by Anthology
“Is that a yes?” I groaned. She continued to stroke me.
“I…” she whispered quietly…so quietly I almost didn’t hear. “I want you, Levi.”
“That’s a yes!” I lifted her up and threw her onto her back, her squeals and laughter echoing in my small apartment.
Gabby
The wailing is so intense I feel it in my bones. I have to get to the baby. I have to comfort the baby. Where is the fucking baby? Where am I? Am I in a room? There are no doors or windows or floors even. I can’t move. But the wailing keeps going and going and—
I shot up, feeling hot and sweaty. I looked left and right and didn’t recognize my surroundings. This was not my king-sized bed. These were not my satin sheets. Where was I?
The previous night flooded me.
I gripped the sheets. They weren’t satin, but they were so very soft. I pulled them up to my nose. They smelled like him. Strong. Musky. Like clean skin and spice.
“Are you okay?” My head snapped to the doorway at his voice. He held coffee and a bag of what looked like donuts. If I’d felt better, I’d have laughed at the cliché.
“I’m fine.”
Levi set the coffee down. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong.” I rubbed my arms, trying to rid myself of the goose bumps. “Look, I need to go. Where are my clothes?” I swiveled my hips so my legs swung over the bed. At the same time, I started to look for my pants. My gun was somewhere in the apartment and I needed to find it.
I felt the bed dip with weight and suddenly Levi was next to me. Lightly he touched my shoulder. I tried to act cold, tried to pretend what had happened between us was nothing. Then he pushed my hair behind my ear and said, “One day you’ll let me inside that head.” I smiled weakly at him. Fat chance.
He gently grabbed my elbow, pushing me back to the mattress until I was flat. “You can’t go until you’ve had coffee. Did I tell you how beautiful you look in my shirt?” I looked down and put a hand to my face at the realization. I was wearing a too big, faded navy blue NYPD t-shirt.
He leaned slightly onto me so part of his chest covered mine, and then his lips were on my neck, kissing and sucking. I felt delirious. Could you get high off of this? I thought I probably could.
“I should give this back to you…” I mumbled.
“It looks better on you,” he growled. “Stay for coffee.” His hands on me, splitting me, gently rubbing me. It was nothing like the heated fervor of the night before, but it was no less erotic.
“Coffee.” I gasped as he pushed his shirt up. “Okay.”
Levi
She took her gun, the same gun I’d unloaded just the day before. She kissed me when she left, a big smile on her face, and man I felt like some kind of fucking idiot in love watching her leave my apartment. I felt like I’d won the lotto. There was a rule about winning the jackpot though, right? Some curse that went along with it. There was always a but, and mine was that she took her gun.
I’d stretched, flexing back into the bed, feeling real good about myself—and about to feel even better with the image of her ass in my head—when my head rolled to the side and I noticed it wasn’t where I’d set it. I should have locked it up, should have put it in my safe with the rest of my guns.
Maybe then what came next never would have happened.
But I could play the coulda, shoulda, woulda game later. Images of those bruises had flashed into my head and I just knew what she was going to do. I caught a cab to Gramercy Park, distantly wondering why she’d even bothered coming home with me if she was always going to go through with it.
Now I sidled up closer to the brick townhouse she’d stood outside of the day before, trying to get a good look through the windows. What I saw made me run inside: Gabby, gun cocked, about to do something real bad to what I’d bet was an even worse man.
Gabby
Funny, in all the times I’d planned on killing Giovani, I’d never planned this.
“Go home, Levi,” I said, keeping my aim steady. With my gun cocked at Giovani’s skull, I shook my head and sighed. “This is too hard.” Giovani visibly sagged, until I added, “I’m not sure whether to shoot you in the head, push you down the stairs, or both.”
“Don’t do this Gabby…” Levi stepped forward to where the bannister just began to curl, placing his hand on the wood. I shook my head again, ignoring his words.
I’d always imagined killing Giovani—more than imagined, fantasized. At nights after he raped me, I’d lie awake, staring at his rocky profile, and think about the different ways I could do it. Strangulation was too difficult. He could wake up, throw me off him, and I’d be back to square one—if not dead.
A knife? Possibly… Still, after all my daydreaming, I’d fall asleep. It was the De Luca woman way, after all—not falling asleep, that is, but waiting, biding your time.
Giovani took a step toward me and I snapped my attention out of the past, raising my gun to attention. He froze. I was so through with biding my time.
“Did you know?” The fury that laced my question was cold, the burn like that of frostbite.
“Wha-what?” He nervously glanced behind him, no doubt calculating the fall.
“Did you know I was pregnant?” He opened his mouth to respond, but the way his face shifted gave me the answer I needed.
Just as I was about to push him down, Levi yelled one last plea: “If you do this, Gabby, you will forever be changed.” At his words one hand fell from the gun, dusting over my stomach.
Swallowing hard, I quickly regripped the gun, and, voice steady, replied: “I already am.” The heel of my shoe collided with Giovani’s stomach, causing him to lose balance. His arms waved wildly and he fell down our massive staircase. I watched him tumble down the grand, spiraling steps, only satisfied when I heard the crunch of his neck hitting the marble.
Levi
“Gabby…” I trailed off, mouth agape as I stared at the akimbo body of Giovani.
“Bring me in, Levi.” She walked down the staircase, shoulders down. It didn’t seem like she was resigned in sadness, more that she knew what was coming and was prepared to face it, like a sailor against a large storm.
I looked from her and then down to the broken body. Did you know I was pregnant? That’s what she’d said. Hand resting lightly on the ornate wooden banister, she stopped at the body. Then she kicked it.
She fucking kicked it.
The body jostled slightly with the push of her shiny leather flats then moved back into place. She glared, and then kicked him again. And again.
I tugged her hard, jerking her entire body away so there was a good foot of distance between her and Giovani—an actual foot, not just the one she kept using to kick the evidence.
“Stop it!” Though my fingers grasped tightly on her arm, she appeared numb. “Does anyone know you’re here?”
“The help has today off.” Her voice was a draft in a graveyard. “Just you.” I rubbed a hand through my hair, back and forth, as if the action would make the decision any easier. My mind had already been made for me, though. It had been made the first time I’d kissed her. It had been made the minute she’d come into my station bruised and battered, the first time her picture had been thrown on my desk, hidden in a stack of files.
“Fuck!” I yelled. Her gaze flickered to mine. “We have to get out of here.” I dragged her out of the opulent foyer, through the ostentatious double doors, and out into the brisk, December New York air.
“What are you doing?” she asked, but her tone lacked any inquisition.
I gripped both her shoulders. “Go get an alibi. Come back in two hours. Call it in. I’ll be sure to arrive first.”
“Why…” Her gaze flickered again, like a flame in the very graveyard her voice was caught in. She looked from the house to me.
“You’re not going to jail for murder.” I meant every bit of what I said.
“I’ll die anyway,” she said, placing her hand on my cheek. It wa
s cold, even though we’d hardly been outside a minute. I gripped her palm. “Stop, Levi. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“I’m not some dumbass, Gabriella De Luca, wife—former wife”—I corrected myself—“of Giovani De Luca, from the De Luca family, known associates of the Beast, Boss of the Pavoni crime family.” I expected her to look at me with shock, as anyone would when their lover revealed they knew they were a criminal. Instead her eyes got deeper, sadder.
“You need to go…” she whispered. “Don’t tie yourself to me.”
“Your eyes have stared up at me from my desk for years. I’ve finally got the real thing. I’m not going anywhere.” Her eyes widened but before she could respond, I gripped the sides of her face and pulled her into a fierce kiss.
When I released, her pants were hot steam in the cold air. Her eyelids were hooded as she licked her lips. Before I could get pulled back in, I growled, “Now go get yourself a fucking alibi.”
Gabby
“So you got home and he was just on the floor?” Niccolò asked, obviously unconvinced.
“Yes.” My voice was lead. Cold. Lifeless. I shimmied uncomfortably in the police station chair. They hadn’t taken me into interrogation, not formally at least. It was just like before: I was in a chair, Niccolò was at the desk, but the stakes were so much higher.
I looked from Niccolò’s eyes to the hand resting on his shoulder, following it to the owner: Levi. He stared at me earnestly with those deep brown eyes. Brown eyes I’d come to know as open yet unyielding, like his soul.
Brown eyes that begged me now as they had while we’d stood outside my house: to let him do his job, to protect me. Brown eyes that had never been anything save honest.
Niccolò gave an impassive glance up at Levi then returned his icy stare back to me. “You saw nothing?” I shook my head. “Red Bear here says when he arrived you were pretty distraught.” I waited for the question. “You don’t look very distraught.”
“Shock,” I stated blandly.
“Where were you?” Niccolò leaned in, eyes growing narrow. “Why weren’t you at home as is custom?”
“I was shopping.”
“You have personal shoppers for that,” Niccolò sniped.
“I was hoping to get Giovani a Christmas present.” I looked away, pretending to be suddenly overcome with emotion. “A surprise…”
A creak in the chair let me know Niccolò had leaned back. I kept my gaze pinned on the polished linoleum, occasionally sniffing. As the seconds, then minutes, ticked, I could feel Niccolò’s stare harden on me like frozen morning dew.
Eventually he said, “I’m going to call Boss. Bear, you take over questioning.” My eyes flashed to Levi’s just as he patted Niccolò on the shoulder and slid into the seat.
“Mrs. De Luca?” Levi asked.
“I prefer Gabby,” I murmured when Niccolò was out of earshot.
“Well…Gabby, then.” The corners of Levi’s mouth twitched. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“My husband fell down the stairs.”
“The stairs, huh?” Levi reached under the table and grasped my hand. My eyes widened. In the precinct, around all these Pavoni-pocketed cops? Still, I didn’t take my hand back.
“It was a lot of stairs.” My honey eyes locked with his black coffee ones and I felt tongue-tied. When I’d made the call to the police, Levi had been the first to arrive, just as he’d promised. Before everyone else could get there, he’d coached me on what to say. There’d been no coaching on what I should say to him, though. What if I screwed up and he realized I was not the woman he saw in his files? Or, what if he saw me for what I really was: mafia trash, a risk not worth taking.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Niccolò returning. This is it, I thought. He’d let go of my hand and the past few days would be a beautiful memory. Instead, he gripped my hand tighter.
“I know of a really great shelter,” Levi murmured. “It’s not too far away actually, and it’s stocked with all the necessities: chocolate, ice cream—” My heart fluttered when I realized where he was talking about. I was so excited I interrupted him:
“And pickles?”
“Always.” Levi squeezed my hand and stood up, clearing the way for Niccolò to sit back down. I felt his hand leave mine, as if each skin cell was crying at the departure. I wondered as I watched Levi walk to the back of the precinct. Wondered how a man like him fell into a world like mine. Wondered if we could survive. Mostly, I wondered how I got so lucky.
When Niccolò took his seat, I felt renewed. No matter what happened next, there would be no Giovani. There would be no bruises or broken bones. I had finally revoked my membership to that club.
Off Duty
By Kristen Hope Mazzola
McBee
“Hold on, guys. Seven needs a water break.” Huffing, Myla poured water into her husky’s Otters themed travel bowl. It was downright adorable how engrossed Myla was into the Otters’ fandom – from her matching red and blue sweats to Seven’s collar and leash, all the way down to her backpack and key chain – Myla screened Go Otters. I mean, it did make sense since she was the wife of the Otters’ captain and the sister of last year’s Most Valuable Player, but sometimes it was a little overboard.
Stretching, I took in a deep breath of chilly air. I checked the running app on my iPhone. “Three miles down, ladies. We’re kicking ass.” Central Park was bustling with early morning runners, bikers, joggers, and even a few rollerbladers – all decked out in their winter sports gear – working off their Thanksgiving feasts and gearing up for the rest of the holiday meals that were right around the corner.
Karla checked on Lilly in her jogging stroller. “Yeah, if we keep this up, I’ll finally lose this baby weight before New Year’s.”
My phone started buzzing in my air band. Unstrapping it, I saw my partner’s name lighting up the screen with a few texts.
Whistler: Are you ladies still joining us tonight?
Whistler: The Cask and Barrel at six and Jordan have seats saved for all of us.
Me: How could we miss it? We’re obviously gonna be there. Just about to finish up our run. I’ll text you soon.
Whistler: 10-4
“Let me guess, Sean?” Myla had a shit eating grin on her face while packing up Seven’s bowl and water bottle.
Rolling my eyes at her, I secured my phone case back to my upper right arm. “He was just checking to see if we were still going to The Cask and Barrel to watch the game tonight.”
Karla had Lilly up in her arms, rocking her back to sleep. “How could we not watch our guys kick some Islander ass tonight?”
It was crazy to think that only a little over a year had gone by. The entire group of us were so close, and it was hard to imagine a time when Karla and Myla weren’t my best girlfriends or Sean wasn’t my partner. I had finally found the family that I had always wanted.
"One more mile?" Myla started to jog in place. "It's too cold just to stand around for too long."
Right as we were all about to start back up, a brown and white dog sprinted passed us hell bent on catching a squirrel that was b-lining it for a tree, as a short woman chasing after him screamed, “Dozer! Stop! Dozer!” at the top of her lungs.
I was close enough that I ran up and stomped on the long black leash that was flapping behind him. The dog quickly halted, trotting over to me with a wagging tail as his owner caught up to us.
“Oh god! Thank you so much!” She grabbed the leash from me. “He’s never taken off like that. Stupid squirrels.”
Seven and Dozer started playing around as I put my hand on her shoulder. "It happens to the best of us. I'm Jessica; this is Myla and Karla."
We all waved as Dozer’s owner blushed a little. “Oh crap, where in the heck are my manors. I'm Jolene; everyone calls me Joey."
A tall man trotted up to us with a toddler in a jogging stroller. “Hey, love. That dog almost ran the whole bloody park without us.” His brogue soaked his
words. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I knew I had seen him somewhere.
"Jessica, here, was able to stop him." Joey turned to me. "This is my husband Finn, and our little guy here is William.”
Lilly started to scream at the top of her lungs cutting our small talk off quickly. Karla bent down, picking up her baby to rock her again. "Hey, guys. I think I need to get her home. It's a little too cold out here, and it's getting close to her feeding time.”
Finn and Joey waved goodbye as we turned to head back towards Myla’s apartment. It was our routine on my off days. Myla, Karla, the baby, the dog, and I all hung out for the better part of the mornings – running in the park and then we’d have an early lunch with mimosas before either hanging out with the guys or watching a hockey game – depending on if the Otters were at home or away. Working as a New York City police officer was my dream come true but I never imagined that when I joined the force, I was really joining a huge extended family – within my precinct and even more extended than that.
As we rounded the corner out of the park, an add at the bus stop across the street caught my eye and it clicked.
“Hey, isn’t that the guy we just met in the park?” Karla was pointing at the same Calvin Cline sign I had been eyeing.
Myla laughed a little. “Well, who would have thought we were just in the midst of a celebrity and we didn’t even have a fucking clue.”
Whistler
The frigid winter air wrapped around me as I walked down the block to The Cask and Barrel. I was pretty excited that Jordan was slinging drinks at one of my favorite watering holes again. It was high time that she went back to her roots and worked for a relaxed joint. I was starting to get tired of going to visit her at the snobby mixology bars that she was had been working for. Being one of the best bartenders in the country made her in high demand, but sometimes she took jobs that brought her back to her roots in the crazy industry she loved.
