by Hamel, B. B.
“And now I show up.” I let out a rueful laugh. “Of course they tried you first. I don’t know why I thought they hadn’t.”
“I turned them down before, even when they pressured me pretty damn hard. And now you show up, asking for this favor.” He stared at me and I could see how conflicted her felt—a mixture of anger and uncertainty. “What the hell should I do here, Gavin?”
I shook my head. “You know what I want. If we can approve this zoning then I can be through with them forever.”
“You think it’ll be that simple?”
“It had better be.” I met his gaze and held it. “I’m not going to let them roll over me. I’ve already negotiated them down to this.”
“And yet now I’m involved.” He let out an annoyed breath. “After all the fighting with them, it comes down to this.”
“Please, Fred. I wouldn’t ask you this if it weren’t important.”
He looked at me again then sank back down into his chair, looking defeated and exhausted. “I’m sure it took a lot to come to me like this.”
“Yes, it really did.”
That was an understatement. I knew my career was on the line. Fred Martin was a powerful figure in this city, and he could make or break me on a whim. If he decided that I’d gone too far and gotten myself mixed up with unsavory characters, then he could toss me out in the trash and I’d never work in a Philly-area hospital again. I’d have to start over somewhere else—and though that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, it wasn’t what I wanted, not right now in particular, when Erica’s mom was still in her coma and on life support.
I wasn’t the kind of man that asked for help or favors. I’d worked hard my whole life and gotten here all on my own, and now my fate rested in the hands of someone else. I hated it and wished I could do something to change it, but this was my best option. He looked at me for a moment and let out a long sigh before nodding, seemingly resigned.
“I’ll do this for you, Gavin,” he said, voice soft. “But if I do, you’ll owe me. And you can forget about getting that promotion.”
I noticed Erica stiffen beside me. Her eyes went wide and she stared at me like Fred was about to plunge a dagger in my heart.
I leaned forward and nodded. “That’s a deal.”
“Fine. I’ll push their zoning request through.”
“Gavin,” Erica said, but I put a hand on her knee.
“Thank you, Fred.”
He nodded and waved a hand. “Listen, I’ve got a patient soon, so if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Of course.” I stood up. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this, but you’re saving my life.”
“I’m not doing it for you,” he said. “I’m doing it because you’re trying to help her out, and because you’re willing to sacrifice to make it happen. I admire that in a man.”
I nodded once and turned to leave. Erica lingered, and I knew she wanted to fight this, but I wouldn’t let her. It was over, and this was our path now, whether she liked it or not. I pushed open the door and walked outside, and she reluctantly followed.
“Why did you do that?” she asked on our walk back to her mother’s room.
“You know why.”
“The whole reason we got involved was to get you that promotion.”
I smirked at her. “That was my excuse.”
“What, now you’re pretending like you didn’t want the promotion after all?”
“Of course I did, but that’s not why I did this.” I stopped walking and faced her. She looked up into my eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, shutting herself off from me. I could see she wanted to fight, and didn’t want to take my word for it, but I wasn’t going to let her pull away, not again. “I did this because I wanted to help you, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“Come on, Gavin. You told me you wanted to make a deal.”
“Because you wouldn’t have let me marry you otherwise.” I stepped closer, heart beating in even, rough thuds as I put my hands on her hips. Nurses hustled past pushing a patient in a wheelchair, and I moved Erica off to the side to get her out of the way. “Tell me you would’ve married me if I hadn’t used that excuse.”
“Of course I wouldn’t have.”
“Then I made the right call. There will be other jobs, but there’s only one you.”
She tightened her hands into fists. “I never wanted to drag you down with me.”
“You’re not dragging me anywhere.” I tilted her chin up toward me and kissed her softly. “I feel like I’m getting the better part of this bargain.”
She opened her mouth to argue but my pager began to beep. I looked down and sucked in a breath.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Sorry. Emergency, I have to go.”
“Right now?”
I nodded and kissed her cheek. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
She said something, but I couldn’t hear. I strode off as fast as I could, half jogging toward the elevators, my mind already slipping away from that conversation in Fred’s office and onto my patients. Even in the midst of something difficult and distracting, my patients were the most important thing, and I’d do anything for them.
Just like I’d do anything for Erica.
26
Erica
After Gavin disappeared, I decided not to visit my mom, and instead went out for a walk.
I didn’t have a destination in mind. My mind spun in quick circles trying to figure out what happened up there in Dr. Martin’s office, and what it meant for Gavin’s career. He wasn’t going to get that promotion anymore, that much was obvious—but I got the feeling Dr. Martin would hold it against Gavin for a long time to come.
I never wanted this. He said I was a good person, but it was obvious that wasn’t true. From the start, we got involved because he thought I could help him get a promotion, and he could help shelter me from the mafia, and yet everything was so much more complicated. I wanted to scream and shout and bury my head in the sand out of shame and rage, but even that would be selfish.
We’d come too far, and now I was stuck.
Except stuck wasn’t the right word. I still wanted to be here, even after all this. Maybe running would be better for him, but I wasn’t going anywhere—because I was too selfish to run away.
I wanted to be with him. I wanted to be near him, to let him kiss me, to be his wife. Even if our marriage was fake, and based entirely on a lie that wasn’t even panning out, I still wanted to be around him.
It drove me crazy with self-loathing. I stormed along the crowded Philly streets, passed shops buzzing with people, ignored homeless men calling out for change, slipped between a pack of young kids in school uniforms laughing at each other, dodged among men and women carrying briefcases and wearing business suits, and with each new person I wondered what their life was like, if they were involved with the mafia, if they had a deadbeat father or sibling that dragged them down into the mud.
My life wasn’t supposed to go this way. I wanted more for myself, I used to have ambitions and dreams, but over the years those slowly disappeared as my father leeched away the future. I was left with my mother, with paying bills, happy to be a waitress, content to sit alone on the couch with her night after night.
I was a loser. I had nothing, no prospects, and it wasn’t until right now, right here in the streets thinking about Gavin and everything he’s done for me, it wasn’t until this moment that I realized just how passive I’d become.
I wasn’t going to be passive anymore.
We were going to beat this thing, and when it was over, I’d do whatever I could to save my mom and to pay Gavin back for everything. I don’t know how I could ever repay him, but if it meant I’d stay his fake wife and pretend to be in a happy, loving, committed marriage, then I’d do that for as long as I had to.
I wasn’t going to let him fail because of me.
Streets turned into alleys, and I slowed and stopped in the shade of a small tree, its
skinny trunk slightly bent over a line of cars parked against the curb. I touched its bark and wondered how old it was, or if maybe this city stunted everything.
Then I heard his voice and my blood ran cold.
“Erica,” he said, and I looked over my shoulder.
Cosimo stood at the edge of a stoop, smiling at me. His dark eyes were wicked, and his teeth looked like crooked fangs. I turned then stumbled backwards away from him.
“What do you want?”
“We should talk.” He stepped forward, and I stepped back, our bodies locked in a little dance, and I looked around with wild eyes.
We were alone on a small, quiet street. This sort of thing probably never happened around here, at least the people that lived in the nice houses with their large windows and clean, well-kept front doors couldn’t imagine a life in which the mafia wanted to hurt them.
“There’s nothing to say. Gavin’s going to pay off your bosses and we’re finished with you.”
“He didn’t tell you about our little conversation?” He chuckled, came closer, and I kept moving backwards, heart racing. I wondered if anyone would bother coming to the door if I screamed.
I doubted it. People didn’t scream in this part of town. They weren’t used to cheap girls like me with cheap lives.
“He told me that your bosses took our offer. We’re through with you.”
He grinned, showing me all his teeth, like a hungry shark. “Like I told him after he talked to Dante, you might be done with me, but I’m not done with you.”
“What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“That’s a good question.” He made a face and stroked his chin. “I suppose it goes back to my mother. She never said ‘I love you’ enough to me as a child, and my father beat the shit out of me with his belt whenever I talked back, and not the nice part of the belt. No, I have scars from the buckle all down my back, and more than a few from the cigarettes he’d put out on my thighs.”
I felt my mouth go dry. “I’m sorry you had a hard time.”
“Oh, don’t worry, you understand better than most, don’t you? I know your daddy wasn’t exactly the picture of fatherly devotion. What did he do to you, huh? Did he beat you bloody?”
“He never touched me.”
“Oh, no, I guess he saved that for your mom.”
I felt my anger flare up and I stopped retreating. He grinned at me, clearly enjoying himself. “My father never hit us. He was a piece of shit, and he stole all our cash, but he wasn’t violent.”
“Good for him then. What a great guy, he ruined your life, but hey, he never fucking hit you.” He laughed and shook his head. “You should be so fucking proud.”
“Go to hell. I don’t have to take this from you anymore.”
“But you do, darling.” He stood a few feet away, arms spread out. “You were supposed to be mine, but you ran from me, and somehow got that piece of shit doctor to protect you. I’m not going to let you run away from me, damn you. I’m not going to let you get away.”
“I’m not yours to own, you sick shit.”
“So you think.”
He lunged for me. I skittered back like a scared animal and he only caught air. I turned and ran as fast as I could, heart hammering, and I heard him chase after behind me, whooping with delight like we were playing tag.
I felt a scream in my chest but couldn’t make it come forward. I was breathing too hard, working to stay one step ahead of him. He was bigger than me and stronger, but I was a good runner and in halfway decent shape from going for long runs through my neighborhood back before the accident. I heard him stomping along in boots, huffing and puffing, and I knew that if I could keep going, get some distance, I could get away. He might’ve been faster for a few hundred feet, but I could outlast him.
I stumbled on a curb and barely avoided a girl in a cute sundress. She shouted something and I heard Cosimo curse back. I sprinted forward, made another turn, and kept going, crossing the street without looking, running recklessly. A horn went off nearby, Cosimo shouted something, but he kept coming. I collided with a parked car, rolled off it, jumped up on the curb, danced around a young guy pushing a stroller, and reached the intersection.
Another turn, and I was getting close to Gavin’s place. I dodged more people, yelling at them to move, heart going wild in my chest. I got some crazy looks, and I bet they saw the fear in my eyes, but I doubted they’d call the police. This sort of thing didn’t happen to these people, in their fancy houses with their nice, clean streets. Gavin lived in a rich part of the city, which meant I couldn’t rely on strangers helping me.
I saw his stoop ahead and risked a glance back. Cosimo ran after me, but he was half a block back, his face bright red with anger. I reached the door, yanked the keys from my pocket, and unlocked it. I slipped inside before he caught me and slammed the door, shoving the bolt into place.
He banged on it a second later as I stood gasping for breath in the foyer.
“Open the fucking door,” Cosimo growled. “Open it before I break it down and slit your pretty throat. You think I’m above that? I’d love to taste your dead tongue. I’ll drink all your blood, you fucking whore, open the fucking door.”
I crouched down, covering my head, heart racing. I felt sobs in my chest and had to fight them back. This was supposed to be over, we were supposed to be moving on—and yet that bastard still wouldn’t let me go.
It was a nightmare I’d never wake up from.
The banging stopped after another minute. I fumbled for my phone and sent Gavin a text. Cosimo is here. He attacked me. I hit send without thinking about it, and realized too late that he probably wouldn’t see it for a while. I groaned and considered calling the cops, but decided against it.
Getting the cops involved might only make things more complicated.
Slowly, I got to my feet. I still gasped for breath but my heart calmed and the fear began to slowly fade. I took a step toward the kitchen then stopped as I heard a sound from behind the house, in the back yard. It was the sound of something knocking over a chair, the metal back banging against the concrete slab.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered, then heard the sound of shattering glass.
“Come out, come out, little piggy,” Cosimo said, laughing, and I heard him unlock the back door.
27
Gavin
I patted Mrs. Anderson’s hand and she smiled at me, her throat bobbing up and down as she swallowed. “You’ll be just fine,” I said. “Let the nurses take care of you from here.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
I nodded then extricated myself from the room. There’d been an issue of medication titration that hadn’t actually been an emergency after all, but an overly vigilant and unsure new nurse decided to page me anyway. That was fine—I’d rather they were careful.
I stepped into the hallway and checked my phone. I’d felt a new text come in while I was in the room. I stared at the screen and felt my pulse double as I read the words over twice.
I didn’t think. I started running.
I got some looks from staff, but fuck them. I reached the stairs and flew down them, practically jumping two at a time. I hit the door at the bottom and sprinted through the lobby and out the front. I wasn’t far from home, and if I kept moving, I could get there in two minutes. I growled and gasped for breath, not thinking, just running as fast as I could toward home and toward Erica.
The words played over in my mind again and again: Cosimo is here. He attacked me. I felt so angry I could barely breathe and my legs and chest burned from running as I dodged past a stroller and a group of teenagers and endless young business people in cheap suits. I wanted to scream and growl and throw punches but I had to keep moving, couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down.
Erica was in trouble and that bastard came back.
He told me he would. I thought he was bluffing, but clearly, I was wrong. He attacked Erica and it was my fault that I let him, my fault that I st
epped aside and let it happen. God damn me for being stupid enough to leave her alone even for a second, especially when we hadn’t sealed the deal completely yet.
I saw red, my vision clouded with rage, and finally reached the front door. I fumbled at the lock and managed to fish my keys from my pocket. I got it open and flung the door wide, stepping inside. I was about to yell for Erica when I heard a shout and a bang from upstairs.
I didn’t hesitate. I threw myself up the steps and reached the landing. I heard another scream, definitely Erica, but it was muffled. There was more banging, like someone tried to get in through a door. I ran to her room and stared at Cosimo standing outside of her bathroom, slamming his shoulder against it over and over. He grunted and looked crazed, and I knew he hadn’t noticed me yet.
I grabbed the first thing I saw. A small porcelain statue of a dog sitting on his hind legs rested on her dresser to my left. I grabbed it, flipped it upside down, and stalked over to him.
“Hey, fuckface,” I said, and he looked up just as I smashed the statue down over his head.
He let out a strange grunt and a slash of red appeared on his scalp. He stumbled but didn’t go down, and turned to me, rage in his eyes, wound bleeding freely. He charged me and I hit him against with the statue, shattering it against the side of his face. His momentum carried him into me, and I smashed my knee up against his face.
He didn’t drop, the crazy bastard, although I thought I felt his nose break. He pushed me back against the bed and tried to grab my throat with one hand. He scrambled for something in his jacket with the other, and I smashed my forehead forward, hitting him in the face. He grunted as I swatted against the hand on my throat and grabbed the wrist that slipped inside his jacket.
“Fuck you,” he growled. “You fucking shit. You fucking bastard.” He raved like a lunatic, and I felt what he was trying to grab: a knife in a small sheath tucked into his jacket pocket.
