by K. J. Dahlen
Gio drives us away from Washington Groves Middle School and through the suburbs. We get farther from my uncle’s house with every block. He’s not taking me back there, so where are we going? Where? I grip the door handle to ground myself. It doesn’t work.
The rows of houses, most of them sleeping this late at night, turn into fast-food restaurants and strip malls, then the outdoor shopping communities that are lovely to walk through but impossible to buy from unless you’re filthy fucking rich, which I’m not. The road merges onto the freeway. Gio takes it.
I can’t help it—my body relaxes against the hum of the wheels on the pavement. He’s not going to shoot me while he's driving seventy miles an hour. Not when he has to unlock the glovebox. Unless he has another gun, in which case—
I blow out a breath through thinned lips and study him out of the corner of my eye.
His face is lit from the gentle glow of the car’s console, and the shadows highlight the cut line of his jaw. He’s spent some time in the gym, that much is clear. His shoulders are broad and muscled, nothing like the boyish profile he had back in school, and my God, he’s dressed up for the occasion. Business causal, the white button-down hardly wrinkled. Is this his job? It can’t be. There is no way that Gio Moretto is an assassin for hire.
This is something different.
I don’t know if that’s better or worse.
He catches me looking at him as we glide around the outer rim of the city. His chest rises and falls, but he looks forward, his eyes back on the road, hands steady.
“Which one is your real name?” His voice is even. I’m freaking the fuck out, and here he is, cool as a cucumber. Why is he asking me this? Why is he seeking confirmation? We both know who I am.
It doesn’t matter what I say. All that matters is keeping him talking, and underneath that need is—God, it’s shameful—the fact that the sound of his voice rings like a bell inside me. I want more of the sound of him.
I sift through all those old memories, of childhood, of my mother’s hands holding mine tight, so tight. A death grip. Sia Andrews, she’d said. There is no Alessia Ricci.
But there is an Alessia Ricci, buried beneath the Sia Andrews I’ve become.
“I was never supposed to tell anyone,” I admit. “My mother told me never to tell anyone the name I was given at birth. I was so young when—”
“Your name. Your real name,” he demands.
“Alessia Ricci.” I say it helplessly. “That’s my real name. What else do you want to know?”
I’ll tell him anything, because it doesn’t matter. I’ve signed my own death warrant.
9
Gio
Her voice has the ring of truth, and instead of hardening my resolve, it makes my chest feel weak.
She is Alessia Ricci.
But she’s also Sia Andrews.
I don’t know which of them is more real than the other, but if I shoot her now, I’ll never know. And that might eat me alive.
I thought this would be simple. Carry out my father’s mission. Make him happy. Take my place among the family. It’s not like he would ask this of me every day. Outwardly, our lives are similar to everyone else’s.
My blood thrums in my veins, both from the pressure of figuring out another plan and the nearness of her. Fuck, she smells good. This close, in the car, I get a whiff of her with every breath, and it doesn’t make me want to kill her. It makes me want to fuck her.
That is not part of the plan.
I listen to her breathe in the passenger seat until it becomes too much, and then I turn on the radio. Not too loud. Some bullshit top forty station. The important thing is that it never stops making noise.
I have two choices.
I can keep driving, endlessly, circling the city in massive, high-speed loops, or I can pull over and kill her.
I reject both of them.
That leaves no choices.
It’s something she said to me, back during one of those endless afternoons under the bleachers, before we’d go off to our respective afterschool activities. She ran track. I know, because I could always pick out her shining hair in the crowd down below. I did everything. I wrote for the newspaper. I wrestled. I floated from place to place, always with the intention of leaving at the same time she did. Once I met Sia Andrews, I never wanted to ride the bus home. What, and give up my hours with her? Not a fucking chance.
It was a day we’d been ribbing each other, trading mild barbs, innocent as fuck, and one of them had made her laugh until tears came out of her eyes.
“You’re good, Gio,” she’d said, wiping at her eyes with a knuckle.
“I’m the funniest person here,” I’d joked.
“No, I mean—” Her laughter had trailed off slowly, bubbling back up in eddies and bursts. “You’re good. You’re a good person.”
“—it’s Party Worldwide,” booms the DJ, cutting into my thoughts, pulsing electronica in the background, “and we’re here to do a little throwback for your eeearrrrrrrly Saturday morning. Who remembers this one?” The electronica fades out, and a familiar song fades in. I roll my eyes. It’s one of those terrible boy band hits from the last year of middle school. The girls went crazy over it. You’d have thought there was a fire, the way they screamed when it would come on at the dances. Absolutely fucking crazy.
In the passenger seat, Sia bobs her head to the beat of the song.
It squeezes at my heart so painfully I can’t watch. I train my eyes on the road. The adrenaline is seeping away, leaving my eyelids heavy. It’s fucking late. I don’t want to be driving anymore.
The next exit leads home.
What does it mean to be good, now that I’ve hesitated at the very moment I should have been acting? What does it mean to go against my father?
The indicator on my dashboard blinks. I’m low on fuel. There isn’t enough to do another loop around the city, and if I stop to refuel, she’ll run. No doubt about that. She’d be stupid not to take her chance at escaping.
I take the exit.
10
Sia
Gio pulls his car into the entrance to an apartment complex, the wheels dipping into a pothole and back out again.
An...apartment complex.
It’s the most normal apartment complex I’ve ever seen. It’s so normal, with its cluster of buildings, its clubhouse up near the entrance, that it doesn’t seem real. Or maybe this isn’t real. Maybe I’ve hallucinated this kidnapping. Can it be kidnapping if you’re nineteen?
Gio drives past the three-story buildings, lights on in very few of them. Who’s up at this hour? My mind latches onto the question. Who’s awake behind those curtains? Are any of them seeing me? If someone is peering out, will they be the last person, other than Gio, to see me alive?
After a moment, the bigger buildings give way to townhouses. This area is even classier, with little lawns in front of each townhouse, streetlamps at the end of each block. Gio follows the speed limit, a fact that makes me want to laugh and laugh. I’m beyond exhausted. I’m still drunk, I think, and the headache isn’t doing me any favors.
He steers the car into the driveway of one of the townhouses and presses a button on his sunshade. It’s so fucking pedestrian, a garage-door opener.
We wait for the garage door to open.
I can’t believe we’re sitting here waiting for the garage door to open.
This place is too nice for the Gio I used to know. That Gio, middle school Gio, used to wear shirts with old band names on them. This townhouse, with its neat shutters, manicured hedge lining the yard, and its garage-door opener is hardly what I pictured for him.
The door squeaks to a stop and the headlights illuminate a pin-neat garage. There’s a snowblower tucked to one side under a canvas cover, a toolbench at the back. Everything has a holder on the walls. There’s even a separate little loft for snow tires. It looks like he’s swept recently.
“Wow,” I say, opening my eyes wide. “This is the nicest morg
ue I’ve ever seen.”
Gio looks at me, his dark eyes tortured. I want to scoff at him, but all that comes to mind is a thousand more jokes, gallows humor, that won’t do anything to change the outcome of this. Why the hell is he feeling so tortured, anyway? He’s the one with the weapon. He’s the one with all the power.
He’s the one who looks hot as fuck right now. Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, or the panic, but he does.
“I won’t cover your mouth if you promise not to scream.” He says this in the same tone that he might say, "I’ll get the groceries in the paper bags, you get the plastic ones."
My heart picks up. “I won’t scream.” For God’s sake. One minute we’re listening to an old boy band hit in what seems almost like companionable silence, and the next he’s all I won’t gag you if you keep quiet. This is unbelievable. I do not believe it.
“Wait for me to get out of the car.”
What else can I do?
I wait.
He opens the door and it occurs to me then that there could be other guns. There could be weapons I don’t see strategically placed all around this garage, in holders especially made for them. Tucked away, where only Gio would know. The gun in the glove compartment is the least of my worries.
He offers me his hand, and I take it.
He has strong hands, and his skin against mine is warm and smooth. I try to ignore that while I step out of the car.
I stretch, looking back out the open garage door, and suck in a huge breath. The sound of it must startle Gio, because he’s behind me in a heartbeat, that same strong hand tight over my mouth. Outside, the sky above the apartment complex is turning gray, the deep navy of the night disappearing into a colorless dawn. I could die here. I could die in this garage, and it would be days before anyone knew.
His other arm comes around my neck, as relentless as before, and my body lurches against him. Fight. Kick. Scream. The instincts come fast and hard, each one as demanding as the last. Put up a fucking fight.
I dismiss all of them, one by one, because I can feel his heart racing against my back. I can feel the tension in his muscles. I can feel how much bigger he is, how much stronger, and I can feel how he’ll kill me if I push him too far. He must not have any choice, if he’s in this deep.
Consciously, as if this is the most important thing I’ve ever done—because it is—I relax against him, the zipper of his pants digging into my lower back. It’s not a trick. I’m not going limp so I can jump up and surprise him, make a break for it, pound on one of the neighbor’s doors. I relax so that he knows I’m not a threat.
He doesn’t believe me, because his arm tightens around my neck. If he’s not careful, he’s going to cut off my air supply. My breathing is already too shallow. Spots appear in the corners of my vision. I raise one hand—slowly, no sudden moves—and tap him twice on his wrist. Please. Please.
I’m trying to tell him that I won’t scream. I swear, I won’t fucking scream, if he lets me live past this moment.
Gio shifts his weight from one foot to the other and breathes out, a long exhale. I raise both hands in front of us. I surrender. Whatever he wants to do with me now, I surrender. I only need air. I only need to breathe.
He lets me go.
I sway forward, unsteady on my bare feet, and breathe in, glorious gulps of air.
Gio puts a hand on my shoulder and steers me away from the garage door.
At the door into the house, he pauses, hitting a button to the side of the frame. The garage door rumbles and closes, shutting out the gray dawn light. “Let’s go inside.”
11
Gio
She’s a mess.
The light in my kitchen is harsher than the dashboard glow, and for the first time tonight, I see her. Sia’s makeup is smudged. I never heard her cry, but there are two dark tracks of mascara underneath the blue of her eyes. Her dress, with all its starry sequins, is twisted around her legs, and she’s barefoot. A streak of dirt runs up one shin. Where the hell did that come from?
She is supposed to be the girl I hate most in the world, but right now, she is gorgeous. She looks gorgeous and fragile and precious, something to be protected. Something to be hoarded. Something to be claimed.
Fuck me.
I wrestle back the urge to tear that dress from her body, then her bra, and whatever panties she’s wearing, and I get myself under control at the same time.
I’ll do what my father asked me to do.
Just not yet.
I need time. I need time to see for myself if this is the solution to my family’s need for revenge. I try to remind myself that this girl is from the bloodline that killed my mother, that took her from me for all my life, but the blue-eyed girl blinking in my kitchen wasn’t the one who held the knife in her hand.
It’s too late—or too early—to think clearly.
The crucial thing is not to become attached to her.
I can be human without becoming attached.
Sia raises her eyes from the kitchen floor to meet mine. Her lips tremble. “I need a shower.” Her voice doesn’t shake, but there’s a tremor at her fingertips that makes me wonder how long she can stay upright. It could all be a ruse. She could be as deadly as I am. She’s a Ricci, after all.
She blinks, her forehead wrinkling, and drops her gaze back to the floor.
She’s not dangerous.
“Fine,” I tell her, even though my mind has long since run away with the image of her naked body under a stream of hot water. “Come this way.”
“Are you serious?”
I’m halfway across the living room when she speaks, and I turn back. She’s still rooted to her spot in the kitchen. I show her my hands. “I’m not going to shoot you in my townhouse,” I tell her, an edge to my voice as if this is obvious. “If you want a shower, come take one.”
Upstairs in the bathroom, I turn on the shower for her and stand outside the open door while she lifts her dress over her head. She doesn’t ask for me to look away. She must know better. I tell myself I’ll only watch as long as necessary, but my eyes linger on the curve of her neck down to her shoulder. The sight of that creamy skin makes my cock bulge against my pants.
She steps behind the curtain, disappearing into the steam. “Can I—” Sia clears her throat. “Can I borrow your shampoo?”
“Sure,” I tell her, and every inch of me strains toward the shower. I want to be under that water with her. I want this fucking situation to be gone.
The scent of shampoo fills the air, then the smell of body wash assaults me, and after a few minutes, she pokes her arm out from behind the curtain and takes the towel I’ve hung on the rack. When she steps out, it’s wrapped around her, perky breasts hidden behind the fabric.
With her makeup gone and her hair shining and stringing wet down her back, she looks every bit Sia Andrews.
She bites her lip. “I don’t know—this is all very fucked up, but I wondered if—”
It makes me exhausted, this dance. This was supposed to be simple. “Ask.”
“Do you have something I could wear? I don’t have any other clothes.”
Of fucking course.
I leave her in the bathroom and step across the hall to my bedroom. Back in the bathroom, Sia looks down into my hands at the t-shirt and sweatpants on offer. Relief crosses her face. She takes them and turns away. I look toward the door. I’m not a fucking monster.
When I look back, she’s wearing my clothes—my clothes—against her bare, smooth skin and rubbing the towel against her hair. Her eyes flicker shut and open again, and she searches for the towel rack with a little yawn.
I sigh. It’s a full-body sigh, that this uncomplicated mission has become the bane of my existence. That the girl of my dreams is the one girl I’m supposed to kill. Sia yawns, a bigger yawn, and it breaks my heart.
“Come here,” I tell her, and she stiffens, but pads along behind me to the guest room at the end of the hall. I open the door and the light from the hall
way spills in, illuminating the neat bed, the chair by the window, and the low dresser. “Sleep,” I tell her.
She looks up at me, eyes filled with suspicion. “Are you kidding?”
“Aren’t you tired?”
Her eyes go to the bed, then back to my face. “Yes.” Sia takes a tentative step inside, as if I might shoot her at any moment. “It’s clean in here.” She sounds surprised.
“Yes,” I tell her. “Sleep.”
She doesn’t know it, but my life was clean, it was clean and neat, up to this moment. Until her presence went off like a nuclear bomb, destroying everything I thought I knew.
12
Sia
I sleep in the murderer’s house.
All those whispers about the Moretto family were true, but when I wake in the night, I can’t square them with Gio Moretto, the dark-eyed boy who sat with me under the bleachers and put his arm around me when I cried about Christopher James, the guy I had a crush on, the guy who stood me up at the ninth-grade Valentine’s dance for the laughs.
The man who brought me clean clothes smelling of him and led me here like a guest in his home, not a prisoner.
The man who told me to rest.
The pillows on the bed are firm and the blanket is soft, and I can’t help myself. I let myself sink into them. I’m crashing from the adrenaline surges, my head aching, my feet sore, but I’m bathed and clean and still whole. What else is there to do? I am living moment by moment, but wasn’t I always? I just didn’t know it yet.
Every time I wake up, it takes me a few moments to register where I am. My heart jolts—escape, escape, escape. But I don’t. I can’t. Sleep tugs me back under.
I don’t know how long it’s been when I hear a door open, then close. I sit up underneath the covers. This is clearly a guest bedroom, but everything smells faintly of Gio, vaguely minty with an undercurrent of spice and man. It’s fucking delicious.
