Page 27 of Forbidden Property
He’ll probably still want to draw me with my legs spread open to add to my humiliation. He can never let those sessions go by without making some inappropriate comment about my body or skin color. I don’t know why the hell Renzo thinks I want to hold his hand. But I squeeze his hand back–only out of instinct.
“If we’re free, why do you have a gun?”
A distorted voice emerges from the masked bodyguard.
“Miss Taviani’s orders.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Not important. I will leave the house in five minutes. You two will be here surrounded by armed guards outside the perimeter, but otherwise with complete access to all the resources you need for survival. In two days, Nicki and her lawyer will bring over the rest of the documents along with legal representation for the two of you.”
He has a strange accent. I can tell even with the distortion. It sounds almost like a Philadelphia accent but a bit weirder. I don’t know if Renzo detects the accent, or if it’s an important detail. Renzo levels his gaze with the armed guard, but appears to accept our circumstances.
We both signed the contracts “No Retaliation Clause”. I didn’t know Renzo honored his word this much, but he doesn’t grab the gun and get us both killed like I secretly feared that he would.
“Perfect,” Renzo says. “Does Nicki have my car?”
“Your car is outside, fitted with a device that requires a code from Nicki for your key to work.”
“Who the fuck authorized this?”
He doesn’t actually answer my question. He just says, “Sorry, man.”
“It’s fine,” Renzo snaps bitterly. “You’re just a worthless rat doing a job.”
Renzo pushes his luck by using the word “rat” as an insult. It’s one of the first things Nicki taught me about her family. We were kids and she warned me that I was tonevercasually use that word in her house or it would send her family into a fit. One of our other friends screwed up at a sleepover once in middle school and her mom almost fainted.
We might be prisoners, but Renzo must still have some power because the bodyguard doesn’t respond at all to the direct challenge. Within five minutes, he’s gone just like he promisedand I’m alone with Renzo again for another two days with more “freedom” within our fancy prison.
Like the guard promised, there’s no sign of Nicki for two whole days.
When Nicki returns, I refuse to leave my position in Renzo’s reading chair to greet her in the living room. I don’t want to talk to Nicki. I want to read Ali Hazelwood’sThe Love Hypothesisin this chair and pretend that I’m not pregnant with my best friend’s brother’s baby.
I’m pretty sure that I’m off the hook when Renzo returns to his bedroom with a sheepish look on his face. Renzo doesn’t have the capacity to be genuinely sheepish.
“What do you want?”
He walks over to me and starts rubbing my shoulders. This doesn’t make Renzo come off as endearing as he thinks. But he finds the knots in my shoulders perfectly to physically assist him with manipulating me.
“Nicki wants to talk with you to repair your relationship.”
“I’m reading,” I respond, trying not to moan as Renzo hits and removes my knots with deft fingers. He’s such an asshole.
“I can see that,” he says impatiently, quickly stifling his impatience because he apparently needs me. “But Nicki is sad.”
“You don’t give a shit about that.”
“I don’t,” Renzo says. “But I’m trying to strategize, mop girl…”
There it is. That stupid degrading insult falls so easily from his lips. He says it with such a sneering tone that makes what might otherwise sound ridiculous cut my spirit deeply. I know Renzo genuinely considers himself above other people, and it’s uncomfortable to sit with the knowledge that I allowed this man to enter me and knock me up.
It doesn’t matter that I was under duress. Ultimately, I did this for money. For my future. For a legacy. The odds of a woman from my background leaving poverty are… miniscule. This is my one chance at the lottery. Nicki might be right that this is life changing money, but this wasn’t her choice to make.
She took my autonomy and I can’t forgive that overnight. I might not ever forgive her for tying me to Renzo Taviani for the rest of my life. She believes this experience will soften her brother, but I’m nowhere near that naive. Hatred doesn’t change overnight. Babies don’t change hatred. Nothing changes hatred. There’s no cure for it. Nicki might want to believe the best about her brother, but it’s hopeless.
At least when it’s all said and done, I’ll get money. I’ll get my law degree. Maybe I’ll even work forPlant, Parker & Nigel, LLC, the biggest Black-owned law firm in Buffalo, New York. I’ll provide for this baby, so when Renzo inevitably wakes up from his sex haze and remembers that he hates me and Black people as a whole… I won’t need him.
Single mothers fall in love all the time. If love is meant to happen for me, it will. It always bothered Nicki that I made it out of my teens without losing my virginity. She took it personally that I didn’t share her sexual escapades. I shared with her how much it hurt to not have any guy I liked ever like me back. Did Nicki somehow interpret that to mean that I wanted her to set me up?
