Chapter Twelve
Alara
I didn’t cry.
Almost as a rule.
I was stubborn about it, even when I knew there would be a catharsis to just let it out, I fought back the tears.
It had to come from my childhood. From watching my parents get extorted. And when they couldn’t pay, no matter how empty our fridge was, how many luxuries and essentials we went without, seeing my father bloodied and bruised.
Then, worse, when he was gone, and the threats turned to my mother. Until my sister sacrificed herself in marriage to one of the monsters, believing his word that he would leave us alone to run the stupid laundromat in peace.
Only to go behind her back and continue the threats, the violence.
I don’t think my mother or I ever told Ezmeray the depths of hell those in-laws of hers put us through.
Not just the constant financial squeeze.
But the threats. The violence—a sharp slap across my face, a bruise to my mother’s eye.
And, because I wasn’t a little girl anymore, the lingering gazes, the roaming hands, the whispered propositions in my ear when my mother was out of the room.
“If you meet me back at my place, I can shave off a couple hundred.” All the while his breath was hot on my seventeen-year-old neck, his hand was closing over my boob or slipping between my thighs.
What good were tears in that world?
All the sadness would do was weaken me.
So I balled it up inside, molded it, shaped it into something more useful: anger.
Because I could use rage.
I could harness it.
I could wear it like a shield.
And maybe that was why this attack hit me so hard.
Because all the years I’d spent hardening myself couldn’t protect me. My associations with the mob didn’t stop someone from putting his hands on me.
Suddenly, I felt like that little girl all over again. Hiding in the bathroom, fighting back the tears, promising myself that if he touched me again, I’d cut off his hands.
So it was shocking how quickly the tears came out of me when I found myself in Christopher’s arms.
Some part of me wanted to say it was just the hug itself. Because I wasn’t someone who allowed that kind of intimacy. Sure, there were hugs with my sister, with my niblings, with some of the extended family. But they were quick things. Just an expression of affection. Not for comfort.
Everything about Christopher, though, felt like comfort to me. Like a place I could feel safe.
Sure, I tried to rationalize it. He was the one who found me, who took care of me, who’d been gentle with me.
I knew it was more than that, though.
Whether he was willing to admit it or not, there was just some sort of flame between us. Not a spark. That wasn’t right. It was deeper than that. More like… like the slow, crackling fire of a hearth at home. That was what it felt like to be close to him. Like home.
But that was ridiculous.
So I let myself believe I was just in pain and overwrought feelings, nothing personal.
By the time he lowered me down from the piggyback ride, though, it was easy to pretend nothing at all had happened in that bathroom.
It was a short ride to Salvatore’s clinic. I’d gotten detailed descriptions of it from Brio and Ezmeray, but I was bouncing in my seat at the idea of getting to see it myself.
A mob doctor?
Who wouldn’t be excited?
Okay, a lot of people, probably. But for this woman who’d been orbiting the mafia since I was a teenager, it felt like Christmas morning.
“Can you take the dog?” Christopher asked when Brio opened my door.
He didn’t get a chance to agree. Tuna lunged over me and out the door, making Brio take off at a run to grab his leash. Thankfully, Tuna was short-legged. And lazy. He sat down before he got to the corner.
Before I could even try to slide out, I felt Christopher snag me around the waist and drag me across the seat.
“I feel like a child who was throwing a tantrum in the store,” I said as my legs flailed in the air when he got to his feet on the sidewalk.
“I forgot to get you shoes,” he said, walking awkwardly toward the doorstep, where he dropped me on the railing so he could scoop me up.
We moved into a, well, doctor’s office. Complete with a front desk, waiting area, and a whole snack and coffee station.
“Coffee,” I whimpered.
“I will get you a coffee once you’re being looked at. Who the hell are you?” Christopher barked when someone who was decidedly not Salvatore came in from the back.
“This is Venezio,” I explained.
“I know you?” Venezio asked, looking at me, instantly suspicious. Which tracked. He wasn’t Family. Not by blood. He was a former street kid who just so happened to get on the right side of the mafia.
I understood Christopher’s confusion too.
Nothing about Venezio screamed ‘mob associate.’ He didn’t even dress the part. He was in a tee, jeans, and Timbs.
He was tall and scrappy with chiseled bone structure, dark hair, one fully brown eye, and one partly brown and partly green eye.
He was gorgeous, though on the young side still. He would be almost intolerably hot once he hit his thirties.
“Who?” Christopher asked.
“Venezio. He worked under Cosimo for a while. Brought in by Miko. But has worked his way up ever since. Has been sort of interning under Salvatore.”
“You keeping a file on me?” Venezio asked in that gargled glass voice of his.
“Stalker board,” Christopher corrected, making Venezio’s brows pinch. “Where’s Salvatore?”
“He’s on his way. He was over with the Morellis on Staten Island. But I can get started.”
Christopher looked down at me. “Up to you.”
“Okay, listen, even if you figure out exactly what’s wrong with me, can I have Salvatore examine me too?”
Venezio snorted at that.
“You sound like a groupie.”
“She is,” Brio said, coming in behind us.
“How about I take your vitals and shit while you wait?” Venezio suggested.
“Works for me.”
We made our way into the exam room where Christopher put me down so gently, I might as well have been spun glass.
Venezio moved around, grabbing a thermometer and blood pressure cuff.
“Alara, you mind filling us in on what happened?” Brio asked once the velcro on the sleeve ripped as Venezio removed it.
I exhaled hard through my nose.
“Robin Moody.”
“Who?” Brio asked.
“The chick who just got murdered?” Venezio asked, looking up from jotting down my blood pressure.
“Yeah. Really close to the pawnshop. I literally almost stumbled into the crime scene.”
“Did you get attacked at the murder scene?” Brio asked.
“No. Okay. I need to rewind. Robin was in my pawnshop a little while back. She needed to pawn a music box. But was asking that I, you know, not sell it right away.”
“That ain’t how it works,” Venezio said.
“It is at my pawnshop. I just… didn’t think about it after that. But when I saw the news of her murder, I realized that the break-in was likely linked to that.”
“The what?” Brio snapped, biting off the words.
“Someone had broken in. Likely those two guys who were in the shop the day you came for the bag,” I said, looking at Christopher.
“Why didn’t I get a call?” Brio’s voice had an edge. But I knew him well enough to know it was hurt, not anger.
“At the time, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
“You pay us for protection,” Christopher said.
“For more serious stuff.”
“For all stuff,” Christopher shot back. “I get you can handle yourself. But the whole point of paying the mob you supposedly are so interested in is to have us handle all this shit.”
“It felt little at the time. But then Robin died. And I remembered how weird her request was.”
“Weird why?” Brio asked.
“The box was maybe worth forty bucks. And she was very anxious about it. Then really relieved when I had possession of it.”
“Something was in the box,” Venezio said.
“Exactly what I had just figured out,” I agreed. “Right before you showed up with Charlotte,” I added.
Christopher’s eyes slid closed.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“You had your own problems.”
“I never have so many problems that I can’t be there if you need me.”
I hated the way my heart flipped at those words, at the sincerity in his voice and on his face.
Fine.
I loved it.
But I was going to pretend otherwise.
“Anyway, I wanted to find the box. It wasn’t where I thought I’d left it. It was in the back. I finally found it.”
“Was it a notebook or a flash drive?” Venezio asked.
“Flash.”
“Did he get it?”
“No. It flew out of my hand and… went somewhere. But it was somewhere behind me and there was no way he could have grabbed it during the fight. Or when he ran out.”
“Lorenzo is sending Nero and Leo over there. No one is getting back in,” Christopher assured me. “We’ll figure out what they were after.”
“What Robin died for.”
“Yeah,” he said, wincing.
“You’re coming home with me,” Brio said.
“What? No.”
“This guy knows where you work. It’s not a stretch to think he might know where you live.”
“And not to point out the obvious,” Christopher said, gesturing to my foot that felt like it was twice the size it usually was—an uncomfortable tight, throbbing sensation. “You can’t do those steps with a bum leg. I’m not sure how you do them when it’s raining.”
I figured it wouldn’t help my case to mention how many mornings I’d thrown my arms out to grab the railing and prayed it wasn’t the day they finally did me in.
“So, you’re coming home with me,” Brio concluded.
“Brio, I love you. I love Ezmeray. I love the kids, dogs, cats, birds, and that freaky-ass lizard. But no.”
“You have a lot of stairs too,” Christopher said.
“Hotel?” Venezio suggested.
“She could stay with me. I can give her my room and take the couch.”
The way my belly flipped made me wonder if I’d only turned down Brio because I wanted to see if Christopher would offer.
“Liam and Charlotte would be able to lend a hand if she needed anything,” he added, making his case.
Brio glanced at him for just a second too long before looking at me. “Up to you. You can stay with me, with Chris, with anyone else in the Family. But you’re staying with someone.”