?
There are only two choices. Accept being unloved. Or try harder. I’m a scrapper. Of course I wasn’t giving up.
Every relationship I’ve ever had flips through my mind, the pattern so glaringly obvious. The flowers and dinners at the beginning devolving into the sordid shit at the end as every jerk in Pyle tried to see how low I would go.
How low? So low Dario didn’t even have to ask me to get on my knees. So low I got down on the floor myself and begged him to choke me harder.
But like a dream come true, the flowers and dinners never stopped. And the jewelry.
The ring.
I’m not wearing it right now. It kept snagging on the sheet as I slept. It’s on the nightstand. Dario didn’t mention it. Maybe he’s already having second thoughts. How could I possibly know? I don’t know how lizards think.
What even happened just now? I was eating a late breakfast, riding the high from last night, and then he showed up. I didn’t feel like playing cribbage, and all of a sudden, he decided it’s time to burn the witch.
I haul myself up to the sink and splash some cold water on my face, trying to reconstruct the conversation.
He was being smug, like he deserved a cookie for finally figuring out how my clit works.
And then he was talking about business and how he figured out something so he could spend time with me, and I accused him of doing it because it was what he wanted, and—
He got angry. He lashed out at me. He hit me where he knew it would leave a mark.
I grip the smooth edges of the vanity, letting water drip down my cheeks into the sink.
Why did he get angry?
He understands other people’s feelings. He can manipulate them if he wants. His issue isn’t that he can’t comprehend emotions, it’s that they don’t affect him. He proved that to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that day in his office, and he confirmed it with Ivano in the basement.
But he got pissed just now. He wanted to hurt me. Because I pricked his manly pride? Because I wasn’t duly impressed by his prowess? That can’t be it. He sat at that table at La Calomba and didn’t bat an eyelash while everyone yukked it up over my sex tape.
So why come at me so hard?
He knows I won’t play with him when I’m upset, and he plowed ahead against his own interest. The man who must have paid Carolyn a fortune to keep me placated with bouquets and diamonds, who strutted into this room like the cat who ate the cream, scored a goal on himself like he meant to do it.
It doesn’t make sense.
And you know what? I want answers. And if he doesn’t have any, if he’s got such an issue with how I fucked him, I am more than happy for him to fuck himself from now on and leave me the hell out of it.
I pat my face dry with the fluffy towel, change into a pale pink T-shirt dress, and head off to his office. He’ll be in there click-clacking on his damn computer, ice cold and unperturbed, enjoying his inability to feel empathy.
Asshole.
As I stalk through the hall, there’s not a soul in sight. I could slip out the back door. Grab the keys to his Range Rover. I’m sure he’s changed the gate code, but if I took a lap around the house, I could get up enough speed to batter through the metal. Maybe.
Or I could climb over the fence in the back. It’s only ten feet high or so. I wouldn’t break a leg on my way down. And I could totally scale it in the first place. If I brought a step ladder. And I had time.
I am not made for spy shit. Besides, I’m sure that in the security office, someone’s monitoring the CCTV. I wouldn’t get past the pool house.
Back to plan A. I storm into Dario’s office. His chair is empty. Miles is in some kind of conference call with his feet on his desk, tossing a stress ball over his head. He startles and straightens. I wave at him and retreat.
Where did Dario go? Did he have a meeting?
I didn’t hear a car in the drive, but I wasn’t listening, either.
I wander back toward the stairs and pop my head into Ray’s usual hidey-hole.
He’s reclining in his chair, dozing off.
The cramped surveillance room is as new as the rest of the house, but it smells like stale coffee and old man.
“Hey.” I rap on the door. Ray sniffs and rouses himself like a sleepy dog. Or a sea lion.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters.
“Sorry to interrupt your very important nap.”
“You don’t sound sorry,” Ray grumbles, scrubbing his face.
“I’m looking for Dario.”
“He’s not in his office?”
“Nope.”
The wrinkles in Ray’s brow deepen, and he squints at the bank of monitors. “There he is.” He pokes the screen. That’s gonna leave a smudge. Dario would lose his mind if he saw.
I sidle closer. In black and white, it’s clear the house isn’t as empty as it sounds. The housekeeper and her help are in the kitchen. Sal is walking the perimeter. A maid is clearing up my dishes in the master bedroom.
And Dario’s in a guest room closet.
“He’s getting into the safe room?”
Ray shrugs. “He doesn’t ask my permission to do shit. He ask yours?”
“You’re really grumpy when you get woken up from your nap, you know that?”
“I’m not the one making the boss crazy.”
“He’s not my boss,” I sass, sweetening it with a smack on his leathery cheek. I go to flounce off, but his voice stops me mid-stride.
“No. You’re his.” The words are a tired joke. A thing that people say. But the tone—there’s a warning in it.
“Sure thing, Ray.” I turn again to leave, fully expecting him to grunt and settle back into his swivel chair.
Instead, he stops me in my tracks. “Your dad was Al Santoro, right?”
I haven’t heard his name in a while. It still fills my mouth with a bitter taste. “Yeah. You knew him?”
“Everyone in this town knows everyone else. You were his only kid?”
“Yeah. He wanted a boy. Of course.”
“There’s no ‘of course.’” Ray spins slowly until he’s facing me. I linger in the doorway. This is not our usual repartee. “Al got elbowed out after Marco turned rat, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Is there a reason we’re recounting old history?
Ray sniffs. “Those were the days. Any stronzo could skim from the take. It was the numbers, then. Protection. Women. Loans. Fuckin’ simpler times.”
That’s not how I remember it. I remember that we were living in a big house on the bluffs, and my phone was constantly blowing up—I had friends, I went to parties, I was invited on holidays to the beach—and then one day, I was invisible. Worse than that. Toxic.
“Where you goin’ with this, Ray?” I think his timing’s a little off, too. Lotto was legal when I was growing up. My dad didn’t run the numbers. He was in collections. When I was a kid, everyone’s dad was in collections.
“Renelli was small time back then. Pyle is a mid-sized city. He was a big fish in a small pond. And then Dario Volpe comes back from school. The whiz kid. He sees an angle, and he works it. In an illegal cash business, the laundryman is king, right? And he gets how everything works now—the internet, the markets, cryptocurrency. Bitcoin. What is that shit?”
Ray sighs and shakes his head. Where’s he going with this?
“Anyway, he changes everything. All of a sudden, New York, Las Vegas, the cartels, the Russians—they want what Renelli can do for them. Pyle is on the map. All because of this nerdy kid who ain’t quite right in the head.”
“What does this have to do with me, Ray?”
“Dario is the kingmaker. And you’re his woman. Do you know what that makes you?”
I shake my head.
“Powerful.”
I huff a bitter sigh. “Bullshit. I’m a prisoner.”
“You want to run? Where you wanna go so bad, Posy?”
“You’ll take me?”
He chuckles. “I work for the boss. He works for you. Get him to take you where you wanna go.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Ray.”