by Leah Wilde
Unless Guido and Mama pulled something together behind my back, Vince realized with a cold, unbreakable certainty. He knew it happened as soon as the possibility occurred to him. He’d been betrayed. The company was being stolen right out from under him.
But for the moment, he couldn’t come up with a way to convince the other men in the room of that fact. Instead, Mama Romano called for a vote again, and this time, Vince was all out of words, stumped for a solution as one after one after one, the board members voted to replace him with Guido.
“That does it! Guido is the new head of the Romano organization. Congratulations, son!” Mama Romano said, clapping her hands together until the other people in the room caught onto the idea and gave a round of applause for Vince’s little brother.
Vince, feeling his stomach turn over like he was about to be sick, tried to shove his way through the crowd to head toward the nearest bathroom, but before he could get away, a hand came down on his shoulders, stopping him from moving. He turned around to face Guido, who was positively beaming at him, shining like he’d swallowed a handful of stars. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me, man? This is what I’ve always dreamed of!”
More like what Mother’s always plotted out, Vince thought silently, glaring at his little brother, whose happiness couldn’t be dampened.
Guido kept talking, reaching over to take two glasses of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray. The room had cleared out a little in the aftermath of the vote, but Vince still felt rooted to the spot, like some part of him insisted on receiving punishment for his failure to keep the company. He deserved this, feeling this powerless. He’d wasted crucial time, all because he was hung up on some girl he only fucked once. He was pathetic.
When Vince’s brain zoned back in, refocusing on the words coming out of Guido’s mouth, he heard his brother say, “Anyway, things will be better now. I’ll be easier on you than Dad ever was, that’s for sure. Hey, I can even undo whatever Mama did yesterday. That’d be nice, huh?”
“What?” Vince asked, furrowing his brow in confusion. His mother hadn’t done anything to him yesterday, except make thinly veiled threats about this sudden coup.
“I just mean,” Guido started to say before stopping himself, looking around and over his shoulder before he stepped closer to Vince and dropped his voice as he resumed speaking, “you know, about that hot piece of ass you’re nailing. I know Mama intimidated you into firing her or whatever. We all noticed that she left the compound crying yesterday.”
“What?” Vince said again, seemingly incapable of coming up with any other word at the moment. Fiona left crying? What the hell?
Guido shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t stop her to ask or anything, but I just assumed Mama handled it. I know she hates her. But look—” He paused to clap Vince on the back. “Mama won’t care anymore now that I’m in charge. She’s already told me she’s going to Paris soon, and she won’t even be around to notice if Fiona is working there. I know you like her, so go ahead and hire her back.”
“Mama…did something?” Vince forced out, the wheels in his brain slowly turning, his thoughts coalescing as he processed the information that Guido gave him.
“I guess so,” Guido said with a shrug, clearly losing interest in the conversation. “I saw Mama coming out of your office when Fiona was in there alone, right before I stopped by to say hi. I guess she must have convinced her to quit. Look, I’ll talk to you later, okay? Just let me know what you decide about your most recent fuck-toy, and I’ll help you out, all right?” Guido disappeared into the crowd the next second, going to hobnob with various old friends of Paulie.
Vince was frozen to the spot for at least several seconds, staring blankly ahead as multiple people attempted to politely talk to him. He ignored all of them, his brain abuzz with static as he absorbed the reality that his mother coerced his new lover into leaving him behind.
“Ha! That’s good!” Mama Romano’s laughter rang out from the other room. She was clearly feeling the champagne, in addition to the victory she’d accomplished over her eldest son and the will of her late husband.
Vince felt his stomach broil over in rage, feeling like huge flames were licking the inside of his body, making his blood pump furiously through his veins, urging him into motion.
He didn’t know where he was going, except that he had to get out of his mother’s house. If he stayed here any longer, he couldn’t be confident that he could restrain himself from flying across the room and pulling his mother’s beautiful, brilliant chandelier from the ceiling. And he couldn’t afford to fuck up anymore. God knew that he’d done that a thousand times over the past couple of days. Right now, he had to follow his instincts. He had to find Fiona.
Chapter Eighteen
Fiona was huddled up in the blankets, staring at the blank emptiness of the wall across from her bed, for the second night in a row. She’d gotten up a few hours earlier to force some chicken soup and crackers down her throat, but otherwise, this was how she’d spent her time as an unemployed person, wallowing in self-pity. So far, it was all she could force herself to do. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she’d get up and look for jobs. But not yet. Not until the deep sadness in her bones leaked away, at least a little bit. She needed her strength if she was going to find another way to provide for her father.
There was a distant knocking sound, somewhere on the other end of the apartment. Their unit was small, with thin walls. It was probably something the neighbor was doing. Again, Fiona couldn’t fight off the thought that if things had gone better, she’d be in Vince’s dark playroom right about now, learning what her true limits where, learning what she was really capable of. So much for that little experiment in freedom. She should have known better than to even try to become somebody she actually wanted to be.
The knocking got louder, so Fiona just flipped the blanket over her head, muffling any sounds so that it felt like she was underwater. Safe. Away from anything and everything that might harm her. The way I felt when I was being held in Vince’s arms, cared for after we had sex… She cut herself off from indulging in that thought, forcibly shutting her eyes and focusing on the deep blackness of her own eyelids until all coherent thought faded away. Sleep beckoned her again, tempting to walk forward to the edge of oblivion and slide off into sweet nothingness, sweet emptiness that would ask nothing of her…
But before she could slip off into sleep, she heard the distinct sound of her door swinging open. She froze under the blanket, hoping that if she pretended to be asleep, her dad would leave her alone and let her rest in peace. But it didn’t work. Her dad cleared his throat and said, “Honey. I’m sorry to bother you, but someone’s at the door asking after you. He says he’s your boss.”
“I don’t have a boss,” Fiona mumbled, probably barely audibly to her dad’s older ears.
Her dad didn’t say anything right away, even though she half-expected him to ask what she meant. He hadn’t asked her any questions the past two days, even though she’d spent the entirety of the time drinking and sleeping and generally doing nothing. He had to put two and two together and figure out that she lost the job, but he was kind enough not to push her on it. Still, he didn’t disappear as quickly as she expected him to, instead lingering in the doorway, breathing heavily until she finally threw the blanket off her head and huffed out a response. “What?”
“It’s just that he seems so insistent on seeing you,” her dad said, fidgeting a little with his hands as he looked at Fiona with concern evident in his eyes. “Are you--?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Fiona said quickly, cutting him off before he could even get the question out. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stretched her way to her feet, making her muscles strain uncomfortably as she put them into motion for the first time in hours. Her mind felt oddly clear, devoid of coherent thoughts as she stumbled into motion, checking her reflection in the mirror against her wall to make sure she didn’t look like a complete disaster.
She almost froze in place when she exited her room and saw Vince standing in the front doorway. She didn’t realize until just then that she’d expected to see Guido there, coming to make good on his promise to coerce her into sex she didn’t want. She felt relief wash over her, followed by a numbing, bone-chilling fear. What could Vince want from her? She’d already given up her job just to protect him from his mother, and it wasn’t like she could even talk to anyone about it. If her dad knew about the danger they were in, he’d insist that they’d skip town, but Fiona knew they couldn’t do that. Not with the pending surgeries her dad had coming up at the local hospital. And of course, she couldn’t tell Vince about it. Knowing his stupid, thoughtless self, he’d immediately try to get revenge or do something equally dumb. Fiona couldn’t live with Vince’s death on her shoulders, which made things particularly inconvenient for her since he was standing on her doorstep with a look of determination on his face. Oh, fuck, Fiona thought as she slowly walked forward, keeping the screen door shut so that there was a shield in between her and the man who had the power to bring her to her knees.
“Hey, Fiona,” Vince said, his voice coming out a little awkwardly, while his eyes were glued to hers, following her every movement so that they never stopped staring at each other.
“Hi,” Fiona said stiffly, waving her hand in greeting before letting it fall limply to her side.
“I found out what happened,” Vince said, clearing his throat as he stepped forward until he was practically pressed against the screen door that separated them. “With my mother. Guido told me.”
Fiona scoffed and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, escaping the magnetic pull of Vince’s penetrating gaze. “Oh, he did, did he? Tell me, what did your precious brother have to say?”
“Well, not a lot,” Vince said, a dry, bitter edge to his voice. When Fiona looked back at him, he was staring at the ground, as if he was ashamed of something. “They ousted me.”
“What?” Fiona asked.
“My mother and Guido. They pulled a vote at my father’s funeral. For some reason, half of the board wasn’t there, and the ones who were there voted for Guido to replace me at the head of the family. It’s over.”
Fiona struggled to come up with anything to say right away. On one hand, she felt a little underwhelmed by the news. After dealing with Mama Romano’s death threats on top of Guido’s intimidation tactics, she just felt relieved that Vince was still alive. Honestly, things were probably safer for him if he wasn’t in control. But at the same time, she could see how crushed he was, the pain that he was carrying around as a result of the board’s rejection. “You wanted to lead the family,” she said, phrasing it like a statement and not a question, even though she’d had no idea until right then.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” Vince admitted, rolling his eyes at himself. “Guido said he’d let you come back, if you wanted to. But I wouldn’t want you to work under him.”
Fiona nodded and clicked her tongue behind her teeth. “Yeah, no, especially not after yesterday and the day before,” she said without thinking.
Vince’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What happened yesterday and the day before?” he asked, clearly ignorant of what Fiona was referring to.
Fiona stared at Vince for a minute, trying to read his features for any sign of deception. “I thought you said you heard what happened,” she said slowly.
“I thought I did,” Vince said. “But clearly I missed something. Did Guido…do something?”
Fiona huffed out a humorless laugh and shrugged. “I don’t know. Does threatening to kill you unless I let him rape me count as ‘something?’” She didn’t know why the words left her mouth, but they just spilled out, like her body was taking control, finally standing up for itself after a year of Guido’s unwanted harassment.
Vince’s face crumpled, his mouth falling open in shock as his eyes widened, staring at her fearfully. He was frozen like that for several seconds, maybe even a full minute before he stumbled forward, pulling the screen door away so that he could step into the apartment and grab Fiona by the chin. “Did he…hurt you? Has he touched you? Fiona, tell me. Has he fucking touched you?”
Fiona tore herself out of Vince’s grasp, stumbling backward until they were no longer touching at all, breathing hard as her body prickled in protest. She couldn’t handle being touched right now. She couldn’t handle any Romano doing anything to her without her consent, not after the terror she’d felt for the past few days. But still, she could see the horror written on Vince’s face, the concern for her etched into every one of his features. “No,” she answered. “I didn’t let it get that far. That’s why I quit.” She cleared her throat before resigning herself to speaking around the lump that had formed there instead of trying to dislodge it. “I did it to protect you,” she whispered, not looking at Vince as she forced the words out.
She almost hated herself for saying it, for being that vulnerable in front of a Romano man, someone who still had power to crush her underfoot, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he deserved to know the truth. He had to know that she didn’t willfully abandon him.
“Jesus Christ,” Vince muttered, pushing some of the hair off his own forehead and shaking his head in disbelief. “Jesus fucking Christ in hell.”
“It was your mother, too,” Fiona said, suddenly spilling out all the truth at once. What was the point in holding back anymore? Vince had already been deposed. They’d already dealt with him, and now that they were in control, Vince needed to know how ruthless they really were. “Both of them threatened to kill you unless I did what they wanted me to. Threatened my dad, too.”
Vince was quiet a long moment, staring down at the ground beneath Fiona’s feet. “I’m sorry,” he finally murmured, still focusing on the floor as he spoke softly. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“Why are you sorry?” Fiona said, an accusatory edge to her voice. “You’re the one whose family is a piece of shit, not mine.”
“Yeah, but they scared you,” Vince said, opening his mouth to launch into a longer statement, but Fiona cut him off.
“Well, I’m glad they did. I should be scared. You should be, too. Vince, I know you know more than you did a couple of days ago, but the reach of the Romano business…it goes farther than you think.” She stepped a little closer to Vince, still taking care that they weren’t touching, and dropped her voice as she resumed speaking. “They could have people anywhere. Everywhere. They could have people watching us right now. There are so many foot-soldiers in the organization. They could have us killed in a second, and we wouldn’t even know what happened before we hit the floor.”
Vince shook his head. “No. They don’t have the whole organization under their thumb. Just half of it.”
Fiona laughed, not because anything was funny, but because she couldn’t find another way to react to the absurdity of what he’d just said. “So what? Half is more than enough to kill us both, plus my dad for good measure. Face it, Vince. We’re fucked.”
Vince furrowed his brow again, his forehead wrinkling up as he concentrated on whatever he was thinking for several long seconds, while Fiona just waited in silence. Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke up. “We could get away, you know. Go somewhere they’d never find us. Your dad could come, too.”
“My dad’s sick,” Fiona said curtly. “We can’t go anywhere.”
“Oh,” Vince said, looking a little taken-aback. “I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m sure we could find your dad good doctors somewhere else. I have enough money saved up that I can get us anywhere in the world…”
“You’re not getting it!” Fiona cut in, forcing Vince to let his sentence trail off into nothingness. “They’ll never be satisfied. They hate me—Mrs. Romano because she thinks I fucked her husband and Guido because he knows I’d never fuck him willingly. They hate me, and there’s no way they’ll rest if you disappear with me in tow. They’ll hunt us down. Cut us up, even. Make it so that
no one will ever find us. They have that kind of power.”
Vince was quiet, shadows passing over his face that prevented Fiona from reading his thoughts from his expression. For a moment, she expected him to turn on his heel and disappear into the night, accepting defeat.
But he stepped forward again, stopping short when Fiona flinched and said, “Tangerine.”
“Your safe word?” Vince whispered, keeping his voice low in case Fiona’s dad was listening in on their conversation.
“I just…I can’t be touched right now,” Fiona said, hugging her arms close to her body as she backed away a little more, deeper into her apartment. “Okay? Just please understand that.” It wasn’t just the rape threats from Guido that had her shaken up. She knew that if Vince touched her, all of her defenses would crumble, and she’d just let herself sink into him. She’d let herself be weak. But she couldn’t allow herself to do that, not here, not when her dad still needed her to be strong.
“All right. I respect that you used your safe word. I won’t touch you,” Vince promised, holding his hands up in the air and backing away one pace so that there was more distance between them. “But I just want to say something. Can I say just one thing, and then you can kick me out if you want?”
