Bend: A Dark Mafia Romance

by B. B. Hamel

  “Much better,” she said.

  “Good.” I looked at the rope and then back at her. “I’m willing to leave that off if you’re going to play nice.”

  “Are you sure you trust me?”

  “Not at all.” I grinned at her. “But let’s find out anyway.”

  “Works for me.”

  “Come on.”

  I walked past her and she followed me back into the main room of the apartment. I pulled out the kitchen chair for her and she sat down as I went into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee.

  She watched me while I cooked breakfast, the same breakfast I’d been making for her every day. I made scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon, because it was pretty much the only thing I knew how to make.

  “Why do you cook every day?” she asked me. “You could just give me cereal or something.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m a bad jailer.”

  She smiled. “I guess so.”

  I frowned down at the eggs as I moved them in the pan. “Truth is, I figured I can give you small comforts, at least. Make you decent food. Even if I couldn’t let you be free.”

  “I understand.”

  The coffee finished just as I plated the eggs and the bacon. I poured two mugs, placed one in front of her, finished plating breakfast, placed it all in front of her, and finally sat down.

  She dug into the food with her knife and fork. It was probably a bad idea to give her a knife, but fuck it. It was blunt and she was half my size. Plus, I was going to treat her like a person this morning no matter what, even if it was stupid.

  “Where did you go to school?” I asked her as we ate.

  “Girl’s High in the city and then Temple,” she said.

  “So you’ve been a city girl your whole life?”

  “You know that.”

  I smiled at her. “I know. I just want to hear you talk about it.”

  A small smile came across her face. She told me about growing up with her family, about going to school, about her friends, about college. I was particularly interested in college, since that was the one thing I wished I had gotten to do, even though I never told anybody that. When I said that to her, she laughed.

  “College isn’t so great.”

  “College is freedom. You have no responsibility.”

  “You still have class.”

  “But you party all the time.”

  “Not everyone does. A lot of the worst party people end up dropping out.”

  “Still. I wish I had gotten that chance.”

  “Why not go? You’re not too old.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “I didn’t finish high school. Plus, I’m a fucking mobster, Jodie. I can’t go to college.”

  She frowned. “Sorry.”

  “It’s cool. Tell me more about it.”

  So she talked about the parties she went to, about her classes, about sitting near the bell tower and feeding squirrels from her hand. It sounded fun and idyllic and strange, everything I never got to experience.

  Instead, my life was all violence, drugs, and fucking. I lived fast and that was all I knew how to do. Jodie lived a totally different way, despite us coming from really similar places, although she didn’t even know about her father.

  She finished eating and we ended up just sitting at the table and talking. We talked about everything, about her life, about my life, and we shared wild stories. I told her some of the craziest things that had happened to me in the mob, and she told me about her wild college friends.

  Three hours and another pot of coffee passed that way. By the end of it, I felt like we were having a normal fucking conversation. I forgot all about the fucking prison room I was keeping her in and about the people that were going to want to kill us when I finally figured out how to save her life.

  I checked the time and sighed. She frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to go out and do some things.”

  She nodded, her face neutral. “I see.”

  “I need to put you back.”

  “Okay. I get it.”

  “This is temporary.”

  “I know, Dante.”

  “I just . . . “ I trailed off, looking away.

  “It’s okay.” She stood up. “Come on.”

  I stood up and took her by the arm. I led her back to the room, though she didn’t fight or struggle or try to pull away. She walked right back in and sat down on her mattress.

  “Hold on,” I said, and walked into my room. I opened my sock drawer and dug through it, finally finding this old shitty paperback novel. I went back to the room and tossed it to her. “That’s some bad romance thing by a lady named Riley Rollins. I think it’s about motorcycles or some shit. Anyway, some girl left it here a while ago.”

  “Looks pretty great,” Jodie said, laughing.

  “Yeah, who knows? I don’t read that stuff.”

  “You should. The sex is always hot in them.”

  I grinned at her. “I knew you’d read it for the sex.”

  She blushed and looked away. “Anyway, thanks.”

  “I’ll be back later.”

  She looked back up at me. “You’re not going to tie my wrists and gag me?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not going to. You know that if you scream and we get busted, my employers will find you and kill you. They’ll fucking kill me too, most likely. So keep us both alive and don’t scream.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I’ll be back.” I turned away and left, shutting the door behind me.

  I leaned up against it for a second, not sure what the fuck I was doing. It was a huge risk leaving her without a gag like that, but I couldn’t help myself. I was going to treat her like a fucking person, and I had to stop thinking of her as a prisoner. I was going to save her, not keep her.

  I still needed to make her submit. But I had a feeling that she already had. She just didn’t know it yet.

  Chapter 15

  Jodie

  It was my chance to escape.

  This wasn’t going to come around again, or at least I can’t be sure that it will. He left the apartment and didn’t tie me up or gag me, which meant that I was free to get away. He didn’t know about the window, or else I was sure he would have fixed it or tied me up.

  I stared at the wood, standing in front of it, gathering my nerve. For some reason, I wasn’t jumping all over this chance. I was internally pretending that I was just waiting to make sure that he was really gone before I tried anything, but that wasn’t really what was going on.

  I kept thinking about the way he was treating me. At first, when I first came to his apartment, he acted like the asshole bastard jailer I thought he was. But soon it became clear that he was much more than that, wanted much more than that from me. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I was coming to figure it out.

  Dante wasn’t the man I assumed he was. He began to show me peeks into his inner self, and at first I denied them. I didn’t want to see them, even if I was drawn to his body. I wanted him to fuck me, make me feel good, but I didn’t care about who he was.

  That started to change, slowly but surely, until this morning I finally got a glimpse of who he was. Dante wasn’t just some rapist and murderer, he was a man with a hard past that found the mafia through pain and suffering. They took him in when nobody else would, and he had a hard time turning his back on that. He was loyal, and that was a good trait in a man.

  He didn’t want to do what he was doing to the point where he was willing to turn his back on everything that he cared about and believed for so long. He was willing to do that for me, for someone he barely knew. He took me out of my prison and treated me like a person for the first time since we met, and it felt so damn good.

  Just getting a shower felt incredible. It’s easy to forget how amazing it feels to shower after not showering for a few days, especially when not showering wasn’t your choice. I felt clean and like a real person for the first time since all of this happ
ened. It’s amazing how little things can go so far to make you feel like a normal, respected person and not just some prisoner.

  I stared at the wood, transfixed, not able to move. I knew I should tear it off and get the hell out of there, but something was holding me back. Something was keeping me from escaping.

  Maybe it was the fact that he was trusting me. Or maybe it was his warning, that if I escaped and ran away, the mafia would hunt me down anyway and he’d likely end up dead alongside me.

  Maybe I was a naïve idiot, but I believed him. I also believed that he planned on getting me out of this situation and that he wasn’t going to sell me into sex slavery. I had no real reason to do that, except for the moment when he protected me from his friend. He could have easily let his friend rape me and do whatever he wanted with me, but instead Dante went out on a limb to keep me safe. That was a huge deal and even happened before he seemed sure he was going to save me.

  I walked forward to the wood, mind raging with questions and uncertainty. Could I really put my trust in this man? He was an exceptional man, but he was still a violent mobster that killed my family and kept me prisoner. Could I really give in to him and trust that he was going to take care of me?

  I grasped the wood with both hands and held it there. This was the moment. This was when I had to choose. Either freedom or confinement, freedom or trust. I pulled, bending the wood toward me. I felt it stretch and pull, hitting its breaking point.

  If I snapped this, it would be all over. There would be no going back. I would have to escape or else risk him seeing the broken wood and getting angry with me. He was placing his trust in me, and if I tried to escape anyway that would be a betrayal.

  I didn’t owe this man anything. He was my captive.

  He was my protector. He didn’t choose for this to happen to me. If I had been given to someone else, this would be so much worse.

  He killed my family.

  They were monsters.

  He’s a total stranger.

  He’s Dante, the man that makes eggs and bacon and toast because he doesn’t know how to make anything else.

  He wants to me submit to him. He wants me down on my knees, giving myself to him.

  I want to submit so, so badly.

  Slowly, I released the wood, putting it back into place then collapsed onto the ground, staring up at the ceiling.

  I was making a huge mistake. Or maybe I was saving myself. Either I was dead or I wasn’t, and the only way to find out was to let this whole thing keep going. I could still stand up and break that wood, get out that window, maybe hurt myself on the drop or maybe not, but I wasn’t going to and I knew it. I made up my mind the second I got down on the floor

  I was putting myself in Dante’s hands. I was going to trust him and pray that he was exactly the man he said he was.

  I was going to submit to him because I wanted it more than I could explain.

  Slowly the day faded, turning into night, and still Dante hadn’t come home.

  I was beginning to worry. Maybe something happened to him and he was never coming back. Maybe I wasted my only chance at escape and his mafia friends were already on their way to rape and kill me.

  I paced the room, not sure what to think. He’d never left me alone for so long before, and I was going stir-crazy. I missed the sound of him in the other room, missed the soft drone of the television giving my day some extra shape.

  I had no clue what time it was when I finally heard the front door open and shut. I wanted to scream and hide as fear lanced through me. I pictured ten big, mean mafia men coming into my room and dragging me off to a short, brutal life.

  The eyehole slid open. His gorgeous blue eyes looked in at me. “Jodie,” he said.

  “Where were you?”

  “I was given a job. Kept me a lot longer than I expected.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. You hungry?

  I nodded. “Starving.”

  “Come on.” He opened the door. Tentatively I stepped out and followed him back into the kitchen. “I have to be honest, I didn’t expect you to still be here.”

  I blinked at him, surprised. “What?”

  “The wood over the window. I know you nearly have it broken off.”

  I stopped still, fear pooling in me once again. “You do?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because I wanted you to make up your own mind. If you ran, well, I’d figure it out. But you stayed.”

  “I guess so.”

  He turned to me, crossing his arms. “Why?”

  “Why?” I echoed. “I don’t know. I’m stupid, maybe.”

  “Or maybe you know what you really want.”

  “Right now, I really want something to eat.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Coming right up. Sit down.”

  I took a seat. He uncorked a bottle of wine and poured me a glass. I sipped it, shocked at how good it tasted and drank it greedily. He laughed.

  “Slow down there,” he said.

  “Sorry. I just . . . “

  “There will be more wine,” he said softly, pouring me another small glass.

  I nodded, feeling silly. He saw right through me. I wanted to drink it fast because I didn’t know if there would be another glass after that. I couldn’t help myself.

  He put a can of soup on the stove and heated it up for me. “Sorry there’s not more,” he said. “I didn’t have time to grocery shop today.”

  “That’s okay. I like chicken noodle soup.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “It’s comfort food.”

  He laughed. “It’s my childhood, basically. My mom didn’t really cook back then so she made me a lot of chicken noodle soup. I always have a can of it in the cupboard.”

  “Nothing beats the condensed stuff.”

  “Right? They try and make it fancy, but I really just want this condensed crap.”

  “Where the noodles are super soft.”

  “And there’s really no chicken.”

  “There’s some in there!”

  “Sure. Tiny bits. A pittance of chicken.”

  I found myself smiling and feeling normal again, the thought process of earlier completely erased from my mind.

  He poured the soup into a bowl and placed it in front of me with a spoon. He sat down across from me as I ate it greedily, surprised at how hungry I was.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked him

  “Ate earlier, on the job. Sorry about not leaving you something. I really didn’t know I’d be gone for so long.”

  “What was the job?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want to know?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “Unless you did something horrible.”

  “No, nothing too bad this time.” He leaned back, smirking at me. “There’s this junkie guy, this long-term user that lives out near the main line.”

  “That’s a nice area. Not exactly inner city.”

  “I know, right? He’s high functioning, or at least we thought he was. The guy owes the mafia a lot of money it turns out, and he hasn’t been paying up lately.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “I went out to collect.”

  “Did you . . . “ I trailed off, not able to say it.

  “Kill him?” he finished for me. “No, we didn’t. Dead men can’t pay their debts. We rarely kill people for owing us money. No, it’s much better to hurt them a lot and promise to hurt them some more. Much more effective.”

  I nodded, not sure what I expected. It wasn’t as bad as I was thinking, but it was still pretty bad.

  “Are most of the guys you hurt junkies?”

  “Some,” he said. “Some are just stupid suburban dads that get in too deep. They don’t usually need to be hurt too bad. Threats work with them sometimes. You learn how to motivate people in my line of work.”

  “You seem like a regular motivational speake
r.”

  He laughed, grinning at me. “Yeah, exactly. People come from all over to hear me speak.”

  “Do you ever feel bad for them?” I asked him.

  “No,” he said simply. “I don’t.”

  “Why? They’re just people that made mistakes.”

  “Maybe,” he said, frowning for a second. “I get that. But they’re people that got involved with men like me. There’s no doubt in my mind that they knew exactly what they were getting into when they borrowed money from us, or made a bet with us, or whatever they fucking did. So yeah, they made a mistake, and if they pay when they should and play by the rules, we’re good to them. It’s only the guys that try and rip us off that I pay a visit to.”

  I nodded, finishing my soup. I ate that faster than I thought I could and felt so much better. I sat back in my chair, sipping my wine, smiling with the pleasurable buzz of a full stomach plus delicious alcohol.

  “So you’re some big bad enforcer?”

  “Something like that.” He laughed, shaking his head. “People have funny ideas about the mob. We don’t resort to violence if we can avoid it since that shit is messy. We’re a business above all else, you know.”

  “You don’t resort to violence?” I asked him. “That’s surprising to me.”

  He went quiet then, the amusement gone from his face. It took him a minute before he started speaking again, and I could see the painful regret clear in his expression.

  “You have to understand about your family, Jodie. I’m not saying this to hurt you, but your father was a bad man. We tried negotiating, we tried bribing, we even fucking tried to make an ally out of him. He refused to play nice. We did what we had to do.”

  “And me? Stealing me and keeping me as a sex slave?”

  “That’s not right,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t do that shit. Or we never did before.”

  “I want to believe you.”

  “I know you do. It’s why you’re still here.”

  “I’m afraid, Dante.”

  “I know.” He stood up and walked around the table, looming over me. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  He took me by the hand and I stood. I followed him back through his apartment and into his bedroom. He walked over to his bed and lifted up the mattress, shifting it to one side, and pointed at the box spring.