by Adams, Evie
His arms found my hips again, and he whispered in my ear, “Come to bed, you'll see it's okay, we'll figure something out.”
“Unless you force me, it won't happen.”
“Then you better hope, I have some control.”
I heard the door slam on the hinges as he walked out.
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CHAPTER 16 - NICO
I didn't accept her solution, but if I were to ever sell the house and the club, the house needed to be fixed.
The floors squeaked and the bathrooms were a mess and everything needed major repairs.
I tried my best. I went to the hardware store and got some of everything, but it was still a struggle.
I thought it would be a nice way to pass the time, to forget about the struggle with Mina, take out my frustrations doing hard work, but the house was still a mess. One of the bathrooms stopped working altogether and I wanted to burn the place down.
She caught me cursing at the sink that wouldn't stop leaking even after I took it apart.
“You know Benny is a handyman. A contractor really. He keeps the lights and pretty much everything else working in the club, I bet he could help.”
“Are you purposefully trying to annoy me? You won't fuck me and now you want to replace me with a man who can figure this fucking sink out?”
“I was only trying to help,” she said.
I stood up and walked towards her, “Helping me would be fucking me, not denying me that. Helping me would be trusting that I would never let any harm come to you, no matter from who, no matter what it took.”
She stood there and looked away. The argument had been on my mind since we left it in her room. And on hers too it seemed. A million things needed to be said.
“Helping me would be not mentioning his name. He wants you, you know. And you want me to bring him into my house. He's already in the club and that tests my will enough.” I stared into her eyes, my arm on the wall, leaving her no escape, no turning around or avoiding me, avoiding this.
“You would torture him to bring him here. Torture me. He wants you, but he'll find out you are mine, even if you don't know it yet.” I kissed her, to test her. To prove it to her. She didn't resist. She couldn't pretend to resist. Her lips parted and she kissed me back, she placed her hand on my back as our tongues intertwined.
My hand followed the curve of her back, my god I wanted her.
With a whimper, she said, “please don't”, but her arms were still around me.
I lifted her up, and she whimpered again, she bit my lip, and I placed her down on the floor, her hair tumbled behind her, and I paused to look at her.
Beautiful, lovely, tormented, her eyes sparkled, and her face twisted, she was vulnerable, and she was mine.
Her back curved up as I swept across her chest and put my mouth on her neck.
Her legs opened up for me, and I tore myself away from her neck and went down, looking up at her. She opened her thighs as I peppered kisses on her navel and below.
Her hands were on my head, twisting my hair in her fingers as I went further down. The she pulled me away, “I can't we can't,” she said and turned over, I held her, in my arms as she turned away, held her close to me, so she could feel me on her.
She couldn't stop me if I took her now. She wouldn't want me to stop if I took her now, but I had to let her come to me.
I wanted all of her, not just her body, her mind too. When she stopped the one fighting the other she would come to me. I could have her completely.
“Fine, have Benny come and fix the place. If he's not a complete fool, he'll see you belong to me, even if you don't.”
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CHAPTER 17 - MINA
Benny was happy to come over and help out. He was an earnest and hard worker at the club and that was no different here. I walked on eggshells as he explained certain things to Nico, but Nico, for all his pride, accepted his role as an assistant, a helper, a student.
I found them in the bathroom, trying to fix that leaking sink. Nico paid attention as Benny explained why the faucet still leaked. “The teflon tape was missing. You just wind it around the pipe threads,” Benny held a roll of white tape and spun it deftly around the pipe and tore it off after two or three revolutions and screwed it in. “There is almost no stopping water, it goes where it wants. But the teflon makes an airtight seal and not even the water will get through, see?” He flipped the faucet on and the water poured out, then shut it again. It didn't leak this time.
Not a drop.
He smiled at Nico and they both turned to notice me at the door, watching. “But, sometimes you still need a new sink. Nothing lasts forever, the water will wear it out and start going where it wants again. The water always wins. But this one should last a little while longer.”
Nico turned back to Benny, “It's obvious when you know it. Thank you.”
“No problem, for the floors and the walls, we'll need more materials. I have a list, you can pick them up, or give me a check and I can. I learned from Mina not to buy the materials myself. Nothing personal, just business.”
“Of course.” Nico said as he took the list from Benny. “She gives very good advice. Even if she can't take it sometimes. I can pick these things up if you want to get started tonight.”
“Okay. I'll do the prep work while you're gone.”
Nico walked by me and out the house while Benny started to walk around and measure.
“I'm glad you two are getting along.” I told him.
“It's easy if we limit our talk to work.” He walked around, measuring.
“I'm glad you learned something from me. You did a wonderful job running the place while I was... away.”
“You kept great records. I knew exactly what to do whatever came up. And the employees did too.”
“You're a natural. You'll be my competition soon. If you wanted to run one.”
“No, it's not for me.” He paused to write his measurements on the bare wall. “But I have put some of your ideas into practice for my contracting business. It's coming along.”
“I hope that doesn't mean you'll raise your prices on me.” He pulled in the tape measure and walked towards me until he stood right in front of me.
“No, well, maybe I'll take a bonus,” He leaned in and his lips attached to mine.
It was a sweet, chaste kiss, it touched my lips but went no further.
“I'm sorry, but it felt right,” he said and turned away.
“It's okay,” I tried to reassure him.
This is the man I should be interested in, I tried to reassure myself.
He was nearly perfect. Kind and sweet, honest and hard-working, gentle and handsome, but there was no fire there. No spark. He was a friend, a brother, not anything more.
And that made it all the worse.
Nico had some hold on me that I couldn't shake. Before I had resisted Benny because we worked together, it didn't make sense. But now, I needed someone to replace Nico, to release me from him, but it was no use. Some things it was hard to fake, and this was one of them.
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CHAPTER 18 - NICO
He should have gone to fetch the damn materials.
I didn't know what half of the list was and had to ask the people who worked there.
It took me an hour while it would have taken him half that. But finally I got everything, and as I pulled up, I saw him leaving the house. “Hey,” I called to him, “I got everything where are you going?”
He had a guilty look, but also an insolent one. “I have other work to do. Right now everything in that house is impossible for me. You need to decide what you want to do and let it go.”
“What? Make sense.”
“Her, not the house, not the work. Whatever hold you have on her you need to figure out and let her go.”
He impressed me, I should have hit him, but he impressed me
for the second time, not flinching, not moving. And for her. He left before I had a chance to say anything.
I walked in and she was gone, “Mina?” I called, and received no answer.
I went to her room, empty. Her balcony open, and there she was, sitting by the fountain in the sun, lost in thought. Her face twisted, thinking about something, and whatever she thought of made her sad. She argued with herself, but it wore away, dropped from her face as she sat next to the fountain that needed water.
I didn't want to disturb her, but she seemed to feel my presence, she looked up at me, an angry, resentful look on her face.
An accusation that I was the cause of her unhappiness here. An accusation not without truth. I understood what had happened, Benny had touched her, tried to kiss her probably and this was the result.
The jealousy didn't come as it should. I had the urge to protect her, to make those emotions go away. To simplify them somehow, even if only for a moment, an hour.
“Hungry?” I called down. “Let's go eat.”
She turned away, back to the fountain. “No, I have to go to work soon. I'd like to sit here for a little while until then. Alone.”
Fine. But I wasn't going to let her stay alone.
Mina had a light touch with the employees at the club, from the bartenders to the bouncers, everyone loved her, even when she was correcting them and ordering them around.
I came in case Benny was around, I wouldn't have survived a night wondering about them. But he was no where to be found tonight.
Tonight was slow, Mina took over as bartender and let the usual one take off. I sat at the bar watching her, drinking soda, waiting. I still seemed to generally annoy her, the cause of her problems still, so she kept her distance. But didn't ignore me. I even caught her watching me a few times, her face still puzzled and unable to read. But not accusatory anymore.
“This is the great Nico Manetti? Sitting at a bar? Drinking his life away?” A silvery voice spoke in my ear.
“Jenny?” I said, amazed at her showing up here.
She laughed at my surprise and near fear, her laugh, like icicles, sent shivers down my body. She slipped onto the seat beside me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Checking out my competition,” she nodded to Mina at the other end who was looking through the ledger and not paying attention.
“She's not your competition.” I told her.
“I know. But still . .” She turned to look at me, thankfully. “Well, since we're arranged to be married, or merged, whatever you want to call it, I felt we should discuss the terms.”
“The terms are our families ally, your family gets a seat at the table and stops poaching from the five families, and I take back my family from Marcelo, we kill him.” My knuckles were white again being near her, how would I ever expect to share a bed with her?
“I would like it if we did not decide Marcelo’s fate that coldly.” Her voice dropped the confidence.
“Why should you care?”
“I don't but our alliance is good, we let him be okay?”
“What do I get?”
“You get her.” She nodded to Mina, who was watching us.
“Is your mouth good girl?” She called over to Mina. “Maybe I'll have to see, invite you to my bed first. Then maybe, just maybe if you do well, I'll invite you to our bed later.”
“Mina has been a friend to me and the family. Nothing more Jenny.”
“Is that true girl? Don't lie to me, I have ways of finding out the truth. I enjoy finding out the truth when someone lies to me.”
“It's true. We've never. I told him that you would never stand for it. That you would kill me. Just as if you had a man on the side, he would not let it stand. He would have to kill him. That's what you would do to me, I'm sure of it.”
“Smart girl. That is how it would be.”
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CHAPTER 19 - MINA
She promised to kill me the way that some people promise to pick up milk from the store. Matter-of-factly, without any questions or reservations. A promise simple and easy to keep.
But she didn't frighten me, not like she intended to. Even her sexual threats seemed hollow, meant to scare, meant to revolt, but empty.
She was an actress, but a good one. One who maybe didn't even know she was acting.
And the both of them would go on acting together. She was his. He was hers. A promise that had to be kept.
They would go on and live a life together, acting like murderers and terrors and wake up one day and they wouldn't be acting anymore.
They would turn each other into the monsters they both pretended to be.
And I would have to watch that from a distance.
Maybe Nico could control her. Maybe he could act the part better than she could, but even that seemed like a fate worse than death for me.
To see them together, to see their children one day. To have to watch them, be near them, and not have any part in it.
Jenny was like Tess, beautiful and cruel and nothing like Nico. Only like the part of him he wanted the world to see. I felt like I had seen the other parts of him, but even those belonged to her now. And she would strangle them. She would take them for a car ride and they would not return.
Nothing would be left. Nothing at all for me.
His knuckles had turned white as they talked. He feared and hated her, but still, he would marry her. It was his duty. A promise that had to be kept.
Finally, the fear I should have felt gripped me. It was a selfish fear, my life, my love. But they were real. They were everything.
I found a copy of the deed to the club and prepared a note disclaiming any interest in it. I would walk away with nothing but I would walk away. Better nothing than to be in debt, a debt that would never be paid.
It would have to be done legally, but that could be later. If I had to I could pay for that too.
I left out the backdoor and had the bouncer go in and take over behind the bar for me. I lied and told him I would be back soon.
I would never go back.
I went to my apartment, a small and lonely place now. But I wouldn't be alone here for very long. Nico would come here as soon as he found I had left. I only had one idea for where I could go. I packed a bag and drove around, I knew his house from the contractor van in front.
“What are you doing here?” Benny asked when he opened the door.
“I don't have any where else to go, and I hoped you wouldn't turn me away.”
“Come in, I won't turn you away.”
I was relieved, but I knew he would do what was right, what was decent. He made coffee and made me tell him everything while he listened.
“I'm glad you came and I'm glad to help, but I'm not sure you'll keep your freedom. I'm not sure you mean everything you say.”
“What do you mean?”
“This,” he moved in close to me, and held me while his lips touched mine. A warm kiss, a decent kiss, but the wrong lips, the wrong hands. “See?”
I had no answer for him.
He broke the silence, “How long have I known you? Years, and there was always something between us, you were walled off somehow and I hoped proximity could cure that. Hoped our friendship, our getting to know each other could cure that. Your closed heart was a mystery but I was willing to give it time and patience. When he showed up, I knew he was the reason. It's easy to see. I still hoped you would get over it, these last few days, the nearness again, the impossibility of you and his life being together. But it only shined more brightly, your bond to him. I'm more sure now than ever that it will never go away and as patient as I am, I don't have infinity to wait for you. I'm not a smart man, but good with my hands. The things I understand I understand clearly. I understand water will go where it wants, much like the heart. It can't be forced, it can't be shut off completely. It will do what it wants. I understand that clearly and compl
etely. I'm sure you do as well, but aren't willing to face it yet. But I suggest you go back and face it. Or find a way to bottle it up and seal it off completely.”
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CHAPTER 20 - NICO
I looked for her after Jenny had left.
Jenny was reckless and cruel, and not at all like Mina.
When they spoke I saw my fate before me, a life with her, watching my back, no chance of happiness. A political alliance and nothing more.
I was more free as Jenny's captive. There I could imagine getting out, getting my revenge. Life existed beyond those bars. Or death and the cold ground and an end to things. Neither seemed so terrible as the fate before me now.
Even if I could control Jenny and keep Mina safe, what sort of life was that for her? My concubine, degraded, second class to the world, but never to me. If I had to have children with Jenny, something very likely to cement the alliance. How could I raise children and not love where they came from? How could I tell them the truth?
And if something happened, I would be the murderer of their mother.
And the other option, to let her go, to set her free, seemed terrible too. To see her with someone else would be too much, I would lose myself one day and again be a murderer.
Better to be back in that cell, hoping for the car ride that ends in death. Everything else was a monstrous torture.
I went into her office and looked over her books. She had done well with the place. Better than anyone before her.
The glimmer of hope in me saw her continuing to run the club for me, and live in my house. My second home. I would collect rent , spend a night, and then return to the other lufe. The grey and dull one.
That would be a torture too, but worth it.
In the books and the ledgers, after I was done daydreaming, I found her note.