UNPROTECTED: A Dark Bad Boy Baby Romance (Hanley Family Mafia)

by Zoey Parker

  My response provokes uncertain grumbles amongst the men.

  “It’s just for the time being,” I say.

  Carlos nods, looking the most unenthused of all of them.

  I consider calling him out in front of everyone. After all, he was the one who led the Rebel Saints straight to our office. But there’s no point. Carlos’ arm is bandaged and his eyes are bloodshot; clearly he’s suffered enough.

  What I should focus on now is assessing the damage and rebuilding, not tearing this group apart.

  “Any idea just what they got at our old office?” I ask.

  Again, a hostile silence.

  “We tried burning the papers,” Anthony protests, his curly brown head shaking with vehemence.

  “What did they find?” I ask quietly.

  “We don’t know,” Carlos says, standing up.

  “What could they have found Carlos?” I ask, my eyes boring into him.

  I cut myself out of that family picture in his office weeks ago, but who knows what other things he left around carelessly. Thanks to Carlos, I may have just seen Gabriel for the last time ever.

  “Maybe some accounting information, maybe some names,” he says.

  He keeps his gaze on his wrapped-up arm, though both of us can see that what he said isn’t all.

  “And…” I say.

  “And a map of our property. The house, both of the compounds.”

  The room breaks into an angry rumbling.

  “Well, I guess that’s that for having meetings here,” I say.

  Carlos still hasn’t sat down.

  “Toni, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  He says it as he walks into the kitchen. I follow him and, leaning in, he says, “Papa wants to talk to you.”

  I stare at him and he leans in, whispering, “He said it was urgent.”

  I nod, trying to keep the worry off my face.

  The men have already had their spirits stomped on, the last thing they need is more worry about Papa’s health.

  I head for the stairs and stop in the doorway.

  Is it just me or have the whispers died down?

  I don’t move, don’t turn around to look at the men.

  Why do I feel like the minute I walk out of this room their conversation is going to take a very different turn?

  I continue on to the stairs.

  Even if that’s the case, there’s nothing I can do. I have no one but myself, can do nothing but what I am doing.

  When I’m halfway up the stairs, Maria Fernanda stops me, a cup of tea in hand.

  “Just how he likes it,” she says with a sad smile.

  I look into the opaque liquid, nod. Black tea, Papa’s favorite.

  “Thanks.”

  This tea will come in handy. If Papa’s message is as urgent as Carlos said, I’m going to need all the help I can get.

  ###

  Upstairs, I knock on the door only once before going in.

  This time, there’s not a ghost in my father’s bed, there’s a skeleton.

  A skeleton that doesn’t even try to smile when I come in.

  It’s sitting stock-straight, with a hollow face seeming to sag under the weight of those giant black eyes.

  “You know why I called for you,” it says.

  I stare at it, at this skeleton who somehow has my father’s resonant melodious voice.

  “No,” I say, “I don’t.”

  I refuse to believe it. Believe that this creature is Papa.

  I hadn’t been sure he had called me here at all. Part of me had figured this was a ploy by Carlos to get me out of the room.

  “Well I did,” he says, letting out a song of a laugh that ends in coughs.

  He coughs and coughs and coughs, until I lean over, say, “Papa are you alright?”

  He holds out a hand, shakes his head, and, with a terrible grimace, clamps his mouth shut.

  I hold out the tea, but he only shakes his head. I get up, put it on the dresser, then return.

  After a minute, he lets out a raspy inhalation and exhalation, then turns to me.

  “I’m going to die very soon Toni,” he says gently.

  I look away, to the cobra on his bedside table, then to the family photo that’s in front of it, the snake one snarl away from enveloping the thing.

  “You’ve been gone nights, coming back late mornings. Carlos has told me,” he says.

  I scan his face anxiously, my heart dropping with every word. It sounds like he knows, but how could he have found out?

  He coughs again.

  “Gabriel Pierson just attacked our office. They say he has a new woman too.”

  He says it lightly, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth, I keep my gaze away determinedly.

  I can feel his black hawk gaze probing me, searching for any weakness, any sign to give me away.

  I keep my gaze on the portrait, on the kinder version of my father who actually looks my father. I won’t look at this skeleton with my father’s voice, whose body is so see-through and hollow, that he can see right through me too.

  “I know, Toni,” he says.

  Still I won’t look at him. I shake my head, say nothing. Refuse to look at him.

  He hasn’t said it yet. As long as he doesn’t say it, he could “know” anything. There could still be hope.

  “I know about you and Gabriel Pierson,” he says, and my whole body crumples.

  I collapse onto the edge of the bed, sit down, my gaze still on the family portrait, on Mama and Papa and Carlos and me, on happier times.

  When Papa speaks, his voice is quiet, vehement:

  “Toni. Don’t make the same mistake I did. End it before it’s too late – before Gabriel or Carlos finds out, before your men find out. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  I look over.

  My father has his head tilted back, showing the drooped tennis ball of his Adam’s apple. It shakes as he speaks.

  “I have paid the price fully – don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask the picture.

  Bony fingers close around the frame, pick it up.

  “I loved her, you know,” he says, “I really did love her.”

  “Mother?” I say.

  He shakes his head so hard he coughs from the effort.

  “No. Muriel Pierson.”

  I gape at him and he nods, says, “Gabriel’s mother.”

  My stomach wrenches at the inevitable conclusion, but he waves it away with his hand.

  “I’m not his father, but I might as well have been. Muriel and I were meant to be from the start. I met her when I was young and stupid. I figured I had time. It was politics that made me marry Laurenz, then your mother. It was the smart thing to do. For Muriel, the situation was the same. We were tied into marriages, to people that weren’t right for us. I went to her as soon as I could.”

  He drops the picture and it rolls down the bed, to me.

  “But as soon as I could was too late.”

  He addresses the facedown frame.

  “Your mother always knew the truth, but could never bear to admit it. When I told her what I meant to do, that I was leaving her for Muriel, she cracked.”

  I grasp the picture frame, my fingers pressing against the glass.

  I want to crunch this thing in my hands, smash it to the wall, slam it into his face – the lie he told the world, told us – the lie that destroyed everything.

  “Of course I’m sorry,” the lying skeleton says, waving his hand, “Of course I’d take it all back now if I could. If I’d known. In the aftermath, everything collapsed. Your mother. And then someone shot Muriel.”

  There’s a tear streaming amidst the folds of his face, pausing at each, as if considering whether to continue on.

  “They still don’t know who did it. They blamed our side, we blamed their side – she had told her husband she was leaving him, after all. Maybe we’ll never know.”

  He wip
es away the tear.

  He exhales, though it sounds more like he’s choking.

  “Anyways, that’s all over now, the getting involved with the Piersons.”

  His black orbs slide to regard me.

  “Or it should be.”

  I say nothing. I have nothing to say to this stranger, this man who lied to me my whole life. This man who killed my mother.

  “Toni,” he says, reaching out his gnarled old hand.

  I shrink back, get off the bed.

  “Don’t,” I say.

  “Toni,” he says, bony fingers grasping at air, “Please, you’ve got to listen to me. Your family needs you. Our empire needs you.”

  I stand there, staring at the door, fearing leaving and yet not wanting to stay.

  “I won’t tell Carlos,” he says, answering my one fear, “But you have to do what’s right. What you know is right.”

  I take one last look at him – at this dishonest hypocrite who’s trying to counsel me about right and wrong, and I walk out of there without another word.

  Outside, I sink onto a lush blue chair.

  Papa’s last words were meant to clarify what I need to do. The problem is, I don’t know what’s right. I don’t know anything anymore.

  At some point, I notice that I still have the family picture in my hands.

  ###

  I wander into my room to find my only solace for the night. Gabriel has texted me: Tonight. Our place.

  I take a nap with my phone under my pillow.

  When I wake up, I take my time getting ready. I try on every skirt I have before I decide on the chiffon one, watching myself twirl with a little tremor of excitement. Choosing the top is an equally painstaking process: should I go for see-through or shiny? Crop or ruffle? Sleeveless or spaghetti strap? Each one I can imagine him taking me with, ripping off of me, peeling off of me, keeping on me, taking off and throwing back on and fucking me, over and over again.

  I need to concentrate.

  Why am I suddenly so concerned about what I wear? It never bothered me before.

  Even doing my makeup is something of a battle. I throw on and scrub off about ten different variants of red lipstick before deciding that the one I choose had too strange a scent to actually wear. So, I settle on a red lip gloss that neither looks nor smells how I’d like, but that I’m resigned to nonetheless.

  By the time I get to the eye makeup, I only have enough time to smear on a cat eye that turns out disastrously.

  So, I remove it and try again, cursing myself as I go. I’ve never been this late before, what ever will he do to me? The possibility both frightens and excites me.

  Even as I cab there, chat with the taxi cab driver about inanities, check my hair for the fifth time, the question repeats itself, a tantalizing refrain:

  What is Gabriel going to do to me tonight?

  Then, once we finally arrive, after I’ve paid the cab driver and strode out to the motel, up the steps, over to Room 29, and clasped the cool door handle, the question returns once more as a thrill through my whole body: What is Gabriel going to do to me tonight?

  Chapter 21

  Gabriel

  Last time I was late, and this time I’m early.

  I’m starting to have a weird feeling about Tony. Something like fear.

  Why won’t she go out for dinner with me? Why won’t she tell me more about herself and, most of all, why do I care?

  I spread myself out on the bed. The bed in Room 29. Our place.

  I already have a strange fondness for this ugly little motel room, with its scratchy brown door mat and God-awful sunset painting.

  I want to know this ugly little room inside-out, just like her.

  I open the drawer of a bedside table, but there’s only a Bible without a cover. Same goes for the dresser: there’s nothing inside but packets of salt and pepper that look like they’re from the eighties. Under the bed, there’s some weird circular white machine thing.

  I pull it out, plug it into a socket by the bed. Faint colors slide over the ceiling and walls, while a smile lights up my face. A light projector. In this grungy old motel of all places.

  The door knob jiggles, and I shove the light projector under the bed. It’ll make a nice surprise.

  Tony comes in, a bustle of chiffon skirt and a bag that gets caught in the door as it swings shut.

  She swears, and I go to help her, opening the door so she can extract her purse, which looks like it’s taken a few door mashings in its time.

  “You okay?” I say, putting my hand on her shoulder.

  She looks at me like a wounded animal, nods, then kisses me.

  I laugh, push her back.

  “Close your eyes,” I say.

  She does.

  I take off her purse, then her coat.

  There’s no gun there this time, which disappoints me a little. I wanted to tease her a bit.

  “Wait there,” I say.

  I turn off the lights, take out the light projector and plug it in.

  “Don’t move,” I say.

  Then, grasping her hand, I say, “Open your eyes.”

  She opens them, gasps.

  Seeing the colorful play of lights on the dark ceiling, I almost want to gasp myself.

  The aurora borealis of Room 29, right here for us to experience for ourselves: blues and greens and purples twining amongst themselves, swirling and swooping around at a preternatural pace, to a song we can’t hear, the red a vibrant dash sliding in and out of them.

  And Tony’s hand in mine. And this, this is-

  “Perfect,” she murmurs.

  Then, turning to me, in my ear, “Close your eyes.”

  I do. I’m being led forward, shoved onto the bed.

  “Wait here. Don’t open them until I say.”

  I do.

  Slight sounds that may be nothing, and yet, why would she have me wait if she wasn’t doing something?

  “Open,” she says, and when I do, I understand.

  The lights are dancing across her bare limbs: her wide hips, upturned breasts just more space for the colors to claim, more canvas for them to paint their beauty upon. And oh, what a sight it is.

  She’s swaying her hips along, along to colors’ unhurried, sensual song, along to the beat that I can only regard with a strange longing sort of want.

  “Come here,” I growl.

  She doesn’t move, doesn’t even pause. Her torso and chest gyrate round and round, while the colors try to decide where to stop, both in and out of time, complementary and yet singular.

  “Come here,” she rasps back, and I do.

  I get up and go to the swaying Northern Lighted woman. I take her in my arms, sway along with her, let the song and the rhythm and her undulating, unhurried naked body guide the way.

  And then we’re moving together and all is natural. Our kisses are in time, our tongues just part of the dance. My hands slide and grasp and fight with the colors for just whose woman this is. The colors submit to me soon enough, slide from her to me and back again.

  My pants dropping to the floor is just more of the song. Same goes for my shirt, a colorful slide.

  Everything is rubbing, sliding and gliding, her hand on my member, mine on her full cheeks the blue and green strands are delighting on, the soft enclave of her belly, the wide swells of her hips, down, down between her legs, and her hands are so soft and smooth on me, on me, and my hand sliding between her legs the colors revel in, seem to swirl around faster or maybe it’s just me, my fingers sliding in and out just part of the rhythm, the dance our bodies are locked in, the beginning we have to end, and my members inching closer and her legs are gaping wider, and her tongue is sweeping across the roof of my mouth and her lips are soft and wet, both of them, and I slip inside.

  Now the colors don’t know who to fall on: her hips or mine because they don’t understand – it’s both of us now, we are one, our bodies swaying together, moving as one, one single joined locked thrust, one want, one sen
sation, one heaving, one in and out, so slowly we’re shuddering with it. The colors shudder with what’s to come, building oh so slowly, her fingers swooping along the muscles of my back, then scratching, then raking, all part of the dance.