Chapter 3 Elio #2
“I don’t know, really,” I said, shaking her hand, studying her intently. She was something. But what exactly, I didn’t know. That still didn’t stop me from admiring her beauty.
She was gorgeous, almost as tall as I was, eyes so fierce blue they made me think of oceans and the sky and everything in the world that was good and blue. That had never happened when I’d looked into Father’s blue eyes. His blue eyes had reminded me of drowning and rage.
She wore a sexy dress, a nice little thing that barely covered her breasts and reached halfway down her thighs.
The last time I’d seen something that seductive, I was on a boat off the coast of Miami and a drunk girl wearing something similar was grinding against me.
Hers was flashier, whereas this woman, Maria, was wearing a more elegant version of it, the kind you wore to award ceremonies, prom, a themed wake for a sexy rock and roll icon or something.
She had a light pink lipstick on, which made her look equal parts femme fatale and manic pixie dream girl. If only she had a red streak running through her hair, though.
“Take a picture, why don’t you?” she said, looking away, blushing.
“I wasn’t staring,” I said defiantly.
“What do you call looking at me for a full minute with your mouth hanging half open?” she quipped back. I liked this girl.
“Do over?”
“Sure.”
“Hi, my name is Elio Romano, and my father, the don, arranged this auction to teach me a lesson in humility or something along those lines. I need to know, are you in on that whole thing or are you just some random person who waltzed in through that door at the opportune time?” I asked.
She looked at me intensely, her eyes searching for some meaning behind the vacant browns of my eyes.
I knew they were vacant because I’d tried hard to make them so.
I wasn’t about to go about making people think I was some deep thinker or some intellectual finance savant who knew numbers and algorithms that could one day potentially save Wall Street from imminent collapse.
No. I’d been dumb for a long time, and I intended to stay that way for an even longer time. Dumb didn’t get you hurt. It’s thinking that got you hurt.
“First of all,” Maria said, raising her finger. “I didn’t even know that this was an auction until I’d walked in the room, and by that time it was already too late.”
“Why?”
“I was kinda running away from someone. My life hanging in the balance, goons with guns chasing me down the hallway, that sort of thing.”
“What are we, in a Patrick Hughes movie?” I grinned.
“Who’s that?”
“The guy behind Expendables, Hitman’s Bodyguard, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard…come on, tell me you don’t know who I’m talking about.”
“I’ve got a life.”
“As do I, and it includes watching comedy movies.
“Well, there was nothing comedic about blowing my cover and accidentally entering a freaking mafia auction and bidding on the don’s son,” she panted, hyperventilating, collapsing into a chair.
“Drink?”
“Can you make a daiquiri?”
“Whiskey’s all you’re going to get.”
“I’ll have some with Coke.”
“Waste of good whiskey, but suit yourself.”
“Why? You don’t have any Jack Daniel’s?”
“You kidding me, right?”
“Are you kidding me? I accidentally bid three hundred thousand dollars on you; that’s three hundred thousand dollars that I don’t have, and you’re telling me I’ve landed in the middle of some mafioso drama!
? Give me that,” she said, taking the bottle from me and pouring herself a double, no, a triple, and then downing it in one.
“Whoa, easy there.”
“Shh, you handsome idiot, I’ve got some thinking to do.”
“You think I’m handsome?” I laughed, running my hand through my hair, catching my reflection in the vanity mirror.
“Well, you’re not ugly,” she said, taking her phone out.
There was another knock on the door. Quite violently.
I put my hand on the knob. Maria gasped.
“What?” I asked, turning to look at her.
“What if it’s them?”
“You’re gonna have to tell me at some point who is them.”
“Just…help me!” she hissed.
I opened the door and saw a man standing there, a man in a black suit, wearing black shades, an earpiece, his arms crossed.
“You’re not one of my Father’s guys,” I said, not opening the door entirely.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” the man said, his expression still stony. “But is there a woman in there with you? The one who bid on you?”
“Who’s asking?” I asked, raising my voice.
“I’m not asking,” the man said, revealing the gun underneath his coat.
Something snapped inside me, something that I wish hadn’t snapped.
I’d tried to keep that part of me buried deep within.
As that part came to the surface, along came the memories associated with it.
My Father standing there in a room where an instructor beat the living shit out of me while teaching me self-defense.
I remember once that instructor broke my arm, and my father didn’t even twitch a muscle.
“If you can’t protect yourself,” he’d said after one of those sessions, “How the hell are you going to make it in this world?”
I snapped back to the present, slamming my hand into the guy’s throat, and then elbowing his midriff with great speed and force.
He fell on his knees, gasping, holding his chest, and that’s when I punched him in the face, watching his glasses shatter, watching the tall man tumble back and hit his head on the floor.
I took his pistol out, took out the magazine, and emptied the bullets in the chamber.
This had nothing to do with my father anymore.
“Remind me, who did you say you were again?” I asked, looking at Maria, who stood there with her hand on her mouth, and the color all gone from her face.