by Piper Rayne
I bust out laughing at a time when I should be chilled to the bone.
“Open the door,” I instruct Lauren, who does as I ask. “Come in.”
“Good for you girls not letting any ole’ Joe in the door.” He steps inside and another guy comes in from behind the door.
Maddie lets out a startled yelp. “Trevor?” she asks.
“Hey, Maddie.” He smiles at her.
This guy is younger and in the same t-shirt as Jack.
“Sorry, I’m just a little on edge. Guys, Trevor works at the station with Mauro, too,” Maddie says.
“Oh please, I’d be scared if Trevor was coming into my house, too,” Jack jokes. “Don’t worry. He’s been warned…”
“This is Bianco’s girl.” Trevor nods in Maddie’s direction, stopping Jack from continuing.
He walks over and shakes her hand. “Hey. I’ve heard your name so many times I hit Mauro in the stomach when he says it.” Maddie blushes and chuckles. “Nice to finally meet you. I always seem to miss you at the station.”
“Well, I’m happy to hear that my name isn’t far from his mind.”
“Yeah, I swear he murmurs it in his sleep,” Trevor says.
“So, let me get this straight. You’re dating Mauro and you’re dating Cristian.” Jack weaves a finger between us, circling around with the finger pointed to Lauren. “That leaves you with Luca?”
Us three girls laugh.
“Not a chance in hell,” Lauren says. “I caught him spying on me last night.” She crosses her arms over her chest.
“What?” Maddie and I say in unison.
“Okay, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear this because I’ll give Luca hell for stalking a chick…er…girl…woman. And I have to remain professional, so come on Trevor.” Jack walks by us. “We’ll be in the basement looking at your panel first. Should take us about three hours.”
“It’s down the hall to your left.” Maddie points and they head in that direction.
“So spill it. He was spying on you?” I pull Lauren by the sleeve of her sweatshirt over to the living room and mute The Bears pregame.
“I was working out and I saw him through the window. Or his car. I mean you can’t miss that thing. Then he had his phone out which lit up his face.”
“What did you do?” Maddie asks, a smile already on her lips because we both know this is gonna be good.
“I stomped down and banged on the window. He didn’t even try to get away. He made some excuse about Cristian needing something. I only half listened because I thought he was probably banging that chick across the street. The twenty-two-year-old who prances around in those short skirts and tight shirts.”
“You mean, Amara? The one who still lives with her parents and goes to church every Sunday?” Maddie asks.
“Oh, you know those Catholic girls.”
“Excuse me,” I say, offended since I’m a Catholic girl myself.
Lauren dips her head and raises an eyebrow.
“Okay, fine,” I say and plop myself down on the couch beside Maddie. “It’s not like I was sleeping with everyone.” I roll my eyes.
“Amara is heading to medical school next year,” Maddie chimes in. “She’s super sweet and I doubt she’s Luca’s type.”
“Luca’s type is anything with a cup size over a B,” Lauren says.
“Maybe,” I say. “But I still don’t think he’s seeing our neighbor.
Lauren throws her arms up. “Forget Amara okay? I just assumed that since the man can’t keep his dick in his pants, that he was on our street for some reason. Especially since his brothers were nowhere to be found. But now I get it. Cristian asked him to come here and as pissed as I am, I can’t believe Luca was keeping watch on me.” She falls to the chair, pulling her legs up to her chest.
“Anyway, yeah I’m pretty sure that has Cristian all over it. Now he’s having an alarm system installed.”
“You gotta tell him, Van.” Maddie’s hand rests on my knee again. “You can’t keep this from him. It’ll only cause problems. You were strong enough to tell him last night.”
I throw my head in my hands. “Yes because I thought it was over. I’m such a basket case. How can someone like him actually want to be involved with someone like me?”
Lauren gets up from the chair and sits down on the couch next to me. Maddie’s on the other side, both their arms around my shoulders.
“He’s lucky to have you,” Maddie whispers.
“You’re a great catch. You did what you had to and he knows it. Want us to tell you some embarrassing stories about him from high school? You know he wasn’t always this stern, mysterious, hot guy,” Lauren says.
A reluctant smile creeps onto my face. “Sure.”
Maddie gives Lauren a look that asks ‘what the hell are you talking about?’
“Okay, I think he taped a kid’s butt cheeks together in the locker room.”
“Lauren, that was a movie,” Maddie says.
“Oh. Well, he failed a science project and—”
“Same movie,” Maddie sing-songs.
“Okay, forget high school. Forget him. The only thing that matters is, he cares about you. He wants you.” She points at my chest. “He sees that special thing inside that we both do. That thing that makes you your unique, stubborn, sugar craving, reluctantly affectionate but ultimately a big-sap-inside self.”
I let a small laugh escape.
“You have to trust him, Van,” Maddie adds. “Trust that he’ll stick by your side and everything I know about Cristian says he will.”
“URRGGHH!” I scream into my hands.
“Okay, I’m going to install a camera on the porch.” Trevor passes by the room awkwardly, gawking at us like a car accident.
“You can tell him after Sunday dinner.” Maddie slaps my knee.
“Sunday what?” I ask.
“At the Bianco’s. All the aunts and uncles are preparing the food, but I need to go over there because I know Mama will try to do something. She keeps going on about how she’s supposed to get her heart rate up for the monitor. I’m picking up Mauro, you two can come with me.”
“Yeah, I’ll be taking my own car.” Lauren shakes her head. “Actually, I don’t need to go. I’m not a Bianco or a soon-to-be Bianco. Have fun ladies.” She removes her arm from around me, reaches for and presses play on the remote. “I’ll be here watching the game while these boys finish their job.”
Maddie doesn’t argue because Lauren has a point.
“I’ll ride with you,” I say to Maddie, hoping Cristian will be okay with me joining in. “Can we make a stop on the way? I want to pick her up some flowers.”
Maddie’s face lights up and she squeezes my shoulders. “You know the way to a man’s heart is through his mama, right?”
I roll my eyes, though I’m sure in the Bianco family, that’s true. They treat her like the queen of Chicago, but I’m going over there because…well…because I like Cristian and…whatever. I’m just going.
Chapter Thirty-One
Cristian
“When is this shit gonna stop?” Jericho sits next to me, his fingers wound tight around the steering wheel. “I mean if another firefighter loses—”
“I know. I know. It’s like the department is doing nothing. They know it’s arson at this point.”
A third warehouse has now burned to the ground. Firefighters stumble out while the building is still succumbing to the flames.
Pulling out my phone, I seek out the engine numbers before texting Mauro.
Me: Looks like there’s another arson fire. They’ve pulled everyone out.
The three dots appear.
Mauro: Motherfucker. Don’t tell Mad, okay? She’s practically becoming a cling-on on the days I work.
Me: Sure, but Luca is here and you know how he is.
I look up to see Luca sitting in the back of his ambulance, giving a soot-faced firefighter oxygen. I switch over to my conversation with my youngest brother and ty
pe out a new message.
Me: Luca, zip it about the fire at dinner tonight. Ma doesn’t need to worry about Mauro right now.
Blaming it on Mama will help entice Luca to keep his mouth shut…hopefully.
He doesn’t answer, because at the very least, he’s a professional at work.
“Let’s get back to the station.” Jericho starts the cruiser up. “I have a date tonight.”
“Sounds good.”
We’re a mile or so to the district when the possibility of what—or who—Jericho could be doing tonight dawns on me. “It’s not Lauren is it?”
Jericho crinkles his eyes at me like I’m talking in a different language.
“Vanessa’s friend Lauren. The one you met at the hockey game.”
“Oh, the little one. She’s spunky.” He grins.
Oh fuck me. He’s going to blow this and Lauren’s going to beat the shit out of him.
“So tonight…your date isn’t with her, right?” I shift in my seat to better face him.
“No. She’s hot as fuck, but she’s also a fucking tease. Once we got to the bar, all she cared about was playing darts and ragging on your damn brother.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah well, they have a weird relationship.”
“A kinky one I bet.” He waggles his eyebrows.
“Why do you say that?”
Hatred I see. Flirtation, not so much. Still, there’s this undercurrent between them I can’t quite decipher.
“They seem to get off on pissing each other off. All that frustration is bound to lead to sex.”
I roll my eyes. “You think everything leads to sex.”
He shrugs, turning into the district parking lot, putting the cruiser into park. “Everything should lead to sex.” He chuckles, turning off the engine and climbing out of the car.
Another text comes into my phone.
Mauro: You coming to dinner?
Me: Nah. I’m going to head over to Vanessa’s.
Because I won’t allow her to sleep there alone even with a new alarm system.
Mauro: That’s a shame because Vanessa’s over here.
What? She’s at my parents’ house without me? Jesus, what are they telling her? They better not be telling her how I used to dress in Ma’s high heels or how I would only eat peanut butter sandwiches for every meal for three months straight when I was four.
Me: Then I’ll see you in 30.
Mauro: Yeah, that’s what I thought. #pussywhipped
I park along the curb of my parents’ bungalow. The park across the street is now a state of the art masterpiece with cushy foam instead of wood chips and plastic instead of a metal equipment. Specific swings for babies and no sharp corners or materials that will cause third-degree burns after a day in the sun. Where are the poles to fly down like a firefighter or the roundabout where you became king of the playground if you spun it fast enough to make someone throw up? The baseball fields are locked now and reserved for only organized teams. Kids these days don’t know what they’re missing.
I look up to my parents’ house and see the silhouettes of everyone through the foggy windows. It’s chilly out here, but a Bianco gathering means it’s hot inside. Christmas lights are lit up on a spattering of houses on their street. I’ll need to come over this week and get that done for my parents.
I walk up the driveway and open the door to the house to find everyone congregated in the living room, watching football. Well, Mauro and my cousins at least, or the few who still live around here. We used to run around this house playing tag, then we hid in the basement because our parents were lame, then most of them moved out of state and explored careers outside of Chicago. My parents always say how lucky they are that their boys stayed close.
My gaze scans the room for a blonde in the mix of brunettes. I spot her at the dining table, talking with Ma and my aunt. She can’t see me because her back is to me, but Ma smiles at me over Vanessa’s shoulder, her hand touching Vanessa’s in a sweet gesture to say, I’m here.
Vanessa turns and all the bullshit from my day evaporates. I forget about the damn reports, the arsonist lighting fires throughout the city, the man who beat up his wife, the kids throwing stones from the overpass. All that disappears with only the slight turn up of her lips.
She’s here. In the flesh without any pestering from me. That has to mean something, right?
She says something to Ma and my aunt. They nod in understanding and she slides out of the chair, walking toward me.
She’s beautiful, stunning and I lose the ability to breathe as she grows closer.
“Hey,” she says in a quiet voice.
I take my finger and tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Hey.”
Her gaze falls down my body. “Out of uniform, huh?”
I stare down at her because although she’s tall for a woman, I still have quite a height advantage.
“Thinking about playing cops and robbers?” I lean in and whisper.
“You could show me your old bedroom.”
I laugh, pulling her into me. At some point, my family will have to see what we are and what better time than now.
“Follow me.” My hand runs down the length of her arm until her hand is securely in mine.
I stop briefly to kiss Mama on the cheek and then my aunt before we sneak off to the end of the hallway where my old bedroom is.
Shutting the door, her eyes take in the room that hasn’t changed since I moved out many years ago.
“Not one naked picture?” she asks, sitting down on my double bed with the same blue and red plaid bedspread I used as a teen.
“Are you kidding? Ma would never allow that. The magazines are hidden in the back of the closet in a box labeled ‘confirmation stuff.’”
“What? You put nudie magazines with religious stuff?”
“Ma won’t bother looking in there and if she does, it’s under the blanket they baptized me in.”
She shakes her head. “And I thought you were one of the good ones.”
I hop on the bed, the dipping mattress moving us both to the middle, and I pull her down to me.
“So.” I inhale the scent of her shampoo. “Any visitors today?”
She swats at my stomach but kisses my jaw.
“Two actually. Uninvited.” She props her chin on my chest and I tuck a hand behind my head for leverage to see her.
“Really? Who?”
“Oh, just some guys who came to install a security system.”
I laugh and she kisses my neck again. Those kisses are addicting.
“Thank you, but it was unnecessary.”
“Nah, it wasn’t. I want you safe and Lauren, too.”
She takes a deep breath sits straight up, looking down on me. “Cris?” She says my name as though it’s a question, but there’s an undercurrent of dread. Suddenly her shortening my name doesn’t sound as good as it did the other night.
“What?” I sit up and she turns, putting one leg between us, and picks at her sock. “Van.” I place my finger under her chin and pull her gaze to mine. “You can tell me anything, remember?”
“I saw Bill today.”
A mask of red slips over my vision like a curtain. “What? At your house?”
I’m on my feet, pacing, my hand in my pocket and gripped around my phone. Ready to call the station, ask a few guys to do me a solid and check out my girl’s place. To get the plate number so I can beat the shit out of the man myself.
“No, he found me after I left Rose & Ivy.” She bites her lip. “He said he wants me for one more weekend. That the girl he found to replace me isn’t working out. I wanted to be straight with you…”
I stop midstride, staring down at her so hard, her vision shifts to the right, away from me.
Knife to the fucking heart.
“You’re not actually thinking you’re going to do it?”
She shrugs. “It’s just until the end of next weekend and this can all be over.”
“Please, Vanessa, please tell me you aren’t this stupid.” The calloused words rush out of my mouth before I can soften them.
Her gaze no longer veers away, it’s squarely on me now.
“Stupid?” she asks, her body rigid and preparing for battle.
“I didn’t mean that you are stupid.”
“Really? Because that’s what you said.”
I throw my hands up in the air. “I’m sorry, I’m just pissed off.”
“Stupid,” she murmurs to herself, her fingers knotting along one another.
I fall to my knees, my hands sliding between her legs to part them for me. “I really didn’t mean that. I’m just…it’s a bad idea is all. Please…forgive me.” My hands find their way to her hips and I lower my head to find her eyes. “Really, I didn’t mean…”
“He has pictures,” she whispers. Thank God she’s letting the stupid comment go, but what she says doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Pictures of?” The feeling of hot lava burns a trail down my throat to my stomach.
“Pictures of me in short dresses, men hovering over me with their hands close to my ass. Me counting stacks of money, handing it over to men. Serving drinks, lighting cigars…”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t let them touch me, but the pictures make it look like it’s possible. He said he’ll send them to my father and his superiors if I don’t do what he says.”
My head falls to my chest and my ass to my legs. Still sitting in front of her, I blow out a breath. I need to come up with a plan.
“I’ll just do it. He’ll pick me up on Wednesday night and I’ll be done on Sunday. It will be over and done with.”
I stand, running a hand through my hair.
“Do you honestly think I would let you go?”
“I don’t remember this being your decision.” She stands. “I’m not asking you to fix this, Cristian. I’m telling you out of courtesy because Lauren and Maddie thought I should. I can fix this myself and I plan to do just that.”
