by Nicole Fox
She clings to Paulie as she turns to me.
Her gray eyes look amber under the faint glimmer of the night light, but they still sparkle brightly, even as her eyelashes start to drift closed with sleepiness.
“Did you have a nice day?” I ask.
“Mhmm.”
“Tired?”
“No!” she retorts at once.
I smile at the fib and tweak her nose. “Liar. Get a good night’s sleep and then we can spend tomorrow morning in the pool after breakfast. Sounds good?”
“Mhmm,” she murmurs. “Can we have French toast for breakfast tomorrow?”
“I was thinking waffles.”
Her eyes light up. “That sounds even better.”
I drop a kiss on her forehead. “Sleep tight, kiddo.”
“Sweet dreams,” Evie responds, grasping Paulie a little tighter.
I make my way over to the connecting door that leads to my room. Just before I slip through the partition, I glance back.
She’s already snoring softly.
A pang of overwhelming emotion and a single thought cross my head at the same time, powerful enough to knock me down.
I’d do anything to keep her safe.
It’s gone as quick as it came. I shudder at all the implications of that.
But now’s not the time to explore what it means.
For me. For her. For our respective futures.
Best to just keep my head down until I can figure a way out.
I strip off my clothes and spend a full half an hour soaking in the tub. When I’ve finished my wash, I walk naked into the bedroom and open the sliding doors of my wardrobe.
It’s filled with new clothes from the list I’d given to Enzo the day I’d been moved to this room.
There are jeans, t-shirts, blouses, sweats, shoes and sneakers.
Everything is practical, versatile and comfortable. I picked it for that reason in particular.
No lacy underthings.
No designer brands.
Nothing that could possibly be misconstrued as “sexy.”
Because Lucio may have said he didn’t plan on laying a finger on me.
But if I know anything about men like him, it’s that they’re liars through and through. Especially when sex is involved.
I pull out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. Then I fall into bed with relief and stare up at the ceiling.
The minutes before sleep are the only time I get to be alone with my thoughts anymore. Which is not exactly a bad thing.
Because there’s a whole lot of shit I need to be worrying about. So much that acknowledging it all at once might make me melt down.
Lucio. Evie. Mama.
And Them.
I’ve held my breath for days now, waiting for Them to appear. But there’s been no sign.
Maybe They’ve forgotten about me.
Or maybe they’re just biding their time.
My eyes slide to the windows. I was stunned to find out that this new room Lucio had me moved to isn’t nearly as secured as the previous one. These windows aren’t even locked.
I could get out, if I chose to.
But that also implies something else: other people can get in.
The thought makes me shudder. I shove it aside and try to focus on sleep.
To my surprise, it works. Little by little, my anxieties fade away.
I’m finally on the verge of drifting off when I hear the door to the connecting room open.
I sit up a little, squinting into the darkness.
“Hello?” My voice comes out in a fearful tremor.
“Charlotte,” Evie’s little voice murmurs, “I can’t sleep.”
I sigh. It’s just Evie.
I pull back my covers and pat the silken bedsheets. “Come on then, sweetie.”
She pads over sleepily and slips into bed next to me, clutching Paulie to her chest.
Evie’s not my kid. Not my responsibility.
And yet… I feel responsible for her.
She’s bonded with me. So how can I possibly leave?
Abandoning her now would leave a scar that won’t easily fade.
I know how that works. I have plenty of my own scars to testify to that. Courtesy of the woman who raised me.
Or attempted to, at least.
“Paulie had a bad dream,” she mumbles to me.
“Really? Did he tell you what it was about?”
“No. Just that he was scared.”
I nod. “I used to have bad dreams when I was little too,” I confide in her.
“Really?” Evie’s eyes go wide in the soft moonlight peeking through the curtains.
“Yup. They continued until I was a teenager. Sometimes, I still have them.”
“What do you do when you have them?” Evie asks.
“I think nice thoughts,” I tell her. “I think about all the things that I love.”
“Oh,” she says softly. “Oh.”
“Maybe we can try that now. What does Paulie love?”
“He loves the same things I do.”
“I thought so,” I say with a nod. “So maybe you should tell me all the things you love.”
“Okay,” Evie agrees with the utmost seriousness on her delicate little features. “I love… platypuses.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“And Australia.”
“Good. What else?”
“I love trees. And oceans. Dolphins. Frogs. Caterpillars…”
She keeps listing out all of the things she loves. And given everything that’s happened to her, I’m not in the least surprised that humans don’t factor into her list at all.
Until the very end.
“And you,” she murmurs in a tiny, sleep-slurred voice. “I love you as much as I love Paulie.”
I freeze and stop stroking her hair for a moment.
But she doesn’t notice. She chooses right then to slip over the edge into sleep.
There are so many things I’d tell her, if I knew how to put them into words.
How love keeps us chained in place. How you rely on it more and more and more until the day that it fails you, and then you hit the ground all the harder for having ever depended upon the ones you loved in the first place.
But I don’t know how that to say that to her.
So I don’t.
And by the time I’ve made any headway on figuring it out, sleep has come for me, too.
Sometime after I lose myself to unconsciousness, a scraping noise at the window has me blinking my eyes open again.
It feels like just seconds ago, Evie was naming every creepy-crawly on the planet on her list of loved ones.
But I must’ve slept longer than I thought, because even the garden lights have been turned off now. There’s only a faint glimmer of moonlight gliding in through the windows.
And something else…
A shadow climbing into the room.
My heart stops for a full three seconds.
Stop it.
Calm down.
Breathe.
This is just a dream. I’ve been triggered by my anxious worrying just before Evie came into my room.
This is only a dream.
Then the shadow trips on the window ledge and stumbles clumsily into the room.
“Fuck!” it curses in a harsh whisper.
I go cold with panic.
This is no fucking dream.
There’s a man in my room.
10
Charlotte
As silently as possible, I dart out of bed.
Evie doesn’t move. She’s still sleeping soundly with Paulie snuggled under her chin.
My eyes dart around the room, looking for something sharp.
Why are there so many blunt fucking instruments in this room?
I can see him straightening, which means I’m about to lose the element of surprise.
And then…
“Char… it’s me.”
That voice.
Th
at fucking voice.
I squint into the darkness, trying to pick out the features underneath the dark hoodie.
But I don’t need to see to know who it is.
My voice comes out with a tremor despite my best efforts to keep it strong. “…Xander?”
He moves forward. I recognize the slight hunch of his otherwise broad shoulders.
“Hi, honey,” he says, as though we’d parted only yesterday. “Nice digs you’ve got here.”
So much for Them forgetting about me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demand.
As if I don’t already know.
There’s only one reason why Xander would risk sneaking onto the Mazzeo compound to talk to me.
He’s here on Their behalf.
He’s here to collect on my debt.
But he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to answer my question. He examines the room with interest, though he halts when he catches sight of Evie lying on the right-hand side of my bed.
“Is there someone in the bed?” he asks, his stance growing cautious all of a sudden.
“She’s just a kid,” I tell him, grabbing his arm and leading him as far away from Evie as possible. “Leave her out of this.”
He’s perplexed. “Why are you in bed with a kid?”
“I’m taking care of her,” I say abruptly.
“Why?”
“You broke in here, so I’m assuming you know who owns this compound,” I tell him. “He doesn’t exactly give me explanations. He gives me commands. I do what I’m told, that’s all.”
“Since when?”
I narrow my eyes impatiently. “Since the most dangerous fucking mafia leader in the country managed to entrap me.”
“How did he do that?”
“It’s a long story,” I say. “But I’m here until he says otherwise.”
“Hm.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I demand.
“Just means, ‘Hm.’”
I glare at him until he lowers his eyes. Then I glance towards Evie to make sure she’s still sleeping soundly.
She’s shifted positions to face us, and my heart stops for a moment.
But her eyes are still closed.
Thank the fucking Lord.
“There’s armed security on these grounds at all times,” I warn him. “I don’t know how you got in here but—”
“How do you think?” he interrupts. “The Polish have their ways.”
“Fuck,” I swear. “What do they want?”
The Polish.
I’ve avoided naming them for a long time now. For as long as I’ve been running from them, it’s always They or Them in my head.
As if just saying their name is enough to summon them to me.
But they’ve found me anyway.
So, I repeat: Fuck.
Xander’s eyes bulge. “What do you think they want?” he says. “Somehow, you’ve managed to land yourself in the lion’s den. You’re behind enemy lines and what they want is—”
“Information.”
“Bingo,” Xander confirms.
“Fuck!”
“What’s the problem?” he asks. “You’re perfectly placed for the job.”
It takes a Herculean effort to resist the urge to slap him across his big, dumb face.
“Do you realize what will happen to me if I’m caught?” I demand. “Or do you just not care?”
I throw my hands up in the air before he can answer.
“Right, stupid question. I already know the answer to that.”
“Hey, now,” Xander butts in. “Don’t be like that.”
“Are you serious right now?” I hiss.
“Why are you acting like this is my fault?” he asks with complete seriousness. “You’re the one who got us into this mess.”
His words hit me like a punch in the gut.
Anger courses through me, taking my better judgement hostage for a moment.
Before I can stop myself, my hand balls into a fist—and I slug him right in the gut.
Hard enough to make an impact, not so hard that there’ll be any internal bleeding.
Unfortunately.
He still keels forward like a Grade-A pussy.
“What the hell, Char?!”
“Keep your goddamn voice down!” I spit, panicked, as Evie stirs in her sleep.
He’s coughing where he landed on the floor. “You just punched me!”
“And I’ll do it again if you don’t shut the fuck up right now,” I threaten, just as Evie’s eyes blink open. I lower my voice even further. “Go through that door behind you. I’ll be right in.”
I should have taken him there in the first place.
Matter of fact, I should’ve shoved him right back out the window he came in.
Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.
I move quickly to the bed and sit on the edge right next to Evie. I make sure to position myself right in front of her so that there’s no chance she’ll see Xander slip into her room.
“Hey, you,” I whisper, feigning calm. “You okay?”
“Charlotte,” she says, her voice husky with sleep. “There was a man…”
“There’s no man, Evie,” I say quickly. “It’s just you and me. And Paulie, of course.”
“I saw a man, though.”
“You were just dreaming,” I assure her, feeling like a real asshole.
“Oh. I was dreaming?”
“Yup,” I answer smoothly. “It was just a dream. Now close your eyes and go back to sleep, okay?”
“Okay,” she murmurs. Her eyelids close almost immediately.
I count to ten.
Her eyes stay closed.
Taking a deep breath, I get up off the bed and back towards the connecting door. I slip through it and make sure it’s firmly shut before I turn around.
“Xander?”
“Goddamn,” he says as he appears from the bathroom. “This room is bigger than my fucking apartment.”
I march over to him and punch him again.
Just in the arm this time, but twice as hard as before.
“Jesus Christ!” he lashes out through gritted teeth. “Will you stop fucking hitting me?”
“Sure thing,” I agree, “…the moment you stop being a douche bag.”
He sighs.
I can’t help scrutinizing his face, searching for the little characteristics that I used to find charming.
The characteristics of the man I used to know.
His hazel eyes are dark, more murky brown than green.
His once perfectly straight nose has a noticeable little bump along the bridge from where it was broken.
His jaw line is freshly shaven, almost boyish, but the weedy hair on his head is too long for a man his age.
There was a time when I thought I cared about him.
There was a time I thought I loved him.
Nothing about him has changed.
And yet, it’s like I don’t recognize him at all.
“You need to chill,” he warns me.
“Chill?” I repeat furiously, still careful to keep my voice down. “Chill?”
“Yeah,” he says defensively. “I’m only here because you made a fucking deal with the devil.”
My arm jerks forward, my fist at the ready, but he jumps back instantly.
“Don’t hit me again,” he says quickly. “It’s the truth.”
“Yeah, except you left out a bunch of stuff,” I point out. “Like the fact that the only reason I made that deal with the Polish in the first place is because I was trying to save your worthless life.”
Xander shakes his head. He actually has the gall to act as though I’m the frustrating one.
“They were just there to scare me, Char,” he insists. “They wouldn’t have actually killed me.”
“Are you high?” I balk. “You were skimming their cocaine! You were cheating them out of tens of thousands of dollars! They didn’t break into our apartment
that night to threaten you. They came to string you up by your dumbass neck.”
He looks uncertain for only a second, before his ego kicks into high gear and muscles out common sense.
“I’m a fucking cop,” he argues. “It takes time and effort to find someone on the force who’s willing to look the other way, let alone someone who’s willing to get down and dirty when the situation calls for it. They wouldn’t have killed me. I’m too valuable to them.”
“Jesus,” I mutter, running my hands through my hair. “Every time I think you can’t get any dumber, you surprise me.”
He snorts in anger. “I’m not an idiot. They would have broken a few bones, sure,” he concedes, as though the notion doesn’t faze him at all. “Then they would have left. And business would have continued as usual.”
“‘Business as usual.’” I laugh bitterly. “Like that was all fun and games.”
“You’re the one who jumped in front of me,” he reminds me. “You’re the one who begged them to leave us alone, that you’d ‘owe them a favor in the future.’ If you’d just kept your mouth shut—”
“If I’d kept my mouth shut, they would have killed you and gang-raped me,” I snarl at him, charging forward and backing him into a corner. “I stepped in because you were sniveling on the floor like a coward, begging for mercy,” I remind him. “Call me crazy… but I didn’t want to be raped. And at the time, I was idiotic enough not to want you dead either. My mistake.”
“Okay, you know what?” Xander says impatiently. “There’s no point in arguing about this shit.”
I recognize his oozing tone. It’s the same one he used to use when we were fighting.
When he wanted to end the fight without taking any responsibility for his part in it.
“The Polish have eyes everywhere,” he continues. “They know you’re here. They’re cashing in the favor you promised them.”
“If I get caught, I’m dead,” I point out.
“Char, if you don’t go through with this, you’re dead anyway,” he informs me unfeelingly.
Jesus, I sure know how to pick ‘em.
Thanks for that, Mama.
I growl wordlessly, feeling like a trapped animal.
Fuck that.
I actually am a trapped animal.
“What kind of information are they looking for?”
“Anything you can find,” Xander tells me. He’s clearly excited that I’m on board. “Scope out his vulnerabilities, his weaknesses. Try and suss out his plans. Keep track of who he meets, when, and where. Shit like that.”
