Chapter Nineteen
Stephanie
Once Venezio cleaned up my hands and treated the cut on my cheek from scraping the picture frame back in my apartment, he ducked out of the bathroom under the premise of looking for clothes.
But he was gone way too long for that.
Maybe he just needed a minute.
As soon as I was alone, I realized I did too.
I found that some parts of the night had grown sharper while others faded around the edges.
I distinctly remembered running into the park, the sharpness of the cold, and the coiled sensation of fear.
But other parts, like falling, like Venezio getting me in a cab, like the whole bit about getting to and inside the safe house, that was all really fuzzy.
I knew more about hypothermia than the average person. People who had spent cold winter nights on the street had to be aware of the risks, of the progression of symptoms.
It was entirely possible that I’d been in and out of consciousness between the cab ride and the safe house.
It wasn’t until Venezio and I were skin-to-skin under the blankets and the pinpricks of circulation assaulted every inch of my body, that I fully came back to myself.
Alone in the tub, I wasn’t surprised that things had gone from life-or-death to sex.
We’d been pressed close, mostly naked, both traumatized by the events of the night and needing comfort.
Besides, I believed him.
Maybe that was naive of me, but I did.
Yes, he was lying to me. Yes, he was using my organization. But, no, he hadn’t used me. He hadn’t used my feelings and desires against me. He’d been just as blindsided by that connection as I had been.
Was it smart of me to have sex with a man I now knew was in the mob? Who’d actually killed people?
Maybe not.
That said, when he’d told me he hadn’t killed the man who wanted to hurt me, I’d been… disappointed. I would have been completely okay with him having lost his life for what he’d done. If I’d had a gun, I knew down to my bones that I wouldn’t have hesitated to use it.
So why would I judge him for doing so in the past when it had been other life-or-death situations?
And, well, I hadn’t been an angel. Especially when my mom and I had been on the streets and struggling. I’d stolen things. I’d done whatever I needed to do to eat, to survive.
I knew that there were a lot of decent people who did objectively bad things. I understood that there were a thousand reasons to resort to a life of crime.
Everything about Venezio hinted at a hard upbringing.
Which might have left him with precious few choices.
Crime paid. It often paid well. And it didn’t require good grades or debilitating tuition debt.
If he’d been trying to get out of an awful situation, he would reach for whatever was quick, whatever was easy.
Then, well, once you were in that life, it was hard to get out. Especially if he was in the mafia. That was a “for life” kind of thing.
There was a soft rap at the door.
“Need help drying off?” he called.
Did my belly flutter?
Yes, yes, it did.
I wanted to tell him no, that I could do it myself, but my hands were slick with antibiotic ointment.
“Uh, yeah,” I called, reaching out with my toe to drain the tub.
“Started to worry you’d drowned in here,” he said, grabbing me under the arms and pulling me to my feet in the little shower/tub combo.
There were little duck anti-slip stickers beneath my feet and a crack in the white tile to my side as Venezio grabbed a towel and started to dry me off.
It was not a sensual touch.
But I still somehow felt desire sparking once again.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you don’t stop, I’m gonna fuck you again.”
“That’s a problem?”
“Yeah,” he said, wrapping the towel tightly around me.
“Why?”
“Because I need to get some soup in you. And because I’m out of condoms,” he added, giving me a pained look. “What’s that look for?”
I walked past him and back into the bedroom, pretending my feet didn’t feel like walking on hot pokers and my thighs weren’t marathon sore.
I used my pinkie to pull open the nightstand, then waved inside. Where a large box of condoms sat.
“You were right. Whoever set this place up was ready for anything.”
“They did. Though the clothing sizes left something to be desired,” he said, waving toward the bed where he had a large men’s sweatshirt and what looked like a small pair of men’s pajama pants.
“I’m not seeing a problem. That looks comfy.”
“Good. ‘Cause you need to stay warm.”
With that, he helped me slip on the clothes, wrapped one of the blankets around my shoulders, then led me out of the bedroom and into the rest of the apartment.
It was a small apartment with worn wooden floors that creaked under our feet as we walked.
The walls were a tan color, scratched in spots, but seemingly clean.
The sofa and armchair were a matching brown suede.
The end and coffee tables were cheap particleboard made to look like wood. The lamps looked secondhand.
In the little corner kitchen, the faux wood cabinets and the green laminate countertops all seemed clean.
Everything seemed clean, actually, except the big windows that looked out on the street below.
Those seemed like they had a decade of grime on them.
I couldn’t help but wonder if that was by design; maybe the people who were staying in a safe house wanted it to be impossible for someone to see inside.
Though, from the inside, it did give it a bit more of a claustrophobic feel.
Still, I was thankful for the safety.
I glanced toward the door as Venezio pressed me down onto the couch. There were four locks there.
Venezio dropped down onto the coffee table and pulled my feet into his lap.
“They’re bad, aren’t they?”
“Well, they’re not good.” He winced as his finger pressed into the blister that spread from just under my toes to the middle of my foot. “Christ, I hope this doesn’t burst.”
“It might feel better if it does.”
“Yeah, but it might risk infection. Best to try to stay off of ‘em as much as possible.”
He inspected the other foot then pulled a pair of thick thermal socks out of his pocket and slipped them on.
“No, keep your ass on the couch with your feet up and your blanket on while I get you something to eat and drink.”
Well-mannered, he was not. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever met a man who was as caring.
I was happy to stay in my little cocoon, watching him as he moved around the small kitchen, pulling cans out of a cabinet, emptying them into bowls, then heating them up before debating some sort of packet of something.
“You a lemon-lime person or a pomegranate person?"
“Pomegranate.”
“Thank fuck,” he said, ripping open the packet and emptying it into a bottle of water before shaking it up and bringing it over to me. “Drink it all.”
“Yes, sir,” I teased.
He went back to make his own electrolyte drink, chugging half of it before whatever was in the microwave beeped.
I swear I could feel the drink mix reviving me little by little. “This doesn’t even taste salty,” I observed.
“’Cause you’re dehydrated.”
“What?”
“When you’re dehydrated, salt tastes sweet, so your body tricks you into drinking it. When these things taste salty, you probably don’t need to be drinking them.”
“How do you know that?” I asked as he came back toward the couch carrying two bowls with steam dancing up into the air above them.
“We got a guy in the Family. Salvatore. We call him The Surgeon.”
“Does he do surgery?”
“Unofficially, yeah. The kind we need done when we can’t go to the hospital.
But we go to him for lots of shit. He’s not a doctor, but he might as well be.
I was at his office once and heard him explaining that to someone else.
We got chicken noodle,” he told me. “The good, condensed ones we’d eat as kids. You gotta eat all yours.”
“Not hard,” I said, carefully taking the bowl with the tips of my fingers. “I’m starving. Those fancy food portions were ridiculously small.”
“Christ,” Venezio said, shaking his head. “Hard to believe that was just a few hours ago.”
“I know,” I agreed. It felt like a lifetime ago that I’d been smiling, schmoozing, and getting promises of large donations for my charity.
“It was a good night before it all went to shit.”
“It was,” I agreed.
“How you feeling?”
“Sore. How can every muscle be hurting?”
“Think you underestimate how much we ran tonight. The adrenaline probably made it seem like it went by faster than it did. You were pretty far into the park.”
“I was a lot further at one point. But I started making my way back. I don’t know how I didn’t freeze to death. Is it still snowing?”
“Seems more like sleet now. And, yeah, you scared the fucking shit out of me. Never felt like that before.”
“You’ve been in situations where you needed to… use lethal force. But me getting cold was as scared as you’ve been?” I asked, my tone dubious.
“In those situations, it was my life. It was nothing. This was your life. That’s everything.”
My heart squeezed hard in my chest.
“Your life isn’t nothing.”
“It ain’t much.”
“I think you’re selling yourself short.”
“Came from shit. Still live there.”
My face scrunched up at that.
“So, by that logic, my life is nothing too. Because I spent most of my childhood in shelters or on the street.”
His gaze cut to mine, sharp, seeing too much.
“It’s different.”
“Why?”
“You had a good mom. Just a bad hand of cards.”
“You didn’t choose your parents,” I reminded him. “Just because they might not have been good people doesn’t mean you aren’t.”
“I’m a fucking mobster, babe,” he reminded me. “Didn’t have to go down this route.”
“I think we both know the issue is systemic. And once you get in deep enough, there is no getting out.”
“I don’t want to get out.”
“Because of the money?”
“It’s a big part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“Having other people to rely on.”
I glanced a little pointedly around the room, brow raised.
“I called everyone I could. Before my phone died. Dunno who set this place up. But they remembered condoms and extra batteries for the remotes… but forgot a fucking charging cord.”
“Figures. You could run out and get one.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight. We both need some rest. I can go out in the morning.”
“Won’t your boss be angry he can’t get in touch with you?”
“Angry? Doubt it. Curious about what’s going down, since I called a bunch of people? Maybe.”
“Would they come here?”
“Maybe eventually. Probably not before I get in touch with them, though.”
I nodded at that as I clumsily held the spoon in my hand to avoid touching my cut palm. “This is better than I remember,” I declared when I finally got some in my mouth.
“Yeah,” Venezio said, already polishing off his, then setting it aside. He reached for my bowl, taking it and the spoon away from me.
“What are you doing?”
“Watching you try to do that is painful,” he said, scooping up some noodles and holding the spoon to my lips.
“You’re feeding me?”
“Not if you don’t open your mouth.”
To that, a little snort escaped me.
I opened my mouth, though, and let myself get fed for the first time since I was a baby. It was a surprisingly intimate act and I was a little sad when the soup was gone.
“What time is it?” I asked when he took the bowls and headed to the kitchen to wash them out.
“Just after two. We gotta get to bed.”
I was more than happy to oblige him on that.
“What are you doing?” I asked when he came back and scooped his arms under me.
“Keeping you off your feet. Grab that bottle of water. You gotta finish it.”
“You’re bossy,” I said, but I was smiling as I leaned my head against his chest, listening to the steady thud of his heart.
“‘Cause you don’t follow instructions,” he said, giving my body a jiggle.
“Well, you wanted me to eat. I couldn’t eat and drink at the same time.”
“Yeah, yeah, likely excuse,” he said, giving me a smirk as he lowered me onto the bed.
“Shouldn’t we put the sheets on the bed?” I asked, looking at the large quilt he had spread across the bare mattress.
“Why?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused by the idea.
“Don’t you have a fitted sheet on your bed?”
“Guess mine looks a lot like this,” he said, waving at the bed. “‘Cept my mattress is in one of those bags.”
“Bags?”
“Seals around it, keeps bugs and water and shit like that out of it. Got burned too many times growing up. Know better now.”
“Men,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m assuming you don’t have a headboard either.”
“What do I need a headboard for? I’m not sitting up in bed. I barely sleep,” he added.
“Why?”
“Rather be working.”
“I mean, I like sleeping. But I get what you mean. I have a little bit of a lingering scarcity mindset I need to work through. I tend to work late.”
“Recording,” he said, going into the closet.
“Yeah.”
“I listened to a few.”
“You… listened to a few of the books I narrated?” I asked, not sure if I was delighted—or embarrassed—by that. Especially given that I mostly narrated books that got pretty spicy. And the things I read were things I would normally never say in real life.
“Yeah,” he said, turning back with another sealed bag; a smirk toyed with his lips. “Wasn’t helping the whole ‘I need to keep my hands off you’ thing. Get some sleep. I’m taking a quick shower.”
Some part of me wanted to join him when I heard the water turn on.
The other part, though, felt like every muscle in my body had its own pulse. That was how bad I was aching.
So instead, I just listened to the water under the covers until Venezio came out in a pair of low-slung pajama pants in the same exact pattern as mine.
“Guess they bought the clothes in bulk, huh?” I asked as he shot me a smirk before pulling on a sweatshirt that also looked like the one I had on, albeit in white and a larger size.
“You should be sleeping,” he said, climbing onto the bed.
I slipped the blankets over him and his hand curled under me, drawing me up to his side.
Then the two of us slowly drifted off.
It was the best night of sleep of my life.
And I had no idea if I could thank the exercise and adrenaline for that… or Venezio’s body at my side.