40. Don’t dial that number
MICHELA
40
Ispend the next few days on the couch, glued to the news that keeps exaggerating and dramatizing every little thing, no matter how insignificant.
The arrival of the FBI was plastered as a “new development,” with red alert signs flashing over the screen. I wouldn’t have noticed how much the media dramatizes things had Corrado not commented on it this weekend.
It’s Monday today. I should be at work.
Before stepping into the backyard, Corrado hands me a beer. I’ve drunk one every night. It helps me sleep. I sip it and watch the front door. I’m thinking about running away.
I wonder if I could make it as far as the street and then hitch a ride to Jesse’s club.
Drago confiscated both my and Corrado’s phones, but he’s giving us new ones. In fact, he’s “securing” them now in the kitchen and seems preoccupied with a magnifying mirror and pins clasped between his fingers.
Corrado’s in the backyard on the lounge chair, seemingly napping, his face turned up into the waning sun that’ll dunk behind the horizon within the next hour or so. After that, I can run.
“Still thinking about running?” Drago asks from behind me.
No sense denying it. “Yes.”
“Where would you go?”
“To see my brother.”
“And when the authorities ask you where you were, what will you tell them?”
“Whatever Corrado wants me to say.”
As if summoned, Corrado walks into the house. He takes one look at us, and I know he knows I’ve thought about running. These men are smart. This is their sandbox, and I’m the new girl with pigtails they want to tug to see if I’ll cry and tattletale or suck it up.
Corrado sits at the foot of the couch and turns up the TV volume. My picture is up on the screen again.
“The search for the missing woman, Michela Trentino, is ongoing, with authorities growing suspicious that she was a victim of a trafficking ring run by the Benvenuti crime family.”
“Oh my God.” I cover my mouth. “Trafficked. My poor mom. I hope they don’t loosen up the rules and let them watch the news in the facility.” When Corrado doesn’t comment, I go on. “My brother will think men are raping me. This will kill him.” I drop to my knees and crawl to Corrado. I put my hands together in prayer. “Please let me see him. Please call him. I know you have resources that can do that. Please. I’ll do anything, anything at all. Don’t let him rot in there and think all is lost for Mom and me. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s a good man.”
Corrado pulls me up to sit on his lap. I start crying again, and he rubs my back, shushing me. “When things calm down, I promise he’ll know you’re fine. But right now, we lay low.”
“We’ve sat in this house for days, and things haven’t improved. If anything, they’ve gotten worse. I went from missing to kidnapped to trafficked. The next step is dead.”
“Not a bad idea.”
I draw back. “What?”
“Nothing.” He scrubs his face. “I’m going crazy cooped up in here too. I haven’t spoken with my family either. But I’m doing what needs to be done, and you have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
“Because you’ve done this before?”
“I have.”
“With whom?”
He frowns.
“What was her name?”
He’s smirking now. Screw him.
“You’ve been lying to me,” I say. “All this time, you’re lying. This is a safe house. Who has safe houses? Government and criminals, that’s who. And…and…” I point at Drago. “This is no government agent.”
“What gave me away?” Drago drawls as he gathers up a tray holding the phones he’s tweaking.
“This leaves criminals,” I tell Corrado. “I’m not a stranger to crime or keeping secrets, and I think it’s time you told me what secrets you’re keeping. For example, who was the woman you did this with?”
“When I said I’ve done this before, I meant I’ve laid low before, not that I’ve laid low with another woman.”
Oh. “Well, go on, then. Spill.”
Corrado sighs. “I make money. It’s the secret of what I do.”
“Make money for criminals.”
“Some are criminals. Others are civilians. Doctors. Presidents.”
Drago hands Corrado his phone. “You can use it now.”
“And mine?” I ask.
Drago waits for confirmation, and after Corrado nods, he gives me a new phone. I try to dial my mom, the facility she’s in, and Daisy, to check on her, but none of the numbers are actually going through.
To test, I dial 911.
“Nooo,” Drago shouts and snatches the phone out of my hand. He swings open the sliding door, sprints outside, and throws my phone in the pool. He covers his ears as an explosion sounds, lifting the water out of the pool. It splashes all around it.
Before I can gather my thoughts around the fact I could’ve died, Corrado is on the move.
He leaps over the back of the couch, runs outside, and tackles Drago. The men fall into the pool, and I rush out after them. Corrado’s holding Drago by his throat at the bottom of the pool while the other man’s hands are behind his back. He’s not fighting Corrado.
Drago’s brown eyes watch Corrado above him.
“Corrado!” I scream. “Corrado!” I scream at the top of my lungs even though I know he can’t hear me. I start slapping the water, thinking the noise will grab his attention.
He’ll drown Drago.
Angry Gordon is pounding into the man who almost raped me. Blood splashing everywhere. We hid for days to no avail. The cops found him.
I jump into the pool and swim underwater, put my hands on Corrado’s, and start tugging them from Drago’s throat.
Too late.
Still, I pull at Corrado’s hands. Even underwater, I’m screaming, and it’s hard to see what the hell is going on since my hair’s floating around my body like the Medusa’s many serpentine hairs.
Finally, Corrado lets go.
I grab Drago by his arm and drag him to the surface. Corrado’s nowhere to be seen, and even if he were, I doubt he’d help me. Drago is heavy, and I struggle to keep him afloat until I reach the edge. When I do, I dunk under and, with all my might, push up on his back, trying to get him over the edge of the pool and onto dry land.
I fail miserably.
I try again.
And again, and I can’t get the man out.
Fourth time’s the charm. When I climb out, I accidentally kick him with my leg, and he tumbles back into the water.
“Leave him,” Corrado says. “He’s dead.”
That only makes me want to work on Drago’s revival even more. This time, I seize the man’s arm and hoist him up like a bag of potatoes, and when I do, I feel his heart beating. Yes!
I swim toward the shallower part of the pool (not sure why I didn’t think of it before), and when I can stand, I prop him up on my shoulder and shove him out.
The man rolls onto his back.
I kneel next to him, move my hair out of my face, and lean over him to breathe into his mouth.
Sleek dark leather shoes appear in my line of view. When I look up, I’m staring down the barrel of Corrado’s golden gun. “You put your mouth against another man’s mouth, and nobody is leaving here alive.”
“His heart is beating.”
“I know.”
“You know he’s not dead?”
“I didn’t have time to strangle him. You went psycho and got in my way.” He points the gun at Drago’s head.
I slap Corrado’s wrist. “No. No, please. Just let him breathe.”
“He can breathe. On his own. Though he’ll wish he couldn’t.”
I glance down at Drago, whose lips are turning blue. I have to breathe for him. I don’t know how else to help him.
“Don’t test me,” Corrado says. “I don’t share.”
I flip Drago onto his side, make a fist, and keep hitting between his shoulder blades while also talking to my deranged husband. “I’m psycho? You’re psycho!”
“I beg to differ. I’m not the one trying to revive a man who tried to kill me.”
“Whatever.”
Corrado chuckles. “Whatever is your argument?”
Before I can answer and tell Corrado how I don’t find any of this funny enough to chuckle at, Drago coughs out water. He heaves onto his belly, then props up his weight on his elbows, head hanging down.
There’s a gun tucked into the back of his pants. Corrado takes it and surprisingly doesn’t point it at the man.
Drago looks up and wipes his mouth, then rips open his shirt. He kneels and spreads his arms, speaking what I’m sure is his native tongue, which sounds suspiciously like Russian.
There are star tattoos on his shoulders. Also, other tattoos, notably a double-headed eagle that somehow also manages to appear as a double-headed dragon. It’s twisted.
“What’s he saying?” I ask Corrado.
He shakes his head. “A prayer, probably.”
“Please don’t.”
“I won’t. Under one condition.”
Drago quiets. I’m waiting.
“You give her your life,” Corrado says.
“Severio will not allow it,” Drago answers.
“Severio is not holding a gun to your head, is he now? My wife saved your life.”
“Severio ordered me to program the 911 trigger into her phone.”
Corrado doesn’t seem surprised that his brother ordered this.
“Why did you save me, then?” I ask.
Drago looks at me for the first time since he recovered from drowning. “Because Corrado might’ve come to harm.”
I huff. “What a gentleman.”
Corrado chuckles. “See why I’m not psycho? You think he gives a shit about you? He doesn’t. He’s a soldier executing orders. Which is why he must die.”
“Take the offered life,” I say to Drago. When Drago shakes his head, I push on. “I forgive you. Just take the life, and we’ll sort it out later.”
“Fuck, Michela,” Corrado says. “He’s Severio’s hit man. The finest in the world.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. A hit man? Like a serial killer?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Drago drawls. “The family gives me names, and I check them off my list.”
“I’m family, aren’t I?” I look at Corrado.
Clearly taken aback, Corrado pauses, then nods. “You are my wife.”
“Then I have leverage. As a family member, I should have leverage.”
Corrado runs a hand through his hair, then walks away.
I’m left with Drago, who stands and pats my head. “You’ll get used to it.”
Get used to what?