by Olivia Fox
I turned away from him, not hearing another word he said over the roaring in my ears, and I moved like a zombie to the front door.
Standing on the sidewalk, my heart squeezed in a giant fist, and all around me darkness and shadows inked the air.
This was it.
Savanna.
Gone.
24
Savanna
It was closing time at the bakery and everything was shiny and sparkly for the next day.
I walked to the back, while my auntie chopped chocolate at the center island. A shiver of unease ran through me, remembering it was the same task I was performing when Mathew showed up and tried to choke the life out of me.
Seeing Teresa standing in nearly the same spot, doing the same thing I did that night made me tremble. I shook my hands and told myself it was a totally different knife.
“Okay, if I lock the front door and leave?” I asked her. “Kate called and wants to go shopping for baby clothes.”
“I thought Pete was driving you home from work. What should I tell him?”
“There’s no sign of him yet. I just sent him a text letting him know I’m getting a ride home with Kate.”
I walked over and hugged her from behind. I inhaled her vanilla scent and rubbed my face in her hair. She was pure comfort.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, “That’s probably Kate. I’ll see you tomorrow, auntie.” I smacked her cheek with my lips.
“You girls have fun. Let me know what you find for the bambino.”
Kate’s silver convertible bug was parked just outside the front door, which I locked behind me. She had the top down and the music blaring.
“I want to take you to the Emporium. They have baby layettes and the cutest wooden toys. You’re going to die when you see them.”
She pulled out into the street and the warm air blew our hair back as we drove past the colorfully painted Victorian storefronts of Briarville. “Did you give any more thought to what we discussed the other day?” I asked her.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about it.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m just not sure if I could handle living in a tiny town like this. It’s fine if you’ve got a steady guy and a slew of relatives.”
“You have me,” I said. “And believe it or not, there is no shortage of eligible bachelors in this town. I’m sure Dante could introduce you to plenty.”
“It would definitely reduce my cost of living. I talked to my realtor who says I can make a good profit renting out the building that my grandmother left me in Oakland. Are you saying you’d want to open up shop here with me?”
I lost pretty much everything when I had to flee from Mathew, so the thought of starting over and pursuing my dreams once again made my heart sprint.
Kate and I walked past a giant golden retriever, who lay splayed in the doorway, and into the Emporium. We passed the side room full of tea towels, jade milk glass, and table linens heading towards the back where there was an enormous room full of fancy baby clothes.
“We just got a shipment of Hanna Andersson clothing for ages newborn to two-years-old. Check out this marshmallow bear jacket.” The store clerk held up a fuzzy cream-colored zip up with floppy ears on the hood.
“We’ll take it, sized three to six months,” said Kate.
“Hey, easy tiger. Maybe we should just look around first,” I said, clueless about what a baby would need to survive its first year.
“Oh, come on, allow me the luxury of buying my best friend some frivolous baby things. Believe me, you’ve got an entire lifetime of being practical ahead of you.”
After shoving three bags full of baby goodies into the back of Kate’s car, I asked, “How about heading over to Sprinkles? We can eat cupcakes and sip tea while figuring out our future. It’s owned by this girl named Roxy.” My arms and legs were light thinking about being a business owner again. “I’ve met her before, and she seems pretty cool. As an entrepreneur herself, she might have some good contacts for us in the area.”
Our blood streams infused with sugar and Earl Grey, we drove past the police station.
“Hey, isn’t that Dante?” asked Kate, pointing to the sidewalk.
“It is. It looks like he’s seeing something that isn’t there.”
Kate made a U-turn and pulled back around in front of Dante, who was absently rubbing his jaw with one hand and holding the napkin from our dinner at Mario’s in the other.
I wanted to wolf whistle at him, but he looked so upset, I whispered his name instead.
He stumbled three steps backwards, leaning his back against the stone wall of the police station, knees bent. He bowed his head, crossing himself.
I felt so bad for whatever caused him to feel this way; I wasn’t sure what to do. My instinct was to stop him from being in such pain. I opened the convertible door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, and Dante pulled me into his arms, hugging me so tight it was hard to breathe. He said my name in a slight moan.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“You’re alive!” he said.
“Of course, I’m alive. I’m perfectly healthy. Just pregnant.”
He winced. “You have no idea what happened do you?” His voice sounded rougher than usual.
“Dante, you’re freaking me out. Is everyone okay?”
“I don’t want to talk about it here; it’s not the place. Let’s go home.” He pulled me down the sidewalk.
“Okay, okay. Let me tell Kate you’re giving me a ride, and I’ll grab the things that we just bought for the baby.”
Kate said her goodbyes, whispering that she would call me later tonight to make sure everything was okay and giving me a big squeeze.
I’d never seen Dante this intense before, at least not outside the bedroom.
He drove me silently, scowling at the road ahead and the small space between us in his truck cab seemed untraversable as the Grand Canyon.
At his home, Dante pulled me into the living room, and we sat beside one another on the couch.
I was afraid to open my mouth but did so anyway. His energy was palpable beside me and his eyes drifted from me. “Are you going to tell me what happened? My imagination is going crazy.”
“Pete never picked you up?”
“No, I texted him and let him know Kate was giving me a ride. Is he okay?”
“No, Savanna, he’s definitely not okay. Pete’s dead.” He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand and blew out a gust of air, “Someone blew up the car that you were to be inside of today.”
I put my hand on his leg but stopped when I saw his lips pulling back away from his teeth, exposing them like an angry dog does in warning. My nerves felt like I’d bitten down on a piece of tinfoil in my food.
He turned slowly towards me and said, “They nearly killed you, Savanna. They were this close.” He held his fingers an inch apart and shook them in the air. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. Just the thought of it makes me crazy.”
“I can see that.” Sometimes it felt like I’d known Dante for a thousand years, but I’d never seen his eyes frozen wide open, or how his hands were clenching into fists and unclenching again.
Pain marked the way he pulled at his hair. And worry, worry for me and the baby. He pulled the napkin from his pocket and repeatedly smoothed it out on the coffee table in front of us. There was something else there too.
Rage.
Rage like a bull elephant that had busted out of its cage. In its path, whatever foolish hunter deigned himself strong enough to go up against him, was about to learn that the normally docile elephant would not keep calm.
He was going to raise hell and break shit.
“I’m here, alive, right in front of you. Nothing happened to me,” I said, trying to reassure him because I couldn’t stand the sight of him so upset.
But it was more than that.
It was the sharp and clear realization that Dante wouldn’t be having this reaction if our relati
onship was just a ruse.
He felt something for me, and he felt it so hard that it blemished his beautiful countenance with a wrinkled brow.
I realized something else; I was someone different from who I used to be since meeting him.
I was no longer afraid.
By any means necessary, I’d survive.
And I’d ensure the same for my baby and our family.
Fucked up as this so-called relationship actually was, that was what we were.
It happened the moment we created a life together, and whether Dante realized it yet, we were entering our own Cosa Nostra.
“Our thing.” Our family.
Dante and I were the glue that held it together.
It meant the world to me, and I’d do whatever necessary to protect it.
No matter what the cost.
25
Dante
She’s alive.
My heart raced in a steady staccato of reassurance that did absolutely nothing to relieve the cold terror that gripped me in its icy embrace.
My breath blew ragged although I was sitting down next to Savanna and hadn’t exerted myself in any way. I leaned forward roughly, placing my glass of water so that it clacked on the glass coffee table.
Fantasies about gigantic explosions, taking out entire buildings, tossing the bodies of our enemies into the sky like plastic army men burst across the screen of my mind. The only problem, whoever ordered Pete’s death, was an unknown. One thing was certain, more violence was on the way.
“I need you to call your aunt. Tell her to pack for a warm climate for a couple weeks. Let her know you can’t explain right now, but we’ll be there in half an hour to pick her up.” No way was I letting one of Savanna’s relatives get swept up in this mess.
Savanna was ready with her suitcase, and in less than an hour later we pulled up to her aunt’s place, which had cheerful flowers in the front yard. I helped Teresa lock the house up tight, and she looked at me with narrowed eyes. “What’s this all about, Dante? You’ve always been a kind boy, not getting mixed up in the messy business of your relatives? What went wrong?”
“We’ll tell you on the way,” I said.
Two hours later, we passed through Laytonville and she asked, “Do you want to tell me what this is about or are we going to keep driving in silence?”
This shit was absolutely not normal. I knew that. But a person could get used to anything, to where brutality fit like an old shoe. How many times had I seen it happen in my family?
They blew an employee up in his car, tiny bits of him blown to smithereens because someone wanted to prove themselves gangster. No family in the syndicate operated this way.
“The explosion was rock bottom retaliation, amateur hour, and we need to get out of town before it gets any messier.”
“Pete lost his life yesterday. Whoever’s guilty needs to pay,” said Savanna.
My hands squeezed the steering wheel, and I gritted my teeth, taking three deep breaths to relax.
“Until we get things straightened out, it’s not safe for you in town, Teresa. I put a sign up that you’re on vacation for a month. My family will make the profits up to you.”
Teresa cleared her throat. “Four weeks is forever! I can’t just up and leave my bakery.” In the rear-view mirror she turned back and forth on the back seat, pointing hard towards her niece, “And what about Savanna? She’ll be out of work for a month?” She raised her palms to the ceiling and shrugged, demanding answers.
Patience flew out the window. “Trust me, it’s a lot easier to compensate you both for a loss of wages than to mourn your deaths. Things could get very ugly. Getting you out of town is a win, win. You get a well-deserved vacation, and nobody knows where you are.”
Teresa asked, “What am I supposed to do for an entire month? Where am I supposed to go?”
“You’re booked on consecutive cruises with the Ritz Carlton line: Spain, Italy, and Greece. We’ll take you to the San Francisco port tomorrow.”
“Please think about it, auntie. I’ll feel so much better knowing your safe until this blows over,” Savanna pleaded with her aunt.
I kept glancing in the rear-view mirror the whole winding way to Willits, and Teresa stared out the window, worrying her bottom lip with her top teeth and dry washing her hands.
Out of the blue she asked, “What about Savanna and the baby? Her friend Kate?”
“We already escorted Kate back to Oakland and we’ll keep a security detail on her,” I said.
“It’s generous of you, Dante. I’m grateful, but what makes you think I’ll be safe on some cruise if I’m not safe in my hometown”
“These are low-level thugs without the resources to run surveillance on everyone. With you on vacation, we know you’re out of harm’s way.”
Savanna rubbed her hands on her leggings in the seat beside me. “Are you sure that she’ll be safe, Dante?”
“I’m sure of it. We’ll meet my cousin Gabriele from Naples who’s on a plane as we speak. I’d trust him with my life. He’s fluent in English and will protect Teresa with his life the entire time.”
By the time we passed Santa Rosa, four hours down the road, Teresa said, “To tell you the truth, this is kind of exciting,” Teresa said. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Maybe when I get back, you’ll have a baby bump, Savanna.” She wrung her hands again, “I still don’t feel right leaving you here alone.”
“She won’t be alone. I’ll be with her. I’m not letting her out of my sight until we’re certain that this trouble is over.”
The next day was sunny and clear, a great day for a departure. Long lines of travelers with florescent colored suitcases waited for their turn to board at the port.
“You and Sergio have priority boarding tickets. There he is. See him waving?”
“Whoa, he’s a big guy,” Savanna said, stating the obvious.
“Holy cow, I really will feel secure with that man watching over me.” Teresa slowly brought her hand to her face and her eyes softened.
Sergio kissed me on alternating cheeks three times.
We said our goodbyes and Sergio made an ‘after you’ gesture to Teresa, eyes riveted to her hips as she ascended the gangway.
“She’ll be okay,” I said to Savanna as we made our way North, back towards the wine country. “My cousin’s a good guy and a lot of fun to be around. This is the best thing for your aunt right now, and one less person for us to guard. We need every man on point.”
“And what about us, Dante? Why aren’t we going on a cruise for a month until this is over?”
“Because, bella. Drago’s don’t run away. They stand and fight. Don’t worry, you and the baby will be safe and sound with the fortress of protection I’ll have on you.”
That night at the Pheasant Run restaurant, I knew I was in trouble. The sight of Savanna shoveling seared scallops with brown butter and lemon pan sauce into her mouth was turning me on. Her eating habits as a pregnant woman were hilarious. She ate like a construction worker with a fifteen hour lunch break, and I found it adorable.
Cute as she was while eating for two, I couldn’t ignore the urgent need to have her ride my dick.
Despite the way my cock was shoving against my zipper like a piece of copper pipe, I drove like an old man, stopping at every stop sign and staying within the lines on the way back to our Airbnb .
Our suite wasn’t like some of those frilly, lace covered rooms that passed for high-end. This one had plain white linens covering an enormous four-poster bed.
I threw myself back-first on the mattress and approved.
Savanna extended her arms straight up over her head, towards the ceiling, and yawned.
“Oh, no you don’t. I’ve been waiting all day to get you naked, “ I told her.
“I’m sorry. Ever since the baby, it’s like I can’t stay up past eight o’clock. Forgive me?”
What could I do? She had me wrapped around her finger.
; Me and my eager cock would just have to wait until morning. Believe mother fucking me, this night was going to be endless.
By the time I came out of the shower, having jacked off while thinking of Savanna naked, she was sound asleep in our bed, snoring softly.
The smell of coffee teased me awake from my violent dreams. Dreams of car bombs. It took me a minute to get my bearings, and the sound of Savanna puttering around at the coffee station brought me to my senses.
So far you couldn’t tell from looking at her she was pregnant, nor did she have any morning sickness. Her lack of fragility gave me a weird feeling of pride; she was my warrior queen.
“I ordered us some breakfast. It should be here in forty-five minutes,” she said.
“Perfect. Just enough time.”
“Just enough time for what?” she asked, her eyes watching me intently.
“I want to tie you up and have my way with you.”
I got out of bed, naked, and walked to my overnight bag. I had nothing to hide and worked hard to keep my body in shape. Showing off for Savanna was my reward. An excellent side effect of her pregnancy was that she was horny all the time.
If this is what it was like to have kids, I was all about it.
“Check these out,” I held a couple of silk scarves from her to look at. “Get up here on your knees,” I told her.
I used one end of the long scarf to tie her wrists to the bedpost , over her head, and wound the other end over her eyes.
Now naked, she was flawless and made for loving. “Now that’s a beautiful sight.”
“What are you planning to do to me?” she asked, and her vulnerability made me hungry, yet there wasn’t an ounce of fear in her.
“I have a few things in mind,” I told her, fastening my fingers over her nipples and squeezing gently until I heard the pace of her breath speed up.
“I’m all ears,” she joked, yet I could hear the tone of arousal in her voice.
