Chapter 19
Adriana
It took Daniel nearly a week to recover from the majority of his bruises and wounds, during which time he and I spent most of our time in Carmen's apartment. She and I quickly bonded as friends, and I found the spicy, seductive, diminutive Latina a great match. Her life experiences were vastly different from mine, and she was more than willing to open up to me.
"You're up early, aren't you?” Carmen said.
I looked over at the clock and saw that it was nearing nine in the morning. “If you can say that. What are you doing awake? I figured you'd sleep until noon at least.”
She shrugged and changed the channel. “Tomorrow I probably will. But I never sleep all that much, although I'll probably try and take a nap before heading in today. She flipped channels again, settling on a game show on some cable channel and setting the remote down next to her. “You know, Adriana, you certainly don't fit the image I had of you.”
“You don't fit the image of a stripper either. Well, I mean, except for the bangin' bod.”
She patted her overdeveloped chest and laughed. “The best money can buy."
I couldn't help but laugh. “Carmen, I've thanked you a lot over the past few days, but I wanted to ask you something.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
"If things work out the way Daniel and I are planning, what's on your agenda after this?”
She shrugged. “Daniel talked to me about maybe getting out of the stripping game, and I told him about my dream of opening my own dance school, but I don't know now. I'm just happy that I'm helping some worthwhile people. Lucky for me, the Bertolis aren't scheduled for another pickup from the Club for another week. Already, word on the street is that the Godfather's losing his shit looking for you.”
“I guess he would be.” I sighed, feeling a bit of homesickness, but not regret. “Then again, he shouldn't have had Daniel beaten with a garden shovel either.”
“Were you really giving him a boob job when they kicked in the door?” Carmen asked suddenly with a laugh. “Damn, that's pretty low, interrupting one of those. And what a mood killer.”
“Especially since I was just figuring out how to do it,” I added.
We were both laughing when Daniel came in to interrupt. “By the way, we need to start planning on getting your fake ID. And we'll need to go to campus.”
“What for?” I asked, then slapped my head. “The registrar's.”
Daniel nodded. “If you don't go in, they'll void all your credits. If you want even a prayer of returning to your normal life, you're going to need to go in and fill out the paperwork for a sabbatical.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed at my temples, torn by indecision. “Daniel, if we go there, we've got a higher chance of running into Carlo's men. Besides, if we're going to restart our lives under new identities, who the hell cares if I'm listed as on sabbatical or dropped out anyway?”
Daniel reached across the table and took my hands, gently squeezing my fingers. “Ade, I care. I never went to college, and let's be honest, I'll never get the chance, as we explained. For those few weeks that I was taking you around campus, though, you let me get a glimpse at that world, and I saw what it could do for a quality person like yourself. If there is any chance of you going back to school and finishing your degree, I want you to do it. It's that important to me.”
I looked into his eyes, moved by his vehemence. I realized that for so long, years even, I'd underestimated him, lumping him in with so many of the other men in the Bertoli organization. Men who not only didn't care about college, but would never have fit in either. In Daniel, I saw the shining example that some of my more liberal classmates tried to hold up as a reason for their pie-in-the-sky schemes, the diamond in the rough who had been denied his maximum potential simply due to bad luck. At least in Daniel, he'd overcome most of it, in my opinion.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath and giving him my best smile. “We go in. What's the deadline?”
“We need to go in by Wednesday, I think,” he said, tapping his chin. “But we should probably get a Wi-Fi connection. Have you logged onto your school email and sent in the preliminary stuff? There will be some risk with it, especially if your uncle has hired people to put tracers on your email system, but we can work around that.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Simple,” Daniel said with a laugh. “We go to a coffee shop. This is Seattle, after all. What else are young hipsters supposed to do but go to coffee shops and cruise the net?”
I laughed and picked up his hands, kissing the fingers. “Daniel, you can be almost anything you want to be. But you, my love, are never going to be a hipster.”
We took thirty minutes to drive to a coffee shop, making sure we were as far from Carmen's Georgetown apartment as we could get. We drove south until we found a Wi-Fi spot—not a coffee shop, but a truck stop, of all places. I turned on my computer, taking a moment to realize that I hadn't even opened the lid since the morning I'd run from campus. I had seen Daniel using his, processing and gathering more information on Vincent Drake. I'd seen him tapping at his cellphone occasionally too, more than likely trading messages with his contacts, and occasionally with Drake himself, if I read his expressions properly.
“This is going to take a while. The connection here is slow,” I said as the little task bar started loading. “I wonder how many messages I've gotten.”
Unfortunately, I was wrong. I had over fifty messages on my email. “Should have remembered that Mom and Carlo are trying to contact me too,” I muttered. “Glad we're in a truck stop and not a coffee house.”
“Oh, we've still got plenty of money,” Daniel said, sipping. “I've been frugal over the past few years. I saved a lot of what I earned.”
“How much?” I asked, curious. “I mean, not that it matters, but I'm technically destitute at this point. And you did say we didn't have enough to live in Tahiti.”
Daniel leaned in, and I shivered as his warm breath tickled my ear. “Right now? About three million dollars.”
I nearly spit out my coffee and looked at him blankly. “What?”
“Uh-huh,” Daniel whispered. “Like I said, I saved a lot of what Carlo paid me. When I said not Tahiti, it was because I don't have enough for us to live in style in Tahiti. Not that we can't take a vacation.”
I looked through the messages, which were mostly the same, namely Carlo or Mom asking where I was and to contact them. It wasn't until the end and a new message came from Mom that I really felt it.
Dear Adriana, it began, different from the others, which normally started with just my name or Bella, I have prayed for the past few days that you are actually reading this, and are not captured or dead somewhere. No mother, regardless of her lifestyle, wants to go through that.
So I pray that you are reading this, and that you are safe. I understand why you did what you did, and I hope that you are with the man whom you love. I can't say I wasn't angry at first. I know that you tried to tell me. You tried to explain to me or convince me how much Daniel means to you. I should have been more understanding. You were guided by your heart, which is the same thing I did in marrying your father. If I hadn't, if he hadn't, we'd never have been blessed with you.
So I can't be angry with you anymore. I'm sad, however. I miss my daughter, and want to give her a hug again, or to talk about television, or any of a hundred other things we used to do together. Adriana, if you can at least trust me enough to not try and use this to track you down, can you spare your mother a few words? Just tell me that you're safe, that you're pursuing your dreams . . . and some day, maybe, that we'll see each other again.
I love you. You'll always be my little girl.
Your mother, Margaret
It took me ten minutes to stop crying from the simple message. Daniel put his arm around my shoulders, letting me have my tears. When they were gone, I sniffled and wiped my nose. “We're going in tomorrow,” I said softly. “No matter what, Danie
l, I want to be able to see my mom again.”
“I agree,” Daniel replied. “In fact, send her a reply. Let her know you're safe. Then send the message to the registrar's. We can go in tomorrow to sign the paperwork.”
When we got back to the apartment, Carmen wasn't as enthusiastic about our plan. “Are you two loco?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Seriously, you're going to intentionally go to the one place where everyone knows you in order to fill out a single piece of paperwork?”
“It's something I have to do,” I said, sighing. I'd come to recognize that while Carmen rarely spoke with as heavy a Hispanic accent as she put on for work, she did let it slip a bit when she was emotional. “A sense of completion.”
“Oh, you're going to be complete, all right. Completely underground and buried,” she groaned, storming back and forth in the living room. “I can't believe you two! Seriously, what sort of Mafioso are you?”
“Two Mafioso who don't want that in their life anymore,” Daniel said quietly, and I jerked my head toward him, surprised. He looked at me and shrugged. “I kind of came to that realization over the past few days. Sorry if I didn't mention it to you yet. I guess it was going to be sort of an organic decision.”
I thought about it, then nodded. “So you don't want to be an enforcer anymore?”
“No,” Daniel said simply. “I want to be your husband.”
Carmen stopped her pacing and stared at Daniel, then at me. When I didn't say anything, she shook her head. “Well?”
“Well what?” I asked, then realized we hadn't told her about that either. “Sorry, he asked me a few days ago when you were at work. We're planning on a long engagement though. Think you'd like to be one of the bridesmaids?”
Carmen threw her hands up and walked away, muttering loudly to herself in Spanish, only to come back a moment later, still muttering before pointing at me. “You are absolutely insane. You decided you want to get married to a renegade Mafia enforcer, and now you ask a stripper to be one of your bridesmaids?”
“I asked a beautiful girl who's a good friend and a good person to be my bridesmaid,” I replied evenly. “Think about it.”
“Oh, I don't even need to. I'm in. Now, I've got two hours before I have to go in to work. Please talk me through your crazy plan so I don't have to think about it all night and can have some peace of mind. The boobies bounce much better when I have peace of mind.”
Chapter 20
Adriana
Our plan was simple, but still dangerous for a couple of reasons. First, we had to take Daniel's BMW. While the ghost gray car was known to both Vincent Drake and Uncle Carlo, since the rise in school shootings, campus security had been very strict on traffic control onto and off campus. We'd already had Daniel's BMW checked in, and he had a campus ID sticker in his front windshield. Carmen's Ford didn't, and if we tried to use that, we'd have to spend another ten to thirty minutes at the campus police station, time that we just didn't want to spend on campus.
So Daniel's car it was. Still, we dressed as inconspicuously as possible, with my red hair pulled back into a ponytail and tucked into a ball cap while Daniel looked as much like a bum as I'd ever seen him, in paint splattered jeans, an oversized long-sleeved rugby shirt, and his Jordans, which we'd scuffed and abraded to make them look used. Between the two of us, we looked like totally different people.
Pulling up in the parking lot closest to the front of the registrar's office, Daniel put the car in park and shut off the engine. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, grabbing my backpack. It was the same backpack I'd picked up in my initial run from home, although with Carmen's help, I'd bought some clothes that fit a little bit better. There was being inconspicuous, and being too inconspicuous. “Come on, this shouldn't take too long.”
Part of going on sabbatical involved talking to a guidance counselor, so Daniel and I sat around in the office, waiting for one of them to become available. Finally, just as I was about to lose my mind at the intolerable waiting, one of the counselors came out of their office. “Miss Bertoli? Hi, I'm Tim Drucker. If you can step into my office, please.”
Daniel and I got up, and Drucker looked uncomfortable. “Miss Bertoli, it's normal procedure that these meetings are—”
“Are done one on one,” I completed for him. “Mr. Drucker, Daniel has been with me on campus for weeks, and is part of the reason that I came in today. He stays by my side.”
Drucker nodded, still unconvinced, but the three of us went into his office. The counselors' offices on campus were tiny, practically cubicles with slightly thicker walls. I understood though. The number of students had skyrocketed over the past few years, meaning the administration had to hire more staff. More staff meant more offices, but buildings don't expand at the same rate as enrollment. Still, I did feel a bit cramped as Drucker and I took seats while Daniel remained standing. There wasn't a chair for him. “Would you like to grab a chair from outside, Mr. . . .?”
“Neiman. Daniel Neiman,” Daniel answered, his voice flat and robbed of all inflection. It was his Terminator voice, and I had to swallow a smile as Drucker went slightly pale. “And no, I would prefer to stand.”
“Oh . . . okay then,” Drucker stammered, then turned his attention to me. “Well, Miss Bertoli, I understand from your paperwork that you want to take a one semester to one year sabbatical, is that correct?”
“Yes,” I said, putting on my most charming smile. Daniel's intimidating presence urged some things along, but it was the time to gather flies with honey and not vinegar. “After the past couple of weeks, it's just not the right time for me to continue with my studies.”
“I see,” Drucker said, clearly not understanding. “Miss Bertoli, it's highly irregular for an upperclassman like yourself to take such a long sabbatical. In all honesty, most who do never come back and lose their place in our arts program.”
“I understand that, but I feel it's necessary,” I said. “No offense, Mr. Drucker, but when this college can't even stop a psycho killer like Vincent Drake from harassing me through the official email channels, I'm having trouble putting my focus where I should have it. Drake violated my safe space, and the college has not done a lot to help restore that. Until he's caught, I'd prefer to not put myself under that sort of unwanted pressure. It triggers me too much.”
I couldn't believe the sort of bullshit streaming out of my mouth, and even Daniel's lips twitched in a fraction of a smile before he reassumed his stoic demeanor. I mean, I'm the daughter of a Mafia family, and here I was talking about triggers and safe spaces? What next, a little diatribe about micro aggressions? Still, it was the language that these type of people spoke, and it got through to him with the minimum of explanation.
“I see,” Drucker repeated. He sighed and turned to his computer. “Well, it says here that your tuition is fully self-funded—no significant scholarships or grants that require you to do extra paperwork—so this shouldn't take too long. Let me print out the proper forms for your signature, and we should have you on your way. Just a minute.”
Drucker tapped at his keyboard, then got up. He had to squeeze past Daniel, who scooted over to let him by, closing the door behind him. As soon as we were alone, Daniel broke down, chuckling under his breath. “Safe spaces? Triggers?”
I smiled back. “Hey, not everyone can pull off the intimidating badass look and get things done like you can. I try it, and I just come off as a bitch that people don't want to work with. No thanks.”
Drucker came back a few seconds later with a small stack of papers in his hands, which he quickly stapled together. I couldn't help but reflect humorously on the fact that he had a red Swingline stapler on his desk. It's the sort of little thing that makes me laugh. “Okay, Miss Bertoli, I'm going to need you to sign in three places,” Drucker said, taking a pen out of his desk and starting to point at the front page of the documents. “This one says that . . .”
“Mr. Drucker, can we speed this up?” I said, pretending to be
scared. It wasn't that hard, once I tried. “The more time I'm on campus, the less safe I feel.”
He chewed his lip for a second, then nodded. He flipped to the third page. “Okay. This one says you understand you are taking time off, and that you will get no credit for the classes you are dropping this semester.”
I signed, and he flipped more. “This one says that you understand that when you come back, you will have retained your credits, but nothing more. You will have to start right back where you were at the beginning of this semester. Miss Bertoli, again, are you sure? Picking up again when your courses are going this fast and furious is very difficult.”
“I'm sure,” I said, signing the next page. “What's next?”
He flipped to the last page, and pointed. “This one says that you would lose any scholarships or time dependent grants under this decision, but since you're self-paying anyway, it's just boilerplate.”
I signed, and Drucker took the documents and put them in a manila folder. “Okay, Miss Bertoli. I do hope that you feel safe enough to rejoin us soon. The deadline for telling us about winter semester is Thanksgiving. You can do that via email if you wish.”
“Thank you, Mr. Drucker,” I said, standing. I slipped my backpack on and offered my hand. “I'll be in touch.”
Heading downstairs from his office, I glanced over at Daniel. Reaching over, I took his hand, which I had to admit gave me a thrill. It was the first time in public that I'd taken his hand as his girlfriend. “See? Don't worry, we're doing just fine.”
“Still have a hundred meters to go,” Daniel said. He paused just inside the doors to the outside and pulled me tight for an embrace. “But I do feel better.”
We left the building, the bright sunshine dazzling us for a moment, and started across the small grassy area that led to the parking lot. Suddenly, Daniel grabbed my hand, pulling me to a stop. “Damn.”
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