Chapter 13 – POSY #3
“That’s not what’s on my mind, Posy.” He sneers my name. “I’m sitting here wondering what I’ll do if she comes out, and she’s not mine.” He cocks his head slightly to the side. “I don’t think I’d care, but I shouldn’t have cared about that video of you taking it up the ass either.”
It comes from nowhere, and it slams into my chest like a train.
What is he saying? This makes no sense. Did someone accuse me of something? Is this history repeating, not even bothering to change the set or the plot?
My brain can’t patch it together, but my body understands. All the blood in my body rushes to my feet, leaving my heart thudding in an empty cavity. My fingernails cut into the armrests.
“What?” It’s a breathless whisper.
“I mean, the odds are good that it’s mine. You’re always watched outside of the house. But with your track record—It’d be downright stupid not to account for the possibility that she’s Sal’s. Or Ray’s.”
I’m shaking my head. He can’t believe this. He knows me. Better than anyone ever has or could. “You—”
He plows ahead. “And if it’s not mine, and for some reason I do care, what do I do with it?” His brow furrows. “I guess if I throw it out, you go with it, eh?”
Hot tears are streaming down my face. Where is this coming from? Or has this been in his head all along, and our conversation upstairs somehow busted open the floodgates?
This is the truth. He doesn’t lie to me. He doesn’t see any reason to.
“How can you say this?” I push up on the arms of the chair, struggle to my feet. “How can you even think it? What’s wrong with you?”
“You know what’s wrong with me,” he says, an odd smile playing at his lips. “It’s okay. You can run away. Shut the door after yourself.”
I can’t run. I’m too fucking big. But I rush as fast as I can, slam the damn door, hurtle toward the stairs, half-blinded by tears.
This is what it feels like when the other shoe drops.
Like a self-inflicted wound.
I should have known.
I did know. Oh god.
I burst into our bedroom. No, not ours . His . Let’s be clear about what belongs to whom. His house, his stuff, his psychological condition.
My baby.
I stand in the middle of the room, chest heaving, clutching my belly and trying to make my brain think about my next move.
I catch the Othello board from the corner of my eye, its smooth, round, black and white pieces laid precisely in the middle of the board, ready for when we get bored with chess.
Othello is a peaceful game because the moves are so predictable. Mathematical. Like tic-tac-toe. If you’re evenly matched, the winner’s more or less determined by whoever goes first. It’s not a contest, it’s a dance, each move a reaction to your partner.
Dario didn’t come upstairs in an hour or so like he said he would.
So I went to him.
He told me to leave.
I sat in a chair.
He said horrible things.
He said run.
There’s something in the backyard that doesn’t belong. Something black in the snow. A bag? A tarp?
A body?
I stop thinking. I dash to the night table, fumble open the drawer, tap in the code, and take my gun from its safe. I kick off my slippers and creep back the way I just came.
The silence isn’t eerily thrilling anymore. It’s oppressive.
My hands are shaking, and I can’t muffle my heavy breathing. The baby’s pressing too close to my lungs. I’m in control, though, and my mind is crystal clear.
All the pieces have finally fallen into place, all the garbage in my head finally swept away.
This is my house.
My husband.
My life. My choice. My family.
This is what I want, and no one— no one —can take it from me.
A few feet from the closed office door, I hear the muffled voices. An angry man, ranting, his words strangely slurred, interspersed with Dario’s cool, even bass.
I can’t make out what they’re saying, but they both sound as if they’re on the far side of the room.
If I’m wrong, if this is some kind of late-night business meeting that got heated—
No. I’m not wrong. Dario lives to make me happy. He’d never hurt me without a reason. He drove me away.
He’d kill for me. He’d die for me. I believe that.
I suck in a deep breath.
I’m not going to get a second shot. When I fire, I’m going to empty the magazine.
I pat my belly for luck and throw open the door.
Ivano. But different. No gelled hair and storefront tan. His eyes are sunken hollows, his tracksuit hanging from him like a scarecrow.
In the same instant I take him in, he turns, swinging his gun from Dario’s head toward me.
Dario leaps into motion, lunging for Ivano’s arm as he thrusts his body between Ivano and me, but his chair is stuck, and he can’t quite block my shot.
I squeeze the trigger. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Ivano explodes in chunks. His shoulder. His chest. His head. Blood splatters on Dario, the desk, the painting of a schooner.
And then Ivano—or what’s left of him—hits the wall and slides down into a heap on the red, soaked carpet.
“You almost got in the way,” I say, my ears ringing so badly I can’t hear Dario’s reply.
I stare a few more beats at the grisly tableau, and then I lower my weapon. “What did he want?”
“Revenge.”
“And he wanted to talk it out first?”
Dario shrugs as he grabs the gun taped under his desk, disengages the safety, and puts one last bullet in between Ivano’s eyes.
“He was dead,” I point out, my stomach beginning to heave. The baby’s going crazy. I stroke my belly and hush her.
And Dario’s face transforms. He stalks to me, grabs me by the upper arms, squeezing, lifting me nearly to my toes. His eyes shoot sparks, lips peeled back. He’s furious.
“Don’t shake me.”
“I would never shake you!” he roars.
He swings me into his arms, takes five steps, and lays me carefully on the sofa.
“Stay,” he barks, dialing his phone.
“Oh, god, where’s Ray?”
“He’s at the game. I gave him the night off.”
“Sal?”
“He’s not answering.” Dario’s back is to me, his gun aimed at the door. He makes another call. “We’ll have backup in ten,” he says and tosses the phone next to me. “If something happens, call Lucca.”
“Wasn’t Ivano alone?”
“I think so. I don’t know.” Dario’s positioned himself with legs apart, shoulders squared. No one is getting through him to us.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Dario rages, his gaze never wavering from the door.
“I thought you were trying to get rid of me. And I was right.”
Despite the shock settling in, and the horror show on the floor behind the desk, I feel a twinge of satisfaction. Maybe I’m twisted, too, in ways I didn’t know. I’m not sorry I did it. Ivano told Renelli I was back. He betrayed me, and he was going to kill my husband.
Fury flares in my chest again. Dario’s mine. No one touches what’s mine.
“If you ever pull a stunt like that again, you’re gonna regret it, do you understand me?” Dario doesn’t give me any time to respond. “ Do you understand me? ”
I realize Dario’s been reading me the riot act this whole time.
“You could have been killed. The baby could have been killed. Do you get that?”
My hand goes to cradle my belly. “What do you think Ivano would’ve done after he’d killed you? I’m pretty sure Sal’s dead in the backyard. You think Ivano would’ve waltzed off without checking for witnesses?”
“You should have run , Posy. Goddamn it!”
“That never works out as well as you think it will, Dario!”
“Don’t you ever do something like this again.” He bites out each syllable. That’s the final word.
“You’re mine, Dario Volpe, and I’ll damn well save your life if I want to. My baby needs her daddy. I need you. Don’t you know that? You know me inside out. You have to know that.”
“I do,” he says, low and gentle and sure.
We’re both silent a moment. The house feels empty. I don’t think Ivano brought anyone on his doomed mission.
Dario coughs to clear his throat, his back still to me. “Earlier—I didn’t mean any of it.”
“I realize that.”
“I know the baby’s mine, but even if she wasn’t, I’d love her as much as her mother.”
“How do you know?”
I know he would. Deep in my heart where all the truths—horrible and lovely—live, I know that. But how does he know?
“Because I love you for what you are. Everything you are is perfect. The baby will be perfect. You made her.”
“You do, don’t you? You love me just the way I am.”
“You didn’t come any other way,” he says. I guess that’s true enough.
And as we sit in the shadows, waiting for more dangerous men in suits to come, I curl in the corner of the sofa, and watch Dario’s strong back and proud spine.
He doesn’t love me despite my checkered past, my weaknesses, my mess and my desperation. He loves me with them.
He loves what I am, in my entirety, and I know he’ll love our little girl the same.
We might be broken, Dario and I, but we live in a broken world. And that makes what we have—perfect.