“No.”
He closed the bathroom door and I stood there, looking at the space where he’d just been, watching the closed door, hearing the water run.
I could have run then. I should have. But I didn’t.
Instead, I took the sheet off the bed and wiped the residue of his seed off me before gathering up my clothes and putting them on, noticing — but not caring — that my panties were missing. A few minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom fully dressed. He’d run water through his hair and once again he looked like he usually did — hard and unfriendly. When he saw I was dressed, he nodded, then took me by the arm, leading me out the door toward the stairs. We went out the side entrance and straight to the car. I climbed in and fastened my seatbelt. He didn’t cuff me this time and we resumed our drive.
It wasn’t until the sun rose over the horizon some time later that he finally spoke — though he still refused to look at me.
“Why didn’t you run?”
“I… don’t know.”
Silence again as a deep sienna burnt the sky.
“You didn’t use a condom,” I said.
His mouth tightened. “I’m clean. I always use condoms. This was the first time I didn’t. Are you clean? And protected?”
I paused and he glanced at me with raised eyebrows.
“Yes.” I was clean and I wouldn’t get pregnant if that was what he was worried about. “Who’s Charlie?” I asked, ready for his wrath.
But it didn’t come. Instead, he sighed and glanced at me once before returning his attention to the road. “My brother.”
Brother?
I couldn’t imagine him having a brother, a family.
“He’s dead. He hanged himself when he was fifteen.”
“Oh, God, Julien.” I reached out to touch his arm, but he flinched and I pulled back.
He looked at me then. “I don’t need your pity.” The way he said it was flat, without spite, devoid of virtually every emotion.
“It wasn’t pity.”
He didn’t respond to that, driving in silence.
I wanted to know more. I needed to know more. This man who terrified me was suffering. I didn’t know if some sick masochistic side of me wanted to help him or what, but I needed to hear his story, to understand his pain.
“Are you taking me to your childhood home?” I asked, knowing it then, knowing we weren’t going to an airport.
He glanced at me as if surprised I knew. He nodded once, his lips tight. I wasn’t going to get any more answers now, but what I’d learned was more than I ever imagined I would. This man, this beautiful, deadly man, was three-dimensional, had layers of pain just like the rest of us. But I still had to remember that he was a ruthless killer. I couldn’t romanticize him, make him out to be something he wasn’t. I had to remember that he wasn’t the good guy. He wasn’t the hero.
In fact, he was the villain.
But my mind refused to reconcile that last part. He wasn’t really that villain, not quite. I knew that somehow. As strange as it sounded, I knew it.
Chapter Eleven
Julien
I drove on autopilot. What the fuck had happened back in that hotel room? I hadn’t dreamt that dream in a long time. Thought it was over, forgotten. But fuck me, it was like I was watching Charlie do it, watching him throw the rope over the beam, watching him slide his neck into the noose he’d made so fucking expertly.
I pressed on the accelerator. Mia glanced my way, but I was beyond caring.
He’d been fifteen when he’d done it. I’d been a year older than him. The foster care system had fucked us, over and over again, but at least they’d kept us together. I’d thought we could survive it because we had each other.
It was when I was told I would be moved, that we wouldn’t be together anymore, that he finally did it.
The couple who had taken us in, the last one, had seemed okay at the beginning. Nice. They’d paid special attention to Charlie right from the start. If I hadn’t had my head up my own ass, I might have seen when things changed, when the abuse started. He never said a word to me though. He just grew more and more quiet.
I was the one who found him. He’d done it in the closet in the attic. I still wasn’t sure for how long he’d been planning it, and some part of me was still angry at him for not having talked to me. For not having told me. But he’d left a note for me in my schoolbag. That was when I knew for sure. The man who’d adopted us had been abusing him for two years. His bitch wife had known about it too, but she’d just looked the other way.
I wiped the back of my hand across my nose and shook my head. I hadn’t been able to save Charlie but I had avenged his death. They’d been my first murders, our ‘guardians’. They were the reason for the tattoo Mia had asked me about at the restaurant the other day.
Mia.
Fuck.
She sat with her hands in her lap looking out at the road, not talking. I bet she had a thousand and one questions. She baffled me. She could have run. She could have gotten out, but she hadn’t.
“What did your stepbrother do to you?”
“What?” Her head snapped around, confusion wrinkling her brow.
“What did he do to you that’s got you on the run now? Why did he go to prison, and why is he after you now?”
“His family laundered money for crooks. That’s why he went to prison.”
“No, his father laundered the money. Jason St. Rose didn’t go to prison for that. At least they couldn’t find anything linking him. Not yet anyway. All I know is it was your testimony that put him away, but you were a minor at the time and the file is sealed. What did he do to you?”
She looked out the window, shaking her head once, then turning back to me. “I’m coming into some money which he thinks belongs to him.”
Well, this just got more interesting.
“What money?”
She studied me as if weighing her options. “My sister left me a million dollars in her will. I can’t claim it until I’m twenty-five and then I have to do so within a month — or I lose it.”
“A million dollars?”
“Guilt money.”
“But money nonetheless. Tell me about the guilt.”
“No.”
“What did you do, Mia?”’
“I didn’t do anything. In fact, that was the point. It was to buy my silence, my sister’s silence. And our obedience. She just felt guilty about it afterwards and didn’t spend a fucking penny apparently. And I, obviously, didn’t stay silent for long.”
“You’re angry at her?”
She shrugged a shoulder and looked away. “It doesn’t matter. She’s dead.”
“It does matter.”
“You still angry at Charlie?” she asked, surprising me. I wondered if she’d meant to do it, to ask that question to piss me off. But it didn’t, somehow.
I wasn’t even sure she expected an answer or even wanted one — but she was getting one.
“Yeah, I am in fact.”
I exited the highway to begin the ascent to the village where I’d been born. I hadn’t been there in a long time and seeing it at the top of the hill, I was glad it was still some distance away. I needed time to manage the shit that was coming up.
I looked at Mia. “I’m angry because if he’d told me what had been going on, I would have helped him. We would have left together. But he didn’t. He shut me out and killed himself instead. So, I’m angry for a whole list of reasons.”
Tears reddened her eyes as she listened. “I’m sorry.”
I guess I expected more, so I just shrugged a shoulder at her response. “Tell me about this million.”
“Sounds more appealing than a quarter of a million to hand me over to Jason, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” I wouldn’t kid myself and say it was the only reason I was asking, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.
“I can pay you more than Jason will. I’ll double it, what he’s offering, if you’ll help m
e get the money. I don’t care about what you did… what you do. If you hand me back to Jason, I’m dead. If I can get the money, I can disappear. It’s what I want. I’ll just disappear and it will be like you and I never met, like I never saw you with that woman. The will stipulates that I have to go in person to sign the paperwork in order to claim the money. The attorney who is executing it is my step-father’s attorney and it was written in a way that if I don’t claim it within a month of my twenty-fifth birthday, it goes to Jason and Allison.”
“Who’s Allison?”
“Jason’s sister. She’s okay. I still have contact with her.”
I glanced at her. “She’s okay? How is she okay? She stands to gain half a million dollars if you don’t show up — or you turn up dead — and you think she’s okay?”
Mia looked confused, as if she’d not once thought about that possibility. But then she shook her head. “No, Allison’s not like that. She’s afraid of him too.” She paused before adding: “She knows what he’s capable of.”
“And what is it he’s capable of, Mia?” She wanted to tell me. I just needed to help her along. And besides, I did have some idea. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.
“A lot of things.”
I nodded. That was fine, I’d wait. “Well, just be smart. Money is a greater motivator than anything else to most people.”
“Not everyone’s a mercenary.”
“Be careful, Mia.”
She paused, her eyes on me. “Is that where we’re going?” She craned her neck to look up at the hilltop village.
“Yes. It’s called Pitigliano.”
“It’s pretty.”
I only nodded. It was pretty.
“So will you help me?”
“I’m still considering. Do you have some proof of the million?”
She shook her head, exhaling loudly. “Yes. Or I did. It’s back at the hotel in my suitcase.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.”
“Look, all you have to do is take me to get the money. If I’m lying, which I’m not, you can turn me in to Jason then and collect your quarter of a million. But if you’re patient, that quarter gets doubled. You can’t tell me you don’t want that. I mean, it’s kind of obvious, right?”
I chuckled, taking the last curve. “Yeah, but it means I have to put up with your smart mouth.”
“Screw you.”
“See what I mean?” I drove into the village. It had been years since I’d been here. I hadn’t even called my grandmother to tell her I was coming. Not that I owed her a call. I paid her well to keep the house up. Hell, I’d barely talked to her at all in the last five years.
My grandmother had had my mom young, and out of wedlock — which was not done here. She’d gotten married some years later, but that hadn’t worked out for her either and she’d been on her own ever since. If she hadn’t been a drunk, what happened to Charlie wouldn’t have happened. She’d have become our guardian. Everything would have been different if she’d wanted us. If she’d been able to take care of us. But she hadn’t, and that was that.
The past was dead, as was my brother.
I parked the car as close as I could to the house, but we’d have to walk a little ways. I turned to Mia, watching her watching me.
“All right, so the math is obvious. I keep you alive, get you to where you need to be by your birthday, and I get half a million. Where is it you need to be, anyway?”
“Philadelphia.”
“Okay. How long is it to your birthday exactly?”
“Two weeks from now.” She rolled her eyes as she said it, but I could tell she was nervous.
“I have one condition.”
“What condition?”
“I make all the calls. You do as you’re told in all things, and that’s it.”
“What kind of calls?”
That made me grin. “Any kind.” I knew what she was talking about, just as surely as I knew her confusion about what she wanted, about how she reacted to me. “Are you prepared to accept that?”
She studied me for a moment, and I watched her choosing her words, trying to find a way to ask what she wanted to ask, but without seeming to care. She did care though. The bright red of her face told me that.
“Do you mean… I...” She glanced away, then looked at me once more. “What happened at the hotel…”
This was too good. “Any kind.”
“You can’t…”
“Did you come when I licked your cunt, Mia?”
Her mouth fell open, her eyes going wide, her face flaming red.
“Did you come when I fucked you this morning? Because I think you did.”
“I… You can’t—”
“Did you come?” I asked, trying to keep her off balance. People liked to hide from the truth when the truth didn’t serve them. I’d be damned if I was going to let her do that.
“I… that doesn’t mean—”
“Did you come? Yes or no? It’s a simple question, requiring a simple answer.”
“You’re a fucking prick.”
“That’s twice now that you’ve been disrespectful. Since I’ve been counting, that is. We’ll address that in a minute. For now, answer my question.”
“Fine. Yes.” She looked out her window, and bit her lip to keep her mouth shut. It made me smile, her defiance. She wanted this, but wanted to be made to give it.
Screw that. She’d face who she really was.
“I won’t take anything you don’t give me — but I can guarantee you’ll be giving it. Do you agree to my condition?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Sure you do. Your stepbrother is your other choice.”
“Like I said, no choice.”
“I could really use a cup of coffee.” I raised my eyebrows, waiting on her to say it.
“Fine. Yes. I agree.”
Smiling, I opened the car door. “Welcome to Pitigliano, Mia.”
Chapter Twelve
Mia
Julien took my hand as we walked through the village. He didn’t hold it as if it were a form of affection. He did it to keep me with him without it looking obvious. Not that it mattered. It was still early in the morning, not quite ten o’clock, and there were only a few people on the streets.
I was so taken with the ancient village that I tripped more than once on our way up the uneven street. Julien caught me each time, although he did mumble something about watching where I was going.
The few people we passed looked at us and I smiled at them. I was more interested in how they reacted to Julien, than to me. He kept his gaze straight ahead, the tension rolling off his body. When we got to a café, the mouthwatering smell of freshly baking bread made my stomach growl, but Julien seemed unaffected by it. He took a deep breath and walked inside, his hand growing clammy around mine.
“Grandmother,” he said to the woman behind the bar who stood with her back to us, her hand on the counter, a cigarette smoking between her fingers .
The woman turned from the TV she was watching to face us. At first, she looked shocked to see him, but then a smile crept along her face and she came around the counter, cigarette in hand, talking loudly as she wrapped her arms around Julien in a familiar hug. He didn’t let go of my hand and he didn’t hug her back. Either the woman didn’t notice, or didn’t care. She spoke in rapid Italian, extravagant hand gestures accompanying her speech, pausing now and then, hugging him a second time before finally quieting and stepping back, looking at me with a smile on her face. She said something to me in Italian, but Julien replied before I could tell her I didn’t understand what she’d said. What he said, however, wiped that smile right off the older woman’s face.
“Mia, this is my grandmother, Gianna.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, holding out a hand.
Gianna turned to put her cigarette out in an ashtray on the bar and reached her hand out to take mine. But a moment later, she gave Julien a look and pulled me into a
hug, speaking fast in Italian. She then stepped back and looked me over. “Mia. Nice to meet you.” Her English was heavily accented, but it was better than my Italian and I found I liked this woman. She wasn’t afraid of Julien.
I smiled and she went behind the counter to make coffee.
“Sit,” Julien said in his usual charming manner. He pointed at a barstool.
Gianna pushed an espresso toward me.
“Your grandmother seems very warm.” My comment was directed at Julien even though I looked at and thanked Gianna. “Not what I’d expect, considering,” I mumbled as I sipped my drink.
Julien leaned in close. “That’s three,” he whispered into my ear. He gave me a smirk and picked up his coffee.
I watched as Gianna talked with Julien who listened to the woman in silence. He was tense, I could tell, but I wasn’t sure if his grandmother picked up on it at all. Gianna opened the cash register, took out a key and set it on the counter. She slid it over to Julien.
“I will send clean sheets this afternoon,” she said, smiling at me sweetly.
Two older gentlemen walked into the café then and she smiled at them. Julien too turned and I watched as one of the men paused, then strode over to him with a wide, warm smile, greeting him with a pat on the back and some murmured words in Italian. Julien shook his hand, but he barely managed a smile. All I caught in the exchange was one word: Charlie. I watched Julien when the man said it. The man’s tone became somber at the mention of Charlie, but Julien’s face went rigid.
“Are you finished?” Julien asked me.
I drank the last sip of my coffee and nodded. He said goodbye to his grandmother and the old men and I stumbled through my farewells in rudimentary Italian.
“The house is a little farther up the hill.” His tone was completely different from the one I’d come to know thus far. The hardness was gone, replaced by something else, something old and weary — and perhaps hurt. When he slowed and glanced to his right, I followed his gaze. It was a cemetery. Something in the moment made me squeeze my hand around his, and when I did, he turned to me, his eyes questioning, a vulnerability in them I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t ask, but I had a feeling his family was buried there.
Deviant Page 7
