by Zahra Girard
I take a bite and lose all interest in anything except shoveling as much of the pasta into my mouth as quickly as I can. It’s that good.
I get halfway through my plate before I give myself a moment to breathe. Then I realize that Luca probably should be in prison right now.
“How are you free? How are you even still alive? I saw on the news…”
Memories of the newscast pop into my mind and, even though he’s right in front of me and clearly alive, I still feel this rush of agitation at thinking about him being zipped up in a body bag.
“I had to go to jail. I had to sell the idea that I was under arrest like everyone else from the Durante family. Otherwise, if they think I’m a snitch, this will never end. And they did charge me with something, by the way,” he chuckles. “I think they decided on unlawful possession of a firearm. Which they’ll allow me to plead down to a misdemeanor.”
“Huh?” I say. And I just kind of stare at him.
It’s not eloquent, but it gets my point across.
I mean, what the fuck?
After all that, he’s only got to worry about a slap on the wrist? If I wasn’t high, I’d be staggered at how much he’s managed to work over system.
But I am on whatever they’ve got in my IV, so, instead, I grunt and I stare.
Which is more than enough for him.
His chest puffs up a little bit more, which I wouldn’t think is possible considering he’s already so supremely confident, but, somehow, he manages.
“I wasn’t going to half-ass this job, love. I’m not going to risk any of this blowing back to your family,” he pauses to try and reach in and steal a bite of my pasta, but I slap his hand away. “So I had them put me in the cell next to Angelo. And, well, I may have had them put our cells in the same block as the Nuestra Familia.”
My eyes get wide and I know I must look beyond stupid because I’m wide-eyed and stuffing my face with messy pasta, but Nuestra Familia is one of the biggest Mexican-American gangs in California. They run half the prisons in this state and most every gang in this part of California pays tribute to them.
My boyfriend — Is that even the right word for him? — is legitimately insane.
He snatches a bite from my plate. “Then, I stirred the pot. Things got messy. Didn’t take much work, though. Angelo — rest in peace — is already a prick, and those Nuestra Familia guys don’t fuck around. But, point is, no member of the Mafia is going to want to set foot in Arroyo Falls for a long time. Not unless they want to go to war with one of the biggest gangs in the US.”
He pops a bite of pasta in his mouth and chews it while looking at me with the biggest, craziest grin on his face that I’ve ever seen.
Yeah. He’s fucking insane.
But, he’s mine. And he’s alive.
“So, what now?”
It feels so good to ask that question, knowing that the future is open to us. That we don’t have to worry about anything but how we want to build our future together.
Luca raises his leg and lifts his slacks a bit to reveal a tracker anklet. “I have this little electronic babysitter until my hearing. And we both need our bed rest, too.” He says, pointing to his arm where he was shot.
I cringe, thinking about the hack-job the prison doctors probably did in fixing that wound up.
There’s a moment where he pauses, and he gets this thoughtful smile on his face.
“But after that? I don’t know, bella, I’d say we’re free to do whatever the fuck we want.”
“True. And I’ve been thinking about that.”
The thoughtful smile turns to a mischievous grin.
“How do you feel about Vegas?”
I wince. “I’ve had enough of sleaze for a while. Thanks.”
He almost looks disappointed. Even though it hurts, I reach out and I take his hand in both of mine. Which is more difficult than it sounds, because there’s still a bite or two of pasta left on the plate.
“How do you want our future to look, Stephanie?” His expression changes as he says it. His voice changes, too. There’s nothing about this that isn’t serious to him.
Even as hurt as I am, I’d go through it all just to be at this point, right now, with him.
We have a future together.
“These last six months have been bad, Luca. Real bad. I don’t know any other way to say this, except that I feel…” I pause, rattling around in my addled head for the right words. “I feel like I’m tainted. I hate so much of what I did.”
Even thinking about what’s happened to me, even though it’s over, brings tears to my eyes.
Luca reaches out and brushes one off my cheek and looks tenderly into my eyes.
“We’ve got the whole world in front of us, love. Tell me what’s on your mind. Because I’ll do anything for you. You know that, right? You saved my life. If it weren’t for meeting you, I’d probably be back to my old life, and whether or not I’d be dead, either way I wouldn’t be worth the breath I was taking.”
He’s so intense, and so sincere and just… unhesitating. Most people would dance around saying they don’t deserve to live, but he just charges right in. If I only had a tenth of that kind of courage, life would be so much easier.
Still, I have him. And that’s pretty good.
“I feel like I need to do something to make up for everything I’ve done.”
“And?”
“I have this idea.”
I swallow and he senses my reluctance, even if he doesn’t know why. This is something I’ve been thinking bout ever since I wound up in this hospital bed.
“I’m yours, Stephanie. Whatever it is, you can tell me. We’ll do it together.”
I smile a bit, because I know that he has no idea what I’m thinking about. And I wouldn’t expect him to. The type of guy he is, the kind of life he’s had, I know for a fact he’s probably never even considered anything even close to what I have in mind.
“I’ll tell you, but I don’t think you’re going to like it. And that’s OK. This is something I’ll do on my own if I have to, but I love you, Luca, and it’d mean a lot if you’d join me.”
He squeezes my hand, gently, and looks into my eyes. There’s so much love there. So much dedication and ferocity.
I know it doesn’t matter what I say, he’s going to say yes.
This man is not leaving me.
“Tell me.”
Epilogue
Luca
Three Months Later
The sun claws it’s way above the horizon, rising above the choppy waters of the Indian Ocean to cast red rays down upon this sprawling stretch of sand that marks the border between Mozambique and Tanzania.
Seabirds squawk in the distance, throaty calls that mingle with the smell of smoke on the breeze.
Somewhere in the distance, a village is burning.
It means there will be plenty more work by noon, but for now, I lose myself in just staring at the alien beauty of the world around me.
I mean, fuck, this place is gorgeous.
“I’ve seen this view so many times and it still takes my breath away. Every time,” Stephanie says behind me.
I turn around.
She’s got two cups of coffee in her hands and she’s a vision. Her hair is fluttering in the ocean breeze, her face is smudged with dirt and sweat, she’s sunburnt, and she looks like she spent the night sleeping on a pile of rocks. Which she probably has.
Even so, she’s beyond beautiful. I’m a lucky man.
“You know, I say the same thing about you every morning.”
“Liar,” she says, handing me a cup of coffee. But she still smiles.
“You see that?” I say, pointing off to the south where the smoke seems to be coming from.
It’s a thick black pillar that’s just making its way into the sky.
“There’ll be more refugees, for sure.”
Even though her voice is bone-weary, there’s not a hint of regret at the work that lies ahead.
“You know, when you told me you wanted to make up for everything, I never pictured this. Or that I’d be wearing this,” I say, pointing to my Medicine Sans Frontiers vest.
“It looks good on you.”
She rests her head on my shoulder and slides one arm around my back, leaning into me and hugging me at the same time.
“Even still, love, this is nuts.”
“Does that mean you regret it?”
“That’s a complicated question,” I say, as I brush some of her hair away from her face. “But, no. Not for a single fucking second.”
Even when she’s covered in dirt and smells, she’s gorgeous. And that smile on her face — the way she looks knowing that she’s doing actual good? There’s not a prettier thing in the world.
“We’re doing real good here,” she says, looking off into the distance. “It’s rough and it’s hard and sometimes I want to cry about how stupid and unnecessarily complicated things are here, but we’re making a difference.”
I’m not the regretting type — I don’t feel the same need for whatever karmic balance she’s going for — but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel really fucking good to see her proud of what she’s doing.
I stretch and give her a kiss.
“We should get going. Today’s going to be a busy day.”
“They’re all busy days,” she says. “Just one more minute. I feel so good here. Doing this. With you.”
We sit there as long as we can, staring into the distance, ignoring the call of the world and enjoying feeling alone together even though there’s a camp of several hundred people less than half a mile behind us.
It’s just us, right now. Together. The way it should be.
* * * * *
“This is it, man,” Felix, one of the camp supervisors, says, handing over a small wrapped package. “Just like you asked for. I checked with your guy twice to make sure he was giving me the right one.”
I take a peek inside. For something so small, it’s a damn weighty package.
“Thanks, Felix,” I answer and hand him over the cash we’d agreed on. “How was Johannesburg?”
He shrugs. “Crowded. I saw the Mandela House. It was OK. So when are you planning to do this thing?”
I check the package again. It’s exactly as it was thirty seconds ago. “Tonight.”
He looks me up and down and wrinkles his nose. “I know we’re rationing water in the camp, man, but take a shower, ok?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this all planned out.”
And I do. Ever since we arrived here to this corner of the world, ever since Stephanie told me her plan to do something substantial and I agreed because fuck if I’m letting her go without me, I knew this is where we were heading.
I’ve been planning this for a while.
And tonight’s the night.
* * * * *
“You smell… clean?”
Her voice rises in a bit of disbelief as she sniffs me suspiciously.
“Yeah, I cleaned up a bit.”
I try and say it like it’s no big deal, even though it is. The last time I took a real shower was two weeks ago. Out here, between the humidity and the dust and the heat and the weird bugs, you’re dirty again within minutes of washing.
She sniffs again.
“Is that cologne you’re wearing?”
I ignore her.
But it is.
I’m definitely not in uniform at the moment which, for someone like me who’s helping out with the camp logistics — a job which I got thanks to a hefty donation — includes a Medicine Sans Frontiers vest, jeans, and a light button-up, all of which are inevitably going to get caked in sweat and grime. Instead, tonight I’m wearing a clean shirt, with almost half the buttons open because god damn it is hot, a light sports jacket, slacks, and dress shoes.
I even shaved and ran a comb through my hair.
“What’s going on?” she says, suspiciously.
She’s right to be suspicious.
No one wears clean, good clothes out here because what’s the point if they’re going to get ruined right away.
“Just follow me,” I say.
It’s twenty minutes to sundown and, even though Stephanie’s technically still on duty, I’m so insistent that she doesn’t even argue.
Besides, it wouldn’t matter if she tried. I’ve already talked to most of her co-workers and they’ll have my back. And if for some reason she tried to put up a fight, I’d just carry her.
I take her hand and I lead her out of the camp.
There’s a small hill just a stones throw away where we can look out and see the sunset as it burns red into the wild highlands of the west. It’s miles and miles of green and it is fucking breathtaking.
There’s a picnic blanket and a bottle of champagne on ice waiting us.
I’ll have to remember to give Felix some extra cash later. He brought everything I asked for, and porting a bottle of high-end Veuve Clicquot back from Johannesburg ain’t easy.
“What is this? Seriously?”
“Just sit down,” I answer.
Somehow, my voice isn’t shaking, even though, for the first time in a long time, I’m nervous.
She does what I ask and I get down beside her and take her hand. We watch the sun disappear. The air fills with the sounds of the evening wildlife. Cicadas chirrup all around us. Off in the distance a hyena calls out to it’s pack and a trio of the gnarly-horned antelope they have around here start braying at each other.
We enjoy it in silence and I wait as long as I can before I say anything, because we’re both so bone-weary from the grind of working in the camp that any chance to rest is welcome.
But, eventually, I open my mouth because I can’t hold it in any longer.
“Look, Stephanie, I want you to marry me.”
She raises an eyebrow and looks at me for a second, long enough that I feel like a fucking dunce. “That’s it? Nice proposal.”
I pop the champagne because my nerves need a drink. I pour the both of us a generous amount and hand her a glass and down most of mine in one gulp.
“I’m not good at this, alright? Lay off. You’re the first real relationship I’ve had and look where it’s got me,” I say, gesturing at the whole wild, weird world around us. “I never imagined I’d be working at some camp in Mozambique, driving jeeps around and doing supply runs and feeling like I’m Dr. Livingstone.”
I only know that name because I breezed through a book on African explorers while spending eight hours sitting in a jeep at a border crossing last week.
“None of those sound like things you enjoy,” she points out.
“Oh, they’re fucking terrible,” I say. “There was a viper in the latrine tent two nights ago. Nearly bit me someplace important. It took three rounds to kill it, too.”
It didn’t really take three rounds. The snake died after the first shot. But, when something like that tries to bite your dick, you can’t just shoot it once and move on. There’s a process.
“So tell me why this isn’t the worst marriage proposal ever.”
“Maybe it is. How should I know? Again, I don’t know anything about this sort of thing. But what I do know is that, as much as it sucks nearly having a viper sink it’s fangs into your cock, it’s worth it just to see you happy,” I look at her and stop talking for a second, because the way the light of the rising moon is illuminating her is fucking breathtaking. “Not that I want a viper to bite my cock.”
“I don’t want a viper to bite your cock either. The only mouth your cock should be in is mine,” she says, smiling.
“You’ll do it, then?”
“Bite your cock?”
I wince. “No — you’ll be my wife?”
She takes a sip of her champagne and looks off over the valley and up into the night sky, where the moon and the stars have started to come out in full. Out here, away from anything close to civilization, you can see every star; every tiny pinprick of light stands out against the deep, endless black of the night’s canvas.
It’s incredible.
And I’m here because of her, making people’s lives better, making a difference. She really is too good for me.
She sips her champagne and looks at me, and says the words I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
“Yeah, sure.”
* * * THE END * * *
Want more Luca and Stephanie? I have an extended epilogue that I’ll be sending out on May 31st to my Dirty List subscribers! Sign up for my Dirty List here: http://eepurl.com/cOJhUb
Author's Note
Thank you so much for reading! I really do try and bring you the best in romance. I love danger, bad boys, and strong, sassy heroines. To keep up with my latest releases, sign up for my newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cOJhUb
Best wishes,
Zahra
If you like dark, hot bad boys, check out:
His Captive – A Dark Mafia Romance – I’m Fearless. Ruthless. But against her? I’m helpless.
Viper – A Hitman Romance – They call me the Viper. One hit, and you’re dead.
Chiseled - A Second Chance Bad Boy Romance – I’m a changed man, but touch her, and there’s nothing that’ll save you from me.
