Page 5 of The Sound of Silence

We’d been so close, I could have reached out and touched her, but had refrained. It wasn’t the right time, even if I knew the truth. She couldn’t hide it from me. I could see it in her eyes.

She wanted me as much as I wanted her.

What we had right from our very first moment together was real. True. Authentic.

She changed my life.

She was the reason I didn’t find an alternate, less putrid location for what had come to be the home for my most sacred belongings. Instead, I continued to renew the lease every six months to stay close to my girl—my Gia—at all times.

“My Gia,” I whispered as I inserted the key into the doorknob of the flat. She was different from the others. She was special. After more than two years of watching, learning, and biding my time, I had finally moved to ‘friend’ zone. If all went as planned, it wouldn’t be long before she was officially mine.

All mine.

No more fucking my mattress. No more watching her through a telephoto lens. She would be with me always.

I flipped on the overhead light and closed the door behind me. Pausing at the small table next to the door, I looked down upon the statue of the Virgin Mother, surrounded by seven unlit votive candles inside little red glass jars. Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth were artfully etched into the glass of each jar. A framed photo of my own mother sat beside the Virgin, their presence here giving life to an otherwise lifeless room.

“Hello, Mother.” I lit the candle that represented lust, then leaned down to kiss my mother’s portrait. “I had a very interesting day today. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”

I smiled when I thought about how pleased she would be to hear my news, then stepped away from the table. Walking passed the threadbare couch and large fish tank that covered the far wall, I headed to the kitchen pantry. Opening the door, I slid open the fake wooden wall hidden behind a few boxes of dried pasta to reveal a combination lock safe. I spun the dial until the cams aligned and I could open the latch. Removing the duffel bag from my shoulder, I unzipped it and removed my take from the day’s bust.

The department seized fifty-two thousand in cash and sixty-eight pounds of cocaine in a raid today—or at least that’s what they bragged about to the local newspapers. Little did they know, I skimmed fifteen grand and a brick off the top.

I didn’t sniff the stuff personally—drugs clouded the mind, and intoxication led to sin. However, the street value for one brick was over thirty thousand. I never knew when I might need a bunch of cash in a pinch, and I just happened to have the connections to move it.

Did that make me a dirty cop? I didn’t think so. As far as I was concerned, it was my right. If the other cops in my unit didn’t think to do the same, that was their loss. We put our lives in jeopardy every day because of the scum who roamed the street—and the paychecks we received to do it were a joke. For me, it was a matter of survival, whereas the dealers and the traffickers were driven by greed. It was the deadliest of all cardinal sins but I had faith in Him. He would not let them go unpunished if they didn’t repent.

“Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished,but the offspring of the righteous will be delivered,” I recited, having committed Proverbs 11:21 to memory years ago while still under my mother’s teachings in the White Room.

After the cash and plastic-wrapped brick were placed neatly inside, I locked the safe and put everything back to the way it had been. Walking to the corkboard hanging on the wall above the rickety kitchen table, I smiled and pulled a pin from one of the pictures I’d placed there a few months back. It was one of my favorite pictures of Gianna and I didn’t even have to use the zoom on my Nikon D850. I’d caught this one with my cell phone.

The sun and slight breeze had caught her blonde hair just right. When she raised a hand to push a wisp of it from her forehead, a shadow cast in a such a way that she appeared to have a halo. That was the moment I’d captured the photo. Who knew the iPhone camera could be so good?

She had been heading to work fifteen minutes before the start of her shift. I recalled thinking she’d be getting to work much too early, but that was just her way—always punctual and hard working.

I scowled. She was too good for a place like Teddy’s Tavern and all the drunks who harassed her every night. The asshole who bothered her tonight should be thanking his lucky stars. It didn’t matter if I’d set him up to do it, he’d gone too far.

I should have killed him for what he did to my girl.

I sighed and shook my head, knowing I’d have to repent for even thinking about going against one of His most important teachings, “Thou shall not kill.”

Be steadfast. It won’t be long now.

She’d officially be my girl soon enough, and I would no longer have to bear the burden of coveting what wasn’t mine. When that happened, she wouldn’t have to work at Teddy’s anymore. I would take care of her. She would be all mine, and my sins shall be forgiven.

I pinned the picture back on the corkboard alongside the rest. My gaze scanned the many images of her covering the board. I knew every single one of them by heart. She was so beautiful and she didn’t even know it, but it wasn’t because she was insecure.

No, not my girl.

She didn’t know it because she was unassuming. She was even beautiful when she was sad, as she had been when her mother died. Others didn’t see it, but I did. She looked so tired in the pictures taken during that time. The sparkle in her eyes had been absent.

I raised a hand to one of the sadder pictures and ran a finger over the outline of her cheek. The skies above her were gloomy as she stood over her mother’s grave. I knew how upset she had been. I’d read about it on her Instagram account—long, descriptive captions underneath picture after picture of my girl with her mother. It was a tragedy, really.

“I wish I could have helped you then but I will soon. You won’t have to worry about those medical bills for much longer. I’ll take care of everything. I know it’s hard, but you’ll see. I’ve been in your shoes. Your mother’s death was for the best.” I paused and glanced at the picture of my mother before looking back to Gianna’s image. “Mothers complicate things and I don’t want any complications for us.”

Cancer was a horrific disease but I understood He worked in mysterious ways. Everything happened for a reason. My mother was gone as well. To me, the death of Gianna’s mother only strengthened the connection between me and my girl. We were both motherless souls, too old to be young and had nobody to love us as we once did. It was another a sign of how she and I were meant to be together—a sign she was meant to be my girl.

I glanced down at my watch and noted the time.

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