by Leah Wilde
“Go ahead,” Fiona said, biting the inside of her lip, punishing herself with pain for being so weak. If she was strong, as strong as she pretended to be, she would have kicked him out as soon as he showed up, just to keep both herself and her father safe. But she wasn’t tough. She was soft and vulnerable and needy, and she was desperate to prolong this last encounter for as long as it could last, just so she had a few more precious seconds with Vince Romano.
“You said they were powerful. But so are you, Fiona,” Vince said, sounding confident and authoritative. Just like he did in the playroom.
Fiona scoffed, fighting off the tingling shivers that ran down her spine in response to Vince’s commanding, certain tone. “What? No, I’m not.”
“You are,” Vince protested. “You really, really are. I promise that you are. Please, just hear me out.”
Fiona sighed and nodded her consent, and even though her mind was screaming at her that she was an idiot for prolonging this encounter, her body stopped trembling. For the first time in over a day, she felt calm, reassured by the certainty in Vince’s voice.
“You know more about this business than anyone. More than me, for sure, but also more than my mother. And more than Guido. You could destroy us all if you wanted to.”
Fiona scoffed and shook her head. “Yeah, I could leak stuff to the FBI and then enjoy my precious two seconds of victory before Guido or your mother gives the signal to have me killed. Face it, there’s no way out of this. I’m fucked.”
“That won’t happen,” Vince said, his eyes shining with urgency. “I won’t let it happen, I swear.”
Fiona clicked her tongue from behind her teeth, reaching a peak in her frustration. “You don’t get it. They won’t hesitate to kill me because they don’t care about you, Vince. They’ll kill you in a heartbeat if it meant—”
Vince cut her off. “No, no, they were just bluffing about that. They wouldn’t actually hurt me.”
Fiona scoffed, turning her head to the side to avoid Vince’s earnest, hopeful gaze. It was too painful to look at, not while the truth she’d been suppressing finally emerged, fully-formed, spilling out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Yeah, that’s what Paulie thought, too,” she murmured.
“What?” Vince asked, sounding utterly dumbfounded.
Fiona sighed raggedly and gestured for Vince to follow her into her bedroom. “Come on, I don’t want to talk about this here.” She waited until they were safely behind her bedroom door, then dropped her voice to a lower volume as she said, “I don’t want my dad to hear us talking about this. He doesn’t need anything else on his plate.”
“Why? What’s wrong with him?” Vince asked, thankfully dropping his voice to match her tone.
“Heart problems,” Fiona said. “But, look, really think about this. If there was a chance that your dad didn’t die of natural causes…would you really want to know?”
In the darkness of Fiona’s room, she couldn’t quite make out Vince’s eyes but she saw his Adam’s apple bob nervously in his throat as he considered her question.
“Look. You don’t have to know,” Fiona whispered. “I’m sure your mother will take care of you, as long as you keep your mouth shut and let Guido rule. You can probably have a really nice life, with the penthouse and the servants and the girls in New York.”
She saw Vince shake his head, right before he stepped a little closer to her. This time, Fiona didn’t move away, letting Vince get an arm’s length away from her. With the shorter distance, she could make out the torn, pained expression on his face, his eyes wide and desperate as he stared into Fiona’s. “You think that’s what I want?” Vince asked, his voice cutting through the dark silence that stretched between them.
“I don’t know what you want,” Fiona said as confidently as she could, even though at some point she’d realized that she no longer knew what they were talking about.
“Yes, you do,” Vince said, reaching forward to brush his hand against Fiona’s cheek, making a thousand nerve endings spring to life on her face, but then his touch fell away, leaving Fiona feeling cold and empty.
Fiona swallowed hard to brace herself, tearing her eyes away from Vince so she could gather the strength to tell the truth. “Your mother and your brother killed your father. I’m almost certain of it.”
“How do you know?”
“I…. you don’t want to know, Vince. Really. Trust me. It’ll be easier if you don’t,” she said, rubbing her own shoulders to combat the shiver that tried to slink down into her bones. She wasn’t trying to be purposely evasive. She didn’t want Vince to have an image in his head of his mother killing Paulie. She didn’t want him to have to bear that burden.
“It doesn’t matter if I want to,” Vince said. “I need to know what you’re talking about. Please. Fiona…”
His pleading voice was killing her, pressing on her from all sides, making her feel like she was utterly trapped. If she said it out loud, it would be real. Really real. She wouldn’t be able to run from it anymore. She’d have to do something about it.
“Okay,” Fiona said softly. “Okay, I’ll tell you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Fiona hesitated, as Vince seemed to go tense, the shadows of his shoulders stiffening as he straightened up to listen. But then she forced the words out anyway.
“I wasn’t sure about it right away. It wasn’t until hours after he died, when you were in your dad’s office, that I noticed it. I didn’t allow myself to think about it, not until yesterday. What I noticed.”
“Noticed what?” Vince prompted her as soon as she paused to take a breath.
“A coffee cup. It was there on the desk, your father’s desk. It was overturned. Empty, but it had a brown ring at the bottom, you know? Like it had clearly been used. It wasn’t there the next morning. The maid or someone must have taken it away. But I just thought...that wasn’t right. The night before, when I was helping your dad finish up his work, I asked him if he wanted some coffee to push past the last hurdle. It was like 5pm.” Fiona paused again, smiling sadly to herself as she reflected on the memory of her last conversation with Paulie. “He said to me, ‘Come on, Fiona, you know better than that. I never drink coffee after noon. Bad for my sleep.’ Do you see?”
“No, I don’t,” Vince admitted, shaking his head. He sighed deeply and sat down on Fiona’s bed, looking up at her with wide, pleading eyes for a moment until she finally sat down next to him, side by side.
“Somebody was there in that office after everybody left the compound that night, Vince,” Fiona said softly. “Somebody saw him die.”
“So…what does that really mean?” Vince asked. “That doesn’t mean they killed him.”
Fiona shrugged. “I just know what I feel. Guido’s been pushing for months to get into bigger, more dangerous deals. Bringing really hard drugs into the country, you know, stuff like that. Paulie always said no. I could just see Guido get angrier and angrier as time went on. Plus, with the way she thinks of me and my relationship with Paulie, your mother had more than enough reason, at least in her own mind, to get rid of him.”
Vince was quiet for a long moment, tapping his fingers thoughtfully along his kneecaps and staring straight ahead, even when Fiona turned to face him. “But there’s no proof.”
“No,” Fiona said softly, feeling whatever hope she had left remaining in her body seep away. “But then that’s not the point, is it? I just think you should know, before you decide to continue to acknowledge my existence. They weren’t afraid to kill your dad. They won’t hesitate to off you if you become an inconvenience.”
Vince fell silent again, perfectly still in the darkness. Fiona couldn’t help but turn and look at him, to drink in his features for as long as she could, while she still had the opportunity. Deep inside, she knew that this had to be the last time they saw each other. Anything else would be too dangerous. There was no way they could be together, even if they didn’t try to do anything about Guido and Mama Romano.<
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“Do you trust me?” Vince whispered a moment later. For a moment, Fiona wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly, as it was so out of nowhere in context with the rest of their conversation.
“What?” Fiona asked.
Vince turned to face her then, inching closer to her on the bed until mere inches separated them. “Do you trust me? Be honest. You don’t have to. I just need to know.”
Fiona stared into his eyes for a long moment, which seemed to glow in the darkness, like they had their own inner source of light, deep inside. “I think…I do,” Fiona finally whispered. “And that scares me because I know I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?” Vince asked.
“Because being attached to your family has only given me grief and pain,” Fiona said, shaking her head at herself. “If I had any sense, I’d run as far away from here as I could. But…”
Vince inched a little closer to her, until they were almost touching, but even as his eyes got wider in anticipation of Fiona’s words, he didn’t say anything. He just waited for her to speak, which made her feel slightly more confident, even though she felt herself start to tremble as she struggled to come up with the words to describe how she was feeling.
Finally, she forced something out. “But I can’t stop…feeling this way about you,” she admitted.
“Really?” Vince whispered in response.
“Yeah,” Fiona said, sighing as she turned back around to face the wall across from the bed rather than look into Vince’s wide, earnest eyes. “It’s not a compliment. I don’t mean it to stroke your ego. It’s a really big, huge problem. I shouldn’t give a fuck about you.”
“You’re right,” Vince said, surprising her. “You shouldn’t. I’m more trouble than I’m worth.” He paused, and for a second, Fiona thought that was all he had to say, but then he surprised her by reaching over and grabbing her hand, holding it gently within his own larger one. Fiona was taken off-guard, but she didn’t pull away. “I know you don’t have any real reason to trust me. I’m not my dad.”
For some reason, that made Fiona feel uncomfortable, even though she still couldn’t bring herself to pull her hand out of Vince’s. His touch was so warm, so surprisingly soft, his fingers stroking the back side of her hand soothingly even as he verbally berated himself. “Your dad chose you, though,” Fiona pointed out. “He could have picked Guido or someone else from the organization if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He picked you.”
Vince scoffed a little. “Yeah, and who the hell knows why that happened? He probably didn’t want Guido in charge because he knew he was a violent little prick who’d run the business into the ground, but he didn’t think hard enough. He should have picked someone who’d be strong enough to keep everyone in the organization in line. Someone like you.”
Fiona flexed her fingers from under Vince’s, slowly turning her hand upward and lacing her fingers with Vince’s as she collected her thoughts. “He left me something, too, you know,” she said softly, her heart beginning to pick up in her chest. “Money, obviously, like a little bit to keep me going in case Mama Romano fired me, I guess, but a key, too.”
“A key?” Vince asked.
Fiona turned to face him again, her body vibrating with newfound energy as she put the pieces together. “I didn’t know what it was for at first. But then I figured it out. A safety deposit box, probably located in the warehouse that the Romano family has on the edge of town.”
“Have you opened it?” Vince asked, shifting closer still on the bed until his knees brushed up against Fiona’s legs.
“No,” Fiona said. “I haven’t had time to think about it, and then with everything that’s happened the past few days, I just…I got scared,” she said, feeling a slight burn of shame climb up her back as she admitted her own limitations. “I just thought there was no way it could be worth it, you know, putting my life in danger by going back into Romano territory.”
“But you did what they said,” Vince argued. “You followed Mama’s instructions, right? By quitting? They won’t be looking for you, just like they won’t be looking for me. They don’t expect me to do anything. They think they’ve won.”
“Haven’t they?” Fiona asked, doubt pressing down on her even as she couldn’t keep herself from shifting her body so her legs were gathered on the bed, stretched out next to Vince’s, the two of them closer than they’d been in days.
“Not yet,” Vince said, shaking his head. “Half the organization wasn’t at my dad’s funeral for a reason. I’m guessing my mom either distracted them with some task or they chose not to come to disrespect my mother directly. Either way, she wasn’t sure that she could oust me as leader unless they weren’t around. As long as half the Romano business still isn’t in her front pocket, we have a chance.”
“A chance to do what?” Fiona asked with a sigh. She felt exhausted, but at the same time, Vince’s words were setting off fires inside of her, rekindling hope that she’d thought she’d lost forever.
“To force my mother and Guido out of the business,” Vince said. “To get revenge for my father.”
“It won’t work,” Fiona said reflexively, resisting the idea that they could so easily reverse time and take back control. “There are too many enforcers on the ground around here. Someone could see us go to the warehouse and kill us before we even get a chance to find out what your father wanted me to see.”
“So, what’s the alternative?” Vince asked. “Run away? Do nothing? Let them run the organization and use all of its resources to fuck the world up even worse than it already is?”
Fiona shrugged. “What other choice do we have, really?”
“No. Fuck that,” Vince said, suddenly pulling away from Fiona, dropping her hand and leaving her feeling cold and abandoned. “I’m done letting people run my life for me. I can’t do it anymore, Fiona. I just can’t. I’d rather face the consequences than roll over and be my mother’s little bitch.”
“And what if the consequences are death? Actual, literal, honest-to-God, meeting Jesus death?” Fiona asked, getting to her feet and pacing along the room with Vince, meeting his eyes rather than ducking her gaze this time. “Would you rather die than let your family be in control?”
“Maybe,” Vince said. “Yes. I can’t give up. I won’t give up. I have to do this, Fiona. With or without you, I have to stand up to them.” He stopped in his pacing, turning to face Fiona and grabbing her by the shoulders, even though she made no move to walk away from him. “But I’d rather have you at my side while I do it.”
Fiona didn’t know what to say. Vince’s eyes were wide and desperate, full of desire and hope and fear and resignation, all at once. But it didn’t matter, right? Vince’s plan was suicide. It was so risky. To sign up as his assistant again would mean signing her own death certificate. She couldn’t do it. There was no way she could hand over her life to this guy that she barely knew. Right?
“Okay,” Fiona found herself saying, her body responding instinctively to the options laid out in front of her. “Okay, I’ll help you. I’ll give you the documents.” There was some part of her, some small, inner voice that shrunk and shrunk in volume as the seconds went by, screaming that she was an idiot, a moron, a complete dumbass for getting herself involved with this again. But it wasn’t strong enough to stop her. She knew what she had to do. If she didn’t help Vince now, when he needed her most, she’d never forgive herself.
“Okay, we can go now,” Vince said, smiling a little, genuinely, for the first time that night. “Get the key and let’s go.”
“Wait,” Fiona said, stopping Vince when he tried to turn towards the door of the bedroom with a hand on his wrist. “I need to know something first.”
“Shoot,” Vince said, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he’d just run a few miles. Fiona guessed he was as reenergized and reinvigorated as she was by the new plan of action. Anything was better than feeling helpless.
“Did you come here because I was your last ho
pe?” Fiona asked, her skin prickling with anxiety as she forced the question out, looking up into Vince’s eyes and searching his face for any sign of an answer. “Or did you come here because…?” She trailed off, shaking her head at herself. It was stupid, thinking that someone she’d met only a few days before could have serious feelings for her. She was just a silly, stupid, hopeful little girl, stuck on dreams and fantasies that could never come true. They lived in a war zone, a world full of darkness and danger and despair. Happy endings didn’t come with the territory, and she was only fooling herself for hoping otherwise.
But Vince stepped closer, placing his hand on the small of Fiona’s back and pushing lightly to bring her nearer to him, until their chests brushed up against each other and Fiona had to bend her neck backward to look up at Vince’s beautiful, shining face. He reached down with one hand to push strands of hair back behind Fiona’s ears before wrapping his hand around the back of her head, keeping her in place as he bent down to brush their lips together—gently, softly, barely applying any pressure, his lips dancing over hers, bringing her cells to life with a tingling tickling sensation that forced her to smile as he pulled away.
