by Naomi West
My talk with Patrizzio is brief. He’s obviously pissed that she’s chosen to go back to school with me by her side instead of stay at home where he can watch over her personally. He’s really fucked up with his kids over the years, but the shit he pulled with Dante and Clara is unforgivable. It seems obvious to me that he needs to apologize and try to make amends, not further manipulate Alessia and his sons into relationships with him. But what do I know? I’m just the help.
The two of us go over a detailed security plan for her while she’s at school. It includes me living in the same place as she does since I’ll be the only one with her. We’ll see what she thinks of that. Actually, I’m pretty sure she’s going to flip when she sees how tight he needs me to stick to her. But part of me knows he’s not wrong. I’ve met Greco before. He’s brutal. And he hates Patrizzio. I have no doubt what he’d do to Alessia if he got this hands on her. The thought makes me strangely anxious to get back out into the hallway to check on her. I end the meeting with Patrizzio and he gives me a handshake. One of the first he’s ever given me in our decade of working side by side.
“Take care of my daughter, Guinne.” His hand is like a vice on mine and his eyes are chips of flint in his aging face. It hits me how much he loves her.
I nod. “I will.”
I go back out into the hallway and Alessia is sitting right where I left her, typing something into her phone. She’s probably texting some limp dick boyfriend I’ll have to spend the year tailing alongside her. The thought makes my hands curl into fists and I’m not sure why. Of all the shit I’ve had to endure guarding Patrizzio, being a third wheel on a date would be a dream. I take a deep breath and approach her. She immediately tucks the phone away when she sees me and stands up, heading down toward the car.
“Clara packed up my things for me, so we can get on the road right away,” she says with such a note of defeat in her voice it turns my head. She hurries through the front hallway and outside as if she can’t stand to be in the house anymore.
“It won’t be as bad as you think,” I say as I jog forward to hold open the passenger side door for her.
She gives me a completely skeptical look. “I can’t imagine my father isn’t going to make this as difficult as possible for me.”
I watch her in surprise as she climbs up into the cab of the SUV. It was a surprisingly intuitive thought for someone who always seemed a little clueless to me. She always seems so spacey.
But she looks alert and aware and very sad as we drive through Chicago.
“Hey, you missed our exit.” She points back behind her at the exit to Dante’s apartment.
“We have to stop at my house first so that I can gather a few things.”
“You aren’t packed yet?” she asks in a sharp tone.
There’s the princess I’ve known for years. Always expecting things to be done the way she wants them and never making alterations for anybody.
“You’re not going to have to wait long, Cupcake,” I snap back at her.
“No, that’s not what I meant.” She shakes her shiny mane in frustration. “I meant to say that you didn’t know you were leaving today?”
I exit the highway and make the turn toward my house. “No, I didn’t.”
“He sprung it on you at the same moment he sprung it on me?” she exclaims, the indignity of it laces through her voice. “God, what an asshole.”
The heat in her voice surprises me and I grin at her choice of words. We lock eyes for a second as I pull the car into my driveway and for a second her eyes go wide at my smile, but she locks it down quick and turns away.
“This is your house?” she unbuckles and steps out.
“Fuck, Alessia.” I jump out of the car and, glancing around, pull her into my side. “Don’t be flashing yourself all over the place alright?” She stumbles as I hurry her along and I quickly right her, shoving her in my front door the second I have the security code plugged in. “Your father may be an asshole, but he wasn’t wrong about what the Grecos will do to you if they find you, all right?”
She nods stiffly and tugs away from me. She runs her hands over her arms as if she’s trying to erase the feeling of me touching her. I think again of whatever douchebag psych major boyfriend she probably lets touch her all over. I slam the door behind us.
“Sit,” I bark and point her toward the living room. I’m keyed up from her just jumping out of the car like that, and by the thought of trying to integrate myself into this child’s life.
Although she’s not a child anymore, I have to admit to myself as I watch her perch gracefully on the couch in my living room. She’s become a woman over the last few years. It shouldn’t come as a surprise considering how much all the guys on the security team have talked about her since she was about sixteen. But I never considered her much, she was too young, too ditzy. But looking at her now, lighting up my plain living room, her beauty is painfully obvious.
She’s short, but has a sort of Cleopatra thing going on. Her wide dark eyes are accompanied by long lashes and she’s got a mouth that could drive a man crazy if he thought about it too hard. Plump and painted dark red. Her olive skin is supple and looks beautiful against her black hair, both legacies of her Italian descent. She looks like an ancient goddess in jeans and high heeled boots.
I quickly turn away to go pack up my things. It doesn't take long. When I come out of my bedroom with my backpack slung over my back, I find her leaning over the collection of pictures on my wall, she traces her hand over a picture of my folks on their wedding day.
“Scotland?” She asks, gesturing to one of rolling green hills.
I nod. “That’s the plot of land my parents own.”
“You were born there?” she asks, surprise lacing her voice.
The afternoon light lances in through the shades and makes a pattern across her gorgeous face. She's wearing an expression I’ve never seen before. It's open, curious, friendly. Too familiar. She needs to learn right now that I’m not her friend. I’m a security feature. I never had this problem with Patrizzio. Part of me knows that I have to shut it down fast.
I shake my head and cross my arms over my chest. “Born in Chicago. Are we done with the twenty questions?”
And just like that, her face goes completely blank again. It’s the same spacey, confused expression she wore in her father's office, the same one I’m starting to have my suspicions about.
Chapter Three
Alessia
I firmly ignore the giant trailing behind me as I enter the classroom. At least he has the grace to sit away from me, in the back of the class. I’ve already informed all my professors of my ‘aid,’ but I’d like to keep his connection to me as murky as possible for all my peers.
He'd told me it wouldn't be as bad as I was thinking to have him around. But so far, it's been infinitely worse. I mentally kick myself for letting him convince me it would be any different. From the second we got my bags from Dante’s house Dare has been curating my every move.
Not that table at the library, too open.
Walk on this side of me.
Take a different route to class each time.
He even threw some food from the cafeteria in the trash because the server had gone back to the kitchen to get a new batch before I took mine. Like the Grecos are going to poison an entire cafeteria just to get to me.
But the worst example by far was finding out that my father had broken my lease on the little studio apartment I’d lived in and loved for the last two years. I lived in the dorm my first year and that was only doable because of my roommate, Rett Sinclair, one of the best friends I’ll ever have.
We moved out of the dorms together and both got studio apartments in this old townhouse we found. It was cute. It overlooked a playground and had an amazing deli around the corner. The front door was stained glass. I’d even painted the walls all sorts of homey colors. It was a little lonelier last year after Rett dropped out of school and moved back to Alabama. But still, I
loved that little apartment.
My father signed me into a lease for a sprawling four-bedroom condo with enough room for a family of twelve. It’s the penthouse in one of the new buildings that towers over the town. The only thing I like about it is that it’s big enough to give me space from the Scottish terminator.
I take a seat at the front of the class and surreptitiously glance behind me. He makes the classroom desk look like it was made for a toddler. His arms cross over his massive chest and his twelve foot legs stretch out before him. He stares back at me with that black hole stare. As usual, it stops the breath in my chest and I feel like I can't breathe.
I turn back around and think about the night we arrived back at school. When I’d realized that all my things had been moved out of my studio and into the prison condo.
“Alessia,” he snaps, “what the fuck are you doing?”
“Putting my bag in my room,” I answer dully.
“You're not sleeping in that closet.”
“It's not a closet, it's a bedroom!”
“Whatever. This is your bedroom.” He kicks open the door of a spacious master bedroom with a king-sized bed and a corner view of the town beneath us.
I gape in horror at the red velvet drapes over the four poster. It's obviously been decorated by my father.
“Over my dead fucking body,” I snap, completely incensed at how deeply his intrusion into my life goes. I march into the closet room and try to slam the door behind me, but he easily shoulders through it. Before I can even make a peep, he picks me up in one hand and my bag in the other. He tosses me over his shoulder. Exactly the way he did when he dragged me from the classroom my freshman year. I smell his soap again.
He strides into the hideous master bedroom and tosses me down on the bed. I fall, bouncing and spread on the bed. His nostrils flare as his eyes quickly rove over my body. His stare is as black as ever but this time there's something new in it. Heat.
I rear up onto my knees and the bed is so high that we’re practically eye to eye this way.
“You can't make me sleep in this cage,” I try to snap but it comes out as more of a whisper.
Something flickers across his face that I can barely identify. If it had been on anyone else's face, I would have thought it was sympathy.
But then he takes a step back. “Yes, Alessia,” he says, his voice low and deadly. “I can.”
He slams the door on his way out.
I rub my eyes and attempt to wipe the memory away, trying to get my brain to focus on the class that’s about to start. I’m so tired I feel like my body is a thousand pounds. I haven’t been able to sleep almost at all in that horrible four poster bed. It reminds me too much of my father. The blood red curtains make me toss and turn, thinking of the figurative blood that has soaked his hands over the years. After five nights of almost zero sleep I’m ready to crash.
I lean my chin on my hand and let my eyes close for just a second as the graduate student, who is leading the class, projects a copy of the syllabus on the whiteboard.
“This semester we’re going to have three different papers due. All of which are going to deal with certain aspects of ethics in the-”
A loud scraping noise has me snapping my head straight and I feel a warm hand on my shoulder. The boy next to me is gently propping me up. I blush straight to my hairline as I realize I’ve dozed off onto his shoulder. I quickly glance back at Dare who’s jumped up from the desk and is glaring at me. The scraping sound must have been the legs of his desk as he stood. I snap back forward and am beyond relieved to see our instructor has kept on as if nothing happened.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to the boy.
“Don’t apologize for what has absolutely been the best part of my day,” he whispers back, grinning.
My stomach flips as I take in his full smile. He has sandy blonde hair and light blue eyes. He wears a Michigan T-shirt and a backwards baseball cap. Not my usual type, but definitely very cute.
“Long night?” he asks when the instructor starts passing out papers for each of us.
“Endless,” I reply, thinking of the hours of tossing and turning in my new dreaded bedroom. “I’m in a new place this year and I haven’t been sleeping well there.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Well, you seemed to sleep pretty well against my shoulder, so I’m free tonight if you need a pillow.”
My mouth drops open at the same time he covers his eyes.
“Wow. I did not mean that the way it came out,” he mutters.
His complete mortification has me lowering my guard and I toss him a smile. “How else could you have possibly meant that?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his eyes still covered. He waves his other hand through the air. “You’re so pretty it got me all flustered.”
I smile even more and feel my stomach flip. “Are you gonna look at me ever again?” I ask as I accept the papers the instructor is handing to me. I take his too because he can’t see anything beyond his hand.
“No, it’s safer like this,” he says and I laugh.
“I’m Alessia,” I say.
He lowers his hand, his cheeks still vaguely pink.
“Chris,” he says and holds his hand out to me.
We shake hands briefly and I feel my heart skip a little.
“You wanna grab lunch after this?” he asks. “Maybe try and figure out how the hell we’re gonna make it through this?” He holds up the syllabus and I laugh again.
“I guess it would be nice to have a study buddy,” I say and from the back of the room I hear Dare cough loudly.
“Uh, yeah. Totally,” Chris says, his brow slightly furrowed.
The instructor calls the class to order but my mind zooms forward to my lunch with Chris. My day suddenly doesn’t look quite so bleak.
Chapter Four
Alessia
When the words on the page of my textbook start to blur together I know it’s time for bed. I’m utterly exhausted. With all the sleep deprivation, it’s a holy miracle I even made it this far into the night.
My phone buzzes underneath me and I dig it out from between the couch cushions.
How’s it going, goody two shoes?
I smile at the text from Dante. He’s usually so protective over me, but he’s been giving me space lately. Weirdly, I think it actually gives him peace of mind that Dare is watching over me, even if he’s my father’s puppet. I smile and text him back.
You mean besides the fact that my rights as an American citizen are being infringed 24/7? Scottish Terminator is keeping a pretty tight leash, huh?
I think back on the way he glowered at me as I ate lunch with that kid from my class.
Yeah, he’s taking this whole thing very seriously.
Dante texts back immediately and his answer makes me frown.
Good. It’s serious.
Maybe it is serious. But I’m sick of being under Dad’s thumb. I just want to be free.
I almost consider not sending the text, but I watch as my thumb brushes the screen. The text flies off. Dante texts back immediately. And I have no idea what to think about it.
I’m working on it, two shoes.
Working on what? A plan to get free of our father? Not possible. Fabrici Patrizzio is one of the most powerful men in the country. He’s got politicians in his pocket. Policemen owing him favors. He’s got eyes and ears everywhere. Plus, the man is ruthless. There is no getting free of him.
I go to stand up but find that my feet won’t let me get up. I’m additionally exhausted just thinking about my father. The thought of another night in that hellish room turns my stomach. I close my eyes for a minute.
When I open them again, my body is on fire. It must be a million degrees in my room. Looking down, I realize I fell asleep in my clothes. I rip my shirt off over my head and shimmy out of my pants. That’s better. The cool air hits my skin and I roll over in bed, trying to get comfortable again. The sheets feel rougher than normal but my tired body do
esn’t give it a second thought.
I stretch my hand out and am surprised when it hits something warm and hard. I run my open hand over the chest of a man. I jolt when I realize that it’s Dare. In my bed. Next to me. Naked.
I’m shocked when it doesn’t feel weird or foreign. He’s looking at me like he’s used to touching his naked skin to mine. His mouth quirks up into a smile as he runs one hand through my hair. It falls like a waterfall through his fingers and the ends cascade over my sensitized skin. His eyes fall to my lips and his casual smile evaporates. Suddenly I’m on my back and all I can see is his face as he kneels over me, caging me in with one arm on either side of my head.