Page 11 of The #2 Guy

5

Christine

My hands tremble as I turn on the jets. Just when I had become accepting of my life in the cellar—he came. I still can’t wrap my head around it. I thought for sure he was dead. That the mob put a hit on him for falling for me. I was so close to putting him and Salvatore away. But Salvatore was never my prize. Johnny was. I lied to my bosses, hid my truth. My revenge against the Lamatti’s was personal and had nothing to do with my sworn oath of my badge. But the way his hands felt on my skin. The way he commanded me with his kiss… or the way his brow would furrow while trying to solve Sudoku on Sunday mornings while we both sipped dark roast… those are the things I wasn’t counting on. The damn, stupid fool really fell for me. And for a moment I was free falling too. I let myself forget for the moments I soared while pinned under him until my brother reminded me with autopsy pictures what was at stake if I failed. My mother was Irish and my father the one with Italian blood and connections to Sicily.

Jack.

My head hangs. He believes they won. That I’m a ghost. I suppose in a way I am. If I escape Johnny, I doubt I’ll make it far unless I can get to a Fed safehouse. I try not to crumble under the hot spray as I remember my keeper. He kept me prisoner, but he was kind.

“Be strong. Get out of this. You are a survivor.” I wash my hair that’s now down my back wondering just what kind of sweet torture Johnny has in mind. I need to throw him off his game. I could seduce the fuck out of him and hope to escape when he’s asleep somehow. Or kill him. I could break a glass, knock him out. I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t kill him. I just can’t. Turning off the taps, I grab a towel and venture into the bedroom. With my towel firmly tucked around me I try the door. Just as I had suspected he locked it from the outside, on my bed are piles of new clothes. Soft, clean, and warm. My fingers run over the softest pair of jeans, but I just can’t. I won’t be his dressed up and kept whore. Held prisoner for my crimes against his heart when he’s the legit criminal here. Not me. I pick up my old clothes, giving them a good shake before squaring my shoulders and rapping on my side of the door. “You can let me out now.” I press my palm flat against the door, bowing my head when I hear the deep rumble of his voice coming from the other side. “You gonna be a good girl? My good girl?” That’s what he used to call me in more playful moments.

My voice cracks when I answer. “I can’t promise you that. I can’t promise you anything,” I answer truthfully. The lock unclicks and when I open my eyes, his are right in front of me.

“Why? Why baby? We were so good together. Why couldn’t you just come clean to me and change your mind?” He bites his lip as if his words pain him. My eyes shutter remembering the way he tasted. He’s also freshly showered, and the delicious smell of his skin has me biting back a moan of my own. This man could undo me, and I always knew it.

“You killed my parents.” My words erase the web of desire building between us. His face twists into crisscrosses of lines. Worry fills his eyes. I want to melt. Melt straight into a man who almost made me forget my purpose when I soared in his arms. He’s so big. Warm and strong. I often pretended to be someone else when I was with him. I could sleep nestled in his embrace for hours, sated and content. The damn oaf cherished me and in return I broke him. “I was twelve and you were sixteen. I know it was you.”

“Is that what this is about then?”

I lift my chin.

“Come,” he gently takes my hand. “We’ll eat. Talk… sort this out…”

“Sort this out? You killed my family in cold blood. There’s nothing to sort out except for you to turn yourself in and let me go back to my life.”

“There’s no going back. There’s still a price on your head.” He tugs me forward, but I feel heavy; my heart is full of concrete.

“There’s no way out of this, is there?”

His head turns over his shoulder, “Just take my hand for now. Right now, in this moment… we are okay.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

He doesn’t respond as I despondently follow him down the stairs through stunning rooms decorated in soft grays with touches of pastels and into a large homey kitchen. The kind you immediately feel at home in. He pours me a steaming mug of coffee and puts a homemade roasted turkey sandwich in front of me. I take a whiff. “Fresh baked bread?”

He shrugs. “Uber eats. The woman who runs this place owns a café in town as well.”

“You didn’t kill her?”

He shrugs, “Nah. I just hogtied her and put her in the basement after she handed over the food.”

I push my plate away. “I can’t eat this.”

“Babe. I’m kidding.”

His easy banter and the way he rakes his hand through his hair makes me nostalgic. We used to share so many comfortable small moments like this. “Well in that case…,” I move the plate back in front of me.

“I know I’m no one’s first choice,” he sighs. “Women always came to me to be part of something… a VIP club scene. Or for the thrill of having me as their lover. My power was a turn on. But you—dammit I just wanted you to want me for me. You really fucked me up and now I just don’t know what to do with you.”

He looks so broken and vulnerable it’s hard to hate him. “I can’t get past murder.”

“Is Christine even your real name? I can’t confess to something without knowing all the facts.”

“It is. But my last name is Vitelli.”

He presses a hand to his eyes. “Geno Vitelli’s daughter?”

I nod.

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