Chapter 21 #2
His gaze slides over me. My scrubs under my coat, my tired face, my badge still clipped and forgotten at my neckline.
Then flicks past my shoulder, to the corners where the building cameras don’t quite catch.
To the empty sidewalks and dark windows.
He’s checking for an audience, for backup, for what he can get away with.
My pulse spikes. A very uneasy feeling slides over my skin.
“You always get so dramatic when you’re tired.” His mouth twists into something that wants to be a grin but never quite makes it. “I saw you the other night, you know. You didn’t look so tense then.”
Ice water pours straight down my spine.
“What are you talking about?”
His eyebrows shoot up.
“Come on, mi amor. You think a car like that pulls up on this block and I don’t notice? Black, shiny doors that open like a spaceship?” His hands mimic gullwing doors, mocking. “And the way you got out of it, with him right behind you, walking you to your door like you’re made of glass.”
Massimo’s face flashes behind my eyes. The frown when he saw the old lock. The way he paced my tiny living room, and he checked every closet, every corner, every ridiculous little spot before he whisked me away to his place. To safety and security.
“That’s none of your business.” I make sure my tone is as flat as an EKG on a lost cause. “You don’t get to stand in front of my home and comment on anything you see here. Not the car. Not the man. Not me.”
“Oh, I think I do.” He pushes off the wall, takes two slow steps closer, like we’re dancing. “When some rich asshole rolls through my neighborhood, changing locks, dropping off my ex-wife at night like he’s the king of the block? That’s my business.”
My fingers curl so tight around the bag strap that I feel my nails bite my palm. Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t asked for space. Didn’t decline his text message saying he could still take me anywhere. Day or night, and we wouldn’t even have to talk. Now I regret it all.
“This is not your building. It’s not your business, remember? Divorce does that.”
He flinches at the word, just barely, then masks it with a scoff.
“Paper doesn’t change history. Doesn’t change what we had. What we are.”
“It changes what you’re allowed to do to me now.
” The words come faster, smoother, as if they’ve been waiting on the tip of my tongue for years.
Even if my heart is flip flopping in my chest. Even if I’m looking around for help and finding none.
“You don’t get to be outside my building waiting for me.
You don’t get to watch when I come home.
You definitely don’t get to keep tabs on who drops me off. ”
His eyes flash.
“So, there is someone,” he says, seizing on that like a dog with a bone. “He looked like money, mi amor. Looks like he’s a dealer. You really leveled up, huh?”
Anger rushes past the panic in my body.
“We aren’t talking about them. We’re talking about you, standing here where you don’t belong. Trespassing.”
He laughs under his breath. A little rasping sound that makes my body tighten from traumatic memories of late-night fights, late bills, and too-late apologies.
“You sound like a cop. You’ve been hanging around them too much at the hospital, huh? Getting advice on how to handle your husband? Or is it the rich drug dealer teaching you how to talk down to people now?”
I take another step, closing the space so I’m on the top step, and he’s still on the sidewalk, forcing him to look up at me just a little.
“It’s my job that taught me how to talk like this.
Twelve hours a shift with people yelling, crying, begging, dying, and me still having to tell them the truth.
So, here’s another truth for you. I don’t want you here.
I’m not giving you anything. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever again.
You stole too many good years from me. Stole everything I had and cheated in our bed.
You did this. You made me this way. You turned me into something I never wanted to be.
An ex-wife with a loser ex-husband. So, go.
Leave like you did before and never come back. ”
Brazen in my words, soft in their delivery.
“You don’t even know what I’m asking for.”
His nostrils flare like he’s trying to sniff out a lie.
“Yes, I do. You only ever show up when you want something.”
Somewhere down the block, a car door slams. A baby cries briefly in a nearby apartment before somebody shushes them. It’s the first signs of movement around us and makes me feel better. I’m not completely alone if I need help. We stand frozen in a tiny bit of silence until he breaks it.
“It’s not a big deal,” he says, voice dropping into that cajoling tone I used to fold for every time. “Just a little help. Five hundred, maybe. To get me through. You know how it is.”
Five hundred.
Half my rent or groceries, utilities, Paco’s heartworm meds, or a chunk of what I send Mami each month so she doesn’t have to water down her soup or choose between medicine and lights.
“No. I don’t have that kind of money. You know what I make.”
His face hardens, always hating when I stand up to him.
“Don’t lie to me. You got it. I saw that car, that new lock, the guy. If you don’t have it, you can get it.” His mouth curls around the word with disgust. “You expect me to believe you’re still living paycheck to paycheck when you got that?”
“You think a man coming into my life and fixing the damage you did means I have extra money to throw at you?” My laugh is hollow and humorless. He should know best how much things cost when a man destroys them. “Or that I’m suddenly some sugar baby rolling in cash? That’s not how this works.”
“Oh, so he bought it.” His eyes gleam with a dangerous glitter, and I shift back.
Wondering if I could outrun him if necessary.
“The lock I couldn’t pick, and the new kick plate at the bottom.
What else is he buying? Food? Maybe your mama’s medicine.
Maybe he’s paying off all the debt you cried about for years, huh? ”
My stomach flips at the way he digs his fingers into old wounds.
“You left me with that debt. You torched my credit. You pawned my jewelry. You disappeared with that chick and left me to clean everything up. So no, I’m not giving you anything.
I’m rebuilding my life. I’m not letting you burn it down again.
Go harass that girl? What’s her name? Sandy, Sally, Sarah? ”
I know her name.
It’s burned into my brain forever. He takes a step forward, close enough now that his breath hits my face, sour and stale.
“You really think you can get away with this? You kicked me out. You left me with no money. I let you have that divorce, but you’re still mine.
I’m not letting you go. Even if you think you can have that rich prick try to rough me up.
I’ve got people too. Got eyes on you and him, everywhere you go.
You think you can just walk to and from the train.
But you don’t know who is out there, waiting for you. Just one word from me and . . .”
His words flicker out.
The threat is clear as day.
My gaze slides over the cracked steps, the peeling paint on the railing, the old bricks stained with years of exhaust and struggle to the dark streets, wondering where his friends are lurking.
“Yeah, now you get it. You’re safe because I say you are. And that guy with his fancy car is coming into the wrong neighborhood, trying to throw his weight around. That shit doesn’t work in my block.”
A fresh bolt of fear and fury slices through me. I grab the edges of my coat and tug them together, taking a step backward.
“Are you threatening me? Threatening them?”
A picture flashes in my mind. Massimo is making breakfast without his shirt on while Emilio stumbles around the kitchen with Paco strapped to his chest like a baby, both of them so stupidly, painfully earnest in the way they look at me.
Innocent and unaware of the dangers of my world, with my ex running wild in it. Even if he’s half their size, if he knows people, bad people, they could get harmed.
His lip curls, knowing he has the upper hand. Knowing he can hurt people I care about.
“Maybe I am. You’ve always thought you were better than me, Sofia.”
His mask cracks enough for the bitter man underneath to bare his teeth.
“Ever since you left the island. Ever since you started walking around in those scrubs like you’re saving the world.
You think you’re better than everyone. But you’re still just the girl from the wooden house whose daddy left and whose mami raised her on arroz and prayers.
You can’t change where you came from and what you are. ”
The words land exactly where they aim, but they don’t bury themselves quite as deep as they used to. I have too many nights in the ICU now. Too many lives I’ve touched, too many shifts where I was the one who stood between life and death, and I have helped people make it through.
“I know where I came from. I’m proud of my roots. And unlike you, I still take care of those back home on the island. So, if anyone is trying to outrun where I came from and outrun what they are, it’s you.”
His eyes flick behind me, and I turn to look.
Making sure there is no one when he rips my purse from my shoulder and rifles through it to find my wallet.
I’m surprised and scared. Like watching an addict get violent in need of pills or their next hit.
I know better than to intervene even if I’m tempted to beat his ass.
Let him get whatever he wants so I can make it back to my apartment safely.
“Ah, look what we have here?” He holds up a stack of cash. My rent money for the landlord. “You’ve been holding out on me. You are his sugar baby, else how did you get this much cash?”
The bills fan out when he waves them. I’m tempted to snatch them back. Hard-earned money, I forgot to drop it in the payment box this morning.
“Give it to me! It’s my rent money.”
I step forward, but he backs away. Slamming my purse to the ground.
My phone falls out. The display shows Mami’s name, calling again.
He sees it and sneers. Having gotten what he wants, he slithers away.
A creepy smile crosses his face, but with the streetlight shining on it, it scares me more.
He’s on something. I see it clearly now in the light.
My heart races, wanting to grab my money and grab my phone. Yet I’m stuck in place. Waiting for him to leave so I can react. If he’s drugged up and I move too fast, it could trigger something.
“Give my love to Mami, mi amor. See ya around.”
He turns and walks off. Like, he didn’t threaten my world, my guys, and everything I rebuilt once he left. I collapse to the concrete, gather my belongings, and fight back tears.
“I won’t get them involved. Not this time. I’ll handle it like I always do.”