by D J Parker
“So you shut down the restaurant?”
“I knew we wouldn’t be able to go back to my house for a private dinner. So I figured why not bring privacy to you.”
“Do you always go this hard to get a woman’s attention?”
“I’m working hard on getting your attention.”
“Why?” I leaned back into the burgundy tufted high back chair.
“Pride. Curiosity. Unfinished business.” His eyes seared into mines. “Not many women run off the way you did.”
“And that intrigued you?”
“Among other things.”
A young waiter approached our table. “Good evening. My name is Jacob. I’ll be your waiter tonight. Could I start you off with something to drink?”
I tore my eyes away from Nicolai’s to stare at the waiter. “I’ll have your top shelf red wine. Dry.”
He turned to Nicolai. “And you, sir?”
“Club soda.”
“I’ll give you some time to look over your menus while I put your orders in.”
When the waiter walked off, I grabbed the menu and tried to distract myself with the two pages of entrée options. I could feel Nicolai’s eyes on me, watching me like a lion in the bushes spying on its prey. But I wasn’t his prey and he damn sure was not my predator. So after deciding on what I wanted to eat, I closed the menu and stared back at him.
“What do you think is going to happen after we eat dinner?” I asked straight out. There was no point in beating around the bush when we both knew that the sexual chemistry was so strong.
The corner of his lips hiked up into half-a-smile. “I give you your shoe back and ask if we can get breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“I’m married,” I blurted out.
“I noticed.”
My eyebrows quirked with curiosity. “And you’re okay with that?”
“Should it concern me?”
“No, it shouldn’t.”
“Then it doesn’t.”
The waiter returned with our drinks and took our orders. When he walked away, Nicolai asked, “How was your day?”
The question came from left field, but I appreciated it. It had been so long since anyone had asked me about my day. Keith and I had fallen into a routine when it came to our jobs. We both had challenging jobs, though my job had been more demanding. Since we shared different views on politics and work-related topics, we agreed not to talk about work with each other. Yet, somewhere along the way, we both forgot to ask each other basic questions like how was your day.
“It’s been awhile since someone has asked me about my day.” I chuckled nervously as I reached for my glass of wine. “I almost forgot how to answer the question without overwhelming you with a shitload of details.”
“Perhaps I want to hear the shitload of details.” Seriousness masked his face and for a moment, I thought I had offended him.
“It’s really not all that interesting,” I quickly said before tipping the glass against my lips. I welcomed the earthy flavor dancing around my pallet.
“Anything that involves you, interests me.” He held my gaze for a moment before taking a sip of his club soda.
“Well,” I cleared my throat, “for the past two weeks, my days have started and ended the same except for today when I left early. I spent so much time in D.C. implementing procedural fairness so that we can repair the relationship between the criminal justice system and the community, it led to the development of community policing and using restorative practices for harm done to the community. Because of all the hard and tireless work we’ve done, the incarceration rates and recidivism have been the lowest in history for a city that was once considered the murder capital.”
“Sounds like you loved what you did over there. Why come back here?”
I couldn’t tell him I had been personally selected and appointed by the governor of New York after an internal investigation revealed that the previous district attorney, Michael Scappa, had received briberies and had mishandled many cases. I assumed Governor Johnson didn’t trust anyone who worked in the office to act as an interim until the next election, so she presented the opportunity to me. Though I was a senior assistant district attorney in D.C., I had spent time training judges and attorneys about the effectiveness of procedural fairness. Governor Johnson sat in on all my trainings every time I came to New York. So, when this internal investigation birthed a larger issue that could potentially lead to further investigations, she not so kindly pressured the three-time serving district attorney to resign. At least, that was what Lena, the chief strategist and my line sister who’d pledged Delta Sigma Theta with me, had said during one of our, “girl, let me put you on” conversations.
Instead, I elected to give a general answer. “I was raised on Staten Island which is one of the most segregated boroughs in New York. My parents were well off and they provided my sisters and I with the best opportunities money could buy. Yet, every time my father left the house, I’d feel on edge. I could recall as early as twelve years old watching my father be harassed by the police. Though he knew his rights, he’d comply with whatever they asked. Search the car, pat him down, degrade him in front of his children—he allowed it because to them, he was just another nigger. It happened many times before I finally asked my father why the police kept picking at him. That day, he taught me about my blackness and what that meant in the United States. He told me America’s greatest fear was an educated black person. I asked him with all his education—degree in law—why had he not spoken up and asserted his rights. Do you know what he told me?” I paused long enough to swallow the tears. “He told me, his greatest fear was not dying but being murdered in front of his children the way so many black men had been lynched in front of their families throughout history. The seed had been planted in me from that moment on. The fears of my father governed many of the choices I have made as an attorney. All I ever wanted to do was fight against unjust and extreme sentencing policies, implicit racial bias, systematic racism, and socioeconomic inequity—all of which have contributed to the issues of how we respond to crime.”
He stared at me long and hard as silence filled the space between us.
“I know that was—"
“You’re fucking remarkable.”
My lips broke into a smile. “Wow, that’s a first.”
His face remained the same, strong and serious with mesmerizing blues eyes I could easily fathom. I had to look away before I fell into those pools of blue.
“Please don’t look away from me.” His request caused me to truly look at him. “I never met a woman, hell, a man, as strong as you. It’s almost unearthing how much of a force you really are,” he said, holding my gaze with this invisible grip.
What frightened me the most about that moment was how much I didn’t want him to let me go.
“Here you guys go.” Jacob, our waiter, interrupted the intense stare down. He placed our meals in front of us. “Enjoy,” he said before walking away.
“Enough about me,” I said, changing the subject. “How was your day?”
He paused, almost like he weighed my question with the same scale that I’d used earlier when he asked me the same question. “Busy. I just got back in town.”
“You were traveling?”
“Yeah. I just got back from Italy.”
“Nice.” I picked up my fork and knife and began slicing into my steak. “Are you from there?”
He smiled. “Is my accent that strong?”
Hell yeah. Especially when we were fucking. The man had me thinking I was having a one-night-stand in Italy. “At times it comes out,” I said instead before placing a strip of steak into my mouth.
“I’m from Brooklyn but my family moved to Palermo when I was twelve.”
“Wow, that must’ve been a complete change.”
“It was. But we adjusted.”
“Palermo is in Sicily, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, when you were speaking to me,” my
cheeks heated up when a flashback appeared, “were you talking in Italian or Sicilian?”
“Both.” He looked up from his plate. “You brought both languages out of me.”
And you certainly brought the freak out of me, I wanted to say, but decided to slip another piece of steak into my mouth. We ate in silence for a while which didn’t bother me. The food was delectable. By the time we finished eating and the tray of desserts came around, I had to decline. When I opted to pay for dinner, Nicolai gave me one of those disturbed looks before giving his card to Jacob.
“Thanks for dinner. I didn’t know how much I needed this break away from work until now.”
“So, have you decided?”
My eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Decided on what?”
“Breakfast with me tomorrow morning.”
As much as I wanted to say yes, this time I had to decline. “I can’t.”
If he was disappointed, I couldn’t tell. “Then dinner.”
“I can’t take you up on any of your invitations.”
I could see the bones in his face moving around, resetting to a cold glare. “Why not?”
“Because I’m married.”
“And you said it doesn’t concern me.”
“It doesn’t. But it concerns me.”
“You’re married, but you’re here.”
“Because I want my shoe back.”
“Bullshit. If you wanted your shoes back, you would’ve called the moment you discovered them missing. If your marriage was on your mind, you wouldn’t be here.”
He was right. Yeah, I loved my shoes, but not enough to call him.
“What’s really stopping you?”
“You.”
His cold eyes narrowed. “Me?”
“There’s something about you that scares me.”
He gave me one of those disturbed looks he’d given me earlier. “I scare you?”
“Yeah, you do,” I said, refusing to back down. “You don’t scare me in the sense that you’re going to physically harm me or that I’m unsafe to be around you.” I tried to search for the right words, but I couldn’t find them. “I can’t explain it, but you just scare me. So, my answer is no.”
He stared at me as if trying to search my eyes for the truth before tearing his eyes away from mine for the very first time tonight. I didn’t expect the feelings that surged when I was no longer something he beheld in his eyes. I felt abandoned and unexplainably hurt.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He was a hook-up, a stranger. Nothing more.
He lifted a box from under the table that had been similarly wrapped as the box he’d given me earlier. He sat the box in front of me and said, “Here’s your other shoe.”
I glanced at the box. “Thank you.”
I slid my chair back and turned to him. “Thanks again for dinner and for,” I lifted the box, “this.”
He gave me a single nod and led me to the coat check section of the restaurant. He helped me into my coat and waited with me as valet retrieved my car. An uncomfortable silence fell upon us with me curious about what was going through his mind. When my car arrived in front, he tipped the valet driver and made sure that I was all buckled up before closing my door. When I peeled off, I looked in my rearview mirror. That cold glare remained as he watched my car merge into the city traffic.
By the time I got back to my hotel, I felt like complete shit. I dragged myself into the room, kicked off my heels and tossed my wrapped gift on the bed. I peeled my clothes off and hopped in the shower. When I got out of the shower, I grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand and found that I had two missed calls and a text message from Keith. I rolled my eyes and tossed my cell phone on the bed. My phone tapped the box before hitting the plush comforter.
I reached for the box and began unwrapping it. I lifted the lid and found the other half of my shoe. But that wasn’t all that was inside the box. There was another a Little Golden Book inside. It was the story of Snow White. I chuckled and carried the book with me into bed. I opened the novel and another piece of paper slipped out. I picked it up and read the note.
I’m a patient man.
I slipped the piece of paper back into the book, ignoring the written message. Despite my body betraying me, I knew that I’d made the right decision.
Reign
“When I said that I needed space, I meant it.” I tossed my highlighter against the pile of papers I’d been reading.
“It’s been a month Reign.”
“And yet it feels like everything just happened yesterday.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Please!” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Please stop telling me that you’re sorry!”
Keith blew out a defeated breath. “I know that I’ve apologized more times in the past two years, but you have to believe me.”
“Believe you?” I tried to contain my anger. “You’ve done nothing but lie.”
“I know. And there’s no excuse for it. Baby, I’ve hurt you more times than I can count and I will spend the rest of my life making it right.”
I pushed myself out of my chair and walked over to the only window in my office. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Let’s go to counseling. I’ve already booked an appointment for Saturday morning.”
“No.”
“No?” He asked with shock laced in his voice. “But you wanted us to go to counseling—had been talking about it non-stop.”
I clenched my phone tightly as I turned away from the sun-kissed sky. “Yeah and every time I asked, you said no. You shut down the idea so many times that I stopped bringing it up. Now that I’m gone, you think agreeing for us to go to counseling is going to make me come back? It’s not happening.”
“I will do whatever it takes to make us right again.”
As much as I wanted to believe him, the truth was staring at me, daring me to fall into his trap of lies. “We haven’t been right in a long time.”
“And I’m trying to change that.”
“Its too late.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged my tired shoulders. “It means I need more time to think about what’s best for me.”
“What about me?” His voice cracked. “What about our marriage? You’re just going to throw it all away.”
“For so long I put you first—”
“And I haven’t done the same?” He asked incredulously. “You know how many nights I went to bed without you because you were stuck at work? How many times did you forget to be a wife? I stood by your side as you climbed up the ladder.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I never asked you to sacrifice your career. I’ve always been supportive.”
“And I have too!” He roared.
“No you just cheated.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have stepped out if you remembered to be my wife.”
I leaned forward as a sharp pain radiated across my chest. When I was finally able to catch my breath, words came out instead. “Finally the truth.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
I ended the call and tossed my cell phone across the pile of papers on my desk. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. But nothing left my body.
Truth is, Keith was right. Deep down inside, I knew that my marriage would suffer at the expense of my career. Why had I missed all of the signs? Why didn’t he speak up? Maybe I would’ve slowed down had he been honest with me before it got this bad. I shared the blame in our marriage failing.
I knew what I had to do. I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Keith’s number. When Keith answered, I swallowed my pride. “What time is our counseling appointment on Saturday?”
Act II
“Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing
is the very thing that will set you free.”
-Unknown
Nicolai
Two months later
“There’s no fucking way I’m pleading guilty.”
Tommy crushed the end of his cigarette in the green ash tray. He lit another cigarette, inhaled, and exhaled out of the corners of his mouth. “No fucking way I’m going to sit in prison for the next fifteen years.”
Andrew DeSilva stopped packing his briefcase long enough to stare at Tommy. “Mr. Neglia, the apartment was listed in your name. There’s footage of you residing there. There is evidence linking you to the drugs. There’s credible eyewitness testimony. It’s an open and shut case.”
“Who are the witnesses?”
“Excuse me?” Andrew DeSilva looked between Tommy and I.
Tommy blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “No witness, no trial.”
Andrew DeSilva shook his head. “I didn’t just hear that.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t for you to hear.” Tommy stared at me. “Nicolai, I can’t do fifteen years.”
I stared at him long and hard. The past two months had been hell for my sister. After learning about Capone, I moved her to a compound in Rhode Island. Since she’d been too far into her pregnancy to fly, I waited until after she gave birth to fly her, my niece, and my mother to Palermo. She’d been in a state of depression ever since.
“You’re going to take the fifteen years.” I left no room for negotiation.
“Nicolai, I can’t leave my wife and kid for fifteen years.” Tears filled his eyes. “I already missed the birth of my daughter. Now I’m going to miss fifteen years of her life.”
I had no sympathy for him. The moment he entered the drug game, he put my sister and niece in danger. “My sister and niece will always be taken care of.”
“With good behavior you could be out in twelve,” Andrew DeSilva advised as he began packing again.
“I hired you to get me the fuck out of here,” Tommy seethed. “Not to negotiate sentences. You’re no better than a public defender.”
“Actually, he hired me. All of your assets were confiscated during the raid. Remember?” Andrew DeSilva cut his head to the side to look at me.
