Otherwise Unharmed

Chapter 11—Unexpected Reaction

Lia sat on the bed and just stared at me for way too long.

I wasn’t sure if she had even heard me at first, but I realized pretty quickly that she had. I couldn’t read her though. There weren’t any obvious signs of what was going through her head. She actually seemed a little stupefied.

“Lia?”

“That’s a joke, right?”

“Why would I joke about that?” I asked.

“Because you can’t possibly be serious,” she answered.

“You wanted to know how that guy outside knew who I was,” I reminded her. “There’s your answer. Gangs don’t fuck with us—they know they’d get wiped out in a weekend. The last time I was in this neighborhood, I took out seven of them in about three minutes when they were hanging out at a park not far from here.”

Lia’s eyes widened, and her tongue darted out over her lips. I figured I’d probably given her enough details at that point. She looked over to the dresser where my Beretta sat on top of my shirt.

“With that gun?” she asked quietly.

“Sometimes,” I said. “Usually with my Barrett—the sniper rifle.”

Lia sat back and pulled her knees to her chest, and she wrapped her arms around them. Her throat bobbed once, and then she looked up to me.

“Are you going to kill me? Is that why you brought me here?”

“Fuck, no!” I stood up from the windowsill and yelled loud enough that she jumped. “I’m sorry! Shit!…But, no, Lia—no! I’d never hurt you; I swear.”

Even as the words flowed from my mouth, I wondered if they were true. How could I guarantee that to her, considering what I’d done in the past? I wasn’t even sure if I could manage to keep her safe through what was to come. Even if she decided to get as far away from me as possible, she was likely already in danger.

“But you…you shoot people? That’s your job?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I mean, I have to pick the right spot, the right timing and all that, but in the end, I’m not paid for the recon, I’m paid for the hit.”

“You do this for the mafia? That’s the mob, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, “and yeah, it is.”

“The Chicago mafia?”

I nodded again.

“That’s real?”

A laugh escaped through my nose.

“Yeah, it’s real. It’s not quite the way it ends up portrayed in the movies but real enough.”

“Who do you…um…” Lia paused a moment, and I saw her throat bob again. “Who do you kill?”

“Anyone my boss tells me to,” I said. “Mostly, anyway. Sometimes there are others.”

“Others?”

“Yeah, like when I need someone else out of the way to get to my target—sometimes I’ll kill them, too.”

“Do you get paid for those as well?”

“No, they aren’t on my roll.”

“Roll?”

“Kill roll,” I told her. “My list of people who I’m supposed to kill.”

“Your…your to-do list?”

“Something like that,” I laughed. I had never thought of it like that, but it was as accurate as any other analogy.

She looked away from me, her eyes focused on absolutely nothing interesting across the room, obviously not finding anything humorous in the conversation. She swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment.

“How many?” she whispered.

“How many are on the list now?”

She shook her head and took in a long breath.

“How many people have you…have you killed?” Her eyes moved back to mine as she waited for the answer.

It was my turn to look away. I licked my lips and tried to find words that would make anything any better, but I was way past lying now. It wouldn’t make sense; she already knew everything.

“I have no idea,” I admitted.

“A lot, though, right?”

“A lot,” I agreed. I’d never bothered to keep track though I probably could have come up with a relatively precise number if I thought about it long enough. I didn’t really care to do that and figured even estimating what had to be approaching a hundred people over the last three years of working for Moretti wasn’t going to help my position with Lia now.

“Holy shit.” Her voice was low as she clasped her hands together.

I took a couple steps toward the bed, and Lia jumped up and moved to press her back to the wall. Her eyes were wide and distrustful, and the palms of her hands pressed against the drywall. With my chest tightening around my heart and lungs, I stopped moving.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I reminded her.

“How do I know that?”

I closed my eyes for a moment and was reminded of our night at the cabin when it was clear she was thinking similar thoughts only without any knowledge to back them up.

“If I was going to kill you, you’d be dead,” I reminded her.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t.”

I watched her carefully—the subtle way she kept looking toward the door, the way she was balancing up on the balls of her feet, the positioning of her hips. Her fear had sent her into complete flight mode. If I hadn’t been standing between her and the door, she would have bolted.

Inside of myself, I didn’t think it would have felt any different than if someone had reached inside my chest with one of those hand-held mixers running on high power. Everything inside me was churning painfully, and my muscles were so tight, I could barely breathe. Someone with logic on their side would have recognized it as the same emotion as Lia’s but with the opposite response; all I could feel was anger.

“Why would I tell you all this shit just to kill you off? You think I fucking liked talking about this, huh? You think I wanted to? I’ve never talked to anyone about any of that shit unless I was under direct fucking orders. Never.”

I was nearly panting, and there was pressure behind my eyes I was finding difficult to hold back. I wasn’t even sure what was happening in my head; it all just felt bad.

She’s going to leave.

Lia’s arms were wrapped around her stomach, and she was pushing herself against the wall now—anything to get farther away from me. Everything inside of me wanted to grab my Beretta and start shooting the shit out of something—anything. There was some kind of geyser just under my skin, trying to find the weakest point to break through in a gush of steam and boiling rage.

I managed to take in an audible breath, and I tried to let it out slowly. Lia tensed even more, and I wanted to turn the damn gun on myself for scaring her so much. It wasn’t what I wanted. I would have been the first to admit that I didn’t really know exactly what I wanted, but this definitely wasn’t it.

I dropped my ass onto the bed and my head onto the palms of my hands. I pushed at my eye sockets to try to relieve the pressure there a bit and ignored the fact that my hands ended up a little damp.

Turning my head to the side, I looked over at her. Lia’s posture had relaxed a little, but she still kept glancing at the door.

“I can’t let you just walk out,” I said. “I’ll take you somewhere, but I can’t let you go out there on your own.”

“You really are serious about all of this,” Lia said—part statement, part question.

“Yeah, it’s all true. I don’t have any reason to lie to you about this, do I?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t.”

She nodded, and her eyes moved to stare at me for several silent minutes.

“I need a little time,” she said softly. “I need to think for a minute.”

Lia moved slowly around the corner of the wall, watching me the entire time, to the bathroom where she shut herself in. I heard the click of the lock right after the door closed and dropped my head back into my hands.

I’d been wrong. Telling her everything was a stupid fucking idea. Not only was she never going to have anything to do with me again, but having knowledge of the few facts I had revealed was enough to get her on someone’s watch list and very possibly just decide she wasn’t worth the risk and take her out.

No, it was too late to avoid that anyway. She’d been with me enough, had even seen at the prison with me, and was already in that kind of danger. I’d already fucked her over just by being around her. If someone picked her up and questioned her yesterday, she wouldn’t have been able to tell them anything, but they wouldn’t have believed her.

I’d fucked this up as much as I possibly could have, and at the end of the day, she was still going to be gone, and except for Odin, I was going to be alone again. I’d be back to fucking hookers, having no one I could really talk to, and just counting the days until my sleep-deprived state took me back into total meltdown.

Status quo.

It was probably for the best for both of us.

So why didn’t I believe it?

Because it was best for her, not for me, and I’d learned to be a selfish son of a bitch over the years. If I could think of something to say to her that would convince her to stay with me, accept who I was and what I did and not be afraid, I would use those words in a heartbeat. As it was, I was only a slight step away from being a big enough bastard to hold her against her will.

Would I really do that?

Fuck.

Yeah, I might.

Though I was both repulsed and intrigued with the idea, I was also trying to figure out how I felt, knowing that I was capable of something like that. It seemed far worse than just killing someone. Once you’re dead, you’re dead—no pain, no suffering. Hell, I’d wished for it myself repeatedly.

I knew what being held captive was like, though—I knew how it felt to be so completely within someone else’s control. I knew exactly what it did to someone when they were imprisoned, and I was considering doing the same thing to her. I didn’t think I would do it—not because I didn’t want to—I did—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of it. I clearly was, and now that the thought was in my head, I couldn’t seem to shake it.

Shit! What if she demands I let her leave, and I can’t do it?

The muscles in my arms and legs were so tight, I was starting to shake a little. Even though I knew there was air coming into my lungs, it still felt like I wasn’t breathing. I tried to find another cigarette, but I had already smoked the few I had bought off the guy at the front desk. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to shove thoughts of Lia, handcuffed to my bed, out of my mind.

“Evan?” Lia’s fingers touched my shoulder, and I startled.

I dropped my hands and looked up at her, waiting for the words that were likely to feel like a stake being shoved through my heart. She didn’t say anything, though. She just wrapped her arms around my head and pulled me against her body.

I lifted my arms to grasp her waist and pull her closer to me. My fingers wrapped around her shirt right at the small of her back, and I clutched at the material. Her warmth was instantly soothing, and a moment later heart rending, because I didn’t know how long it would last.

“Don’t leave,” I heard myself beg. “Please don’t leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she responded.

My throat seized up, and I couldn’t speak. I tilted my head up to look into her face and try to figure out if I had heard her right. If she meant it, I wouldn’t have to test myself. I wouldn’t find out if I was really willing to hold her captive like that.

“You’re not?” I asked quietly.

She shook her head slowly as she leaned back to look at me, and I tightened my fingers around the fabric of her shirt to keep her close.

“Why not?” I heard myself ask. I wanted to take back the words immediately. Asking her to justify why she was staying could very well lead her to change her mind.

“Because you are a mess, and I can’t just leave you like this!” she nearly yelled but then softened her tone. “I needed to find you for a reason. I didn’t completely understand it at the time, but now I think I do. I thought I just needed you, but it seems you need me even more.”

“I do need you,” I said quietly. “It kinda scares me.”

“Me too,” Lia agreed, “but I can’t just…just condone this, Evan. I don’t think I’m wired that way.”

I tensed again and waited for her to explain exactly what she meant.

“Can you just quit?” she asked. “I mean, walk away and never go back? You said it wasn’t like the movies, but I never really watched those movies. I don’t know the rules.”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’ve never thought about it, so I’ve never asked. I know I can’t leave now, though.”

“Why not?”

“I have…I have a job to do.”

“You mean someone to kill?”

“Not exactly.”

“Quit being so damn cryptic!” Lia snapped as she pushed away from me. “I certainly hope I’ve heard the worst by now, and being evasive isn’t going to make me feel any better!”

I reached out and pulled her back to me. She came reluctantly but didn’t actually resist. I tightened my grip on her, completely afraid to let her go now. She hadn’t heard the worst, but she’d certainly heard enough. She knew that whatever she decided to do, I shouldn’t have to lie to her about what I was doing.

It was time to tell her the rest.

“It has to do with why I got released,” I said. “I made a deal with a couple of federal agents. One of them was the guy you talked to outside my apartment. The other was inside talking to me at the same time.”

I kept my grip on her shirt as I looked up at her, and she scrutinized me cautiously as I spoke.

“Most of the organizations in the city deal with the usual: politics, corruption of law enforcement, bribery, marketeering, money laundering, prostitution—all that typical stuff. There’s enough of that to go around, and they tend to work together pretty well for the common interest as far as the local government and police go. Outside of that, there are some specialized businesses primarily run by separate families.”

Lia continued to watch me intently.

“I work for Rinaldo Moretti,” I told her. “His family runs the majority of the casinos and has its hands in strip joints, a lot of weapon sales, cocaine, and the caviar trade.”

“Caviar?” Lia’s brow furrowed. “That’s not illegal.”

“Well, yeah, actually,” I corrected, “some of it is. It depends on where it comes from and how you get it. It’s a business that is heavily regulated—like the sale of ivory or something like that. Some of it’s legal, but a lot of it isn’t. It’s actually a bigger business than a lot of the drug trade.”

“Shit,” Lia said. “I had no idea.”

“Overfishing caused a shortage,” I replied. “Shortage means higher demand. Higher demand means there’s room for organized crime to step in and make sure we’re the ones with the best supply when it comes to the kind of shit stupidly rich people will pay for. It’s like gorilla-hand ashtrays or certain types of cars. Yeah, you can get them legally, but it’s a pain in the ass. Sometimes it’s easier to get them illegally.”

“Do they still come with the manufacturer’s warranty?” Lia asked.

I glanced up at her, saw her smirk, and laughed a bit before going on with Mafia 101.

“Gavino Greco’s organization is Rinaldo’s primary competition. They focus on stolen goods, heroin, and human trafficking.”

“Human trafficking?”

Fuck. I probably had said too much, especially considering my thoughts of her in chains.

“I don’t really want to go into that,” I admitted. “It’s as bad as it sounds. If you really want the details, I’ll tell you, but it’s just going to make you sick to your stomach.”

“I guess I’ll stick with the vague, then.”

“Good call.” I collected my thoughts. “So I’ve been working for Moretti and his family since I moved here. The feds want me to help bring him in, but I can’t do that. He’s been great to me, and I can’t betray him.”

“Great to you?” Lia said with a snort. “He made you a killer.”

“No, he didn’t,” I corrected. I turned my eyes to her in warning. “I’m not going to hear any shit-talk about him either. Think what you want of me—I’m responsible for whatever the fuck I do—but don’t say a fucking word against Rinaldo. Clear?”

Lia stared at me for a long moment before she nodded once.

I was being shitty and I knew it, but I was in a shitty position and sometimes you just have to drop back to what you are most comfortable and familiar with to keep going. I also had to remember that she wasn’t used to any of this, and me going all mob-threatening on her probably wasn’t going to keep her close to me. I had to be careful.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “He’s just…he’s always taken care of me, dealt with my messes when I fucked up, and been more of a father to me than anyone else ever has been, okay?”

“I understand,” Lia replied. Her fingers traced my arm, causing little goose bumps to form on my skin. “It’s all right.”

She sat down next to me on the bed, and I turned to look at her.

“You’re really going to stay?” I didn’t know why I was opening the door for this conversation. Maybe I just needed the reassurance.

“I told you before,” she said. “I didn’t spend all this time looking for you to just turn around and go home. I don’t like this at all though, Evan—don’t think for a second that I do.”

“I didn’t think you would.” I wanted to grab her and kiss her and fuck her senseless again, but I knew she wasn’t going to put up with any of that until she got the rest of her answers. I just hoped I’d be able to provide them all to her satisfaction.

Living up to what I said, that would be a whole separate challenge.

“I need to understand what happens after,” Lia said. “What do we do once you’ve…well, once you’ve done whatever it is you need to do? Explain that first, and then we need to figure out what comes later.”

I rubbed my fingers into my eyes and thought for a minute.

“I half considered just making a run for it,” I told her, “but the more I think about it, the more I know that isn’t going to work. Ask me how many people tried to run from my boss, and I’ll give you the same number of people I caught on the run. No one ever got away from me, and I’m the kind of guy they’d send after us.”

“Jesus,” she muttered, “I don’t know how I’m going to deal with this.”

I cringed a bit, closed my eyes, and tried to focus. When I opened them again, I reached out and took her hand.

“I know this is really fucked up,” I said. “I know this isn’t what you bargained for when you came to find me, but I’m glad you are here. I’m glad you’re staying. I…I…fuck!”

“What is it?”

I let go of her, stood up, and ran my hand over my face and head. I hadn’t gotten a haircut yet, and the length was starting to annoy me. Without being neat and orderly, I felt like I was totally off my normally collected game.

“I’m not usually like this!” I bellowed. “I’m not used to…to…to needing someone else. It’s always been…just me.”

Lia pushed away from the bed and stood in front of me while I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried not to look embarrassed over my outburst. Her hands came up and lay gently on the sides of my face before they ran down my shoulders to my chest, and I relaxed at her touch.

“It’s okay to need someone,” she told me. “Everyone needs someone.”

Her lips brushed mine.

“I never have,” I argued.

“You just didn’t know who you needed yet,” she countered.

She kissed me again but only briefly. As I collected myself, she put an end to the intimacy and pulled me back to sit on the bed for the rest of the discussion. I sighed, complied, and started thinking out loud.

“I’ve got to come up with a way of getting Greco to trust me. He’s got to let me deep into his organization so I can get enough information on him to turn over to Trent. The thing is, the last time I saw Greco wasn’t the friendliest of encounters.”

“What happened?”

“I held a gun to his head and threatened take him out. I doubt he’s forgotten.”

“Are you serious?”

“He started it,” I shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, there were three guys with guns pointed at me, and I didn’t end up shooting any of them.”

“It really doesn’t,” she said.

“The point is, getting into his org isn’t going to be easy. I don’t even know where to begin at this point, and I’m going to have to move fast. Before any of that, though, I need to make sure you’re safe.”

“Why wouldn’t I be safe?” Lia asked. “I haven’t done anything. I don’t even know who these people are!”

I looked at the clock and rubbed my hands against my thighs.

“We need to move,” I said. “It’s checkout time, and I only brought us here to get us out of Trent’s line of sight. We can’t stay another night.”

“Where are we going?”

I reminded myself that she wasn’t asking me to take her to the airport, but I still decided we weren’t going anywhere near O’Hare. I didn’t want to be too far from the city—I needed to be able to get to public transportation easily and quickly.

“Another motel,” I said. “Maybe something up north. We just need to stay moving for now until I figure out how I’m going to do all this. We can talk more when we get to another location.”

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation at all.” Lia put her head in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You’ve said that a lot,” she reminded me.

“I know.”

She went silent, and I went tense. I waited for her to say something—anything—to give me an idea what she was going to do. I probably should have reminded her that if she wanted me to get her a ticket back to Phoenix, I would, but I wasn’t going to make that offer again.

“Well, Mom was right.” Lia sat back and looked at me. “I had no idea who you really were.”

I looked down at my clenched hand and the veins pulsing in my arm. Everything about her posture told me she had just changed her mind. She was going to leave, and I was going to have to figure out some way to accept that and move on.

Or do something far worse.

“Do you like it?” she asked. She placed her hand on my thigh and started moving it up and down, her touch relaxing the muscles there.

“I like that,” I said, indicating her hand on my leg.

“That’s not what I meant.” Her hand stopped moving, and she started to pull it away, but I grabbed it and held it in place. My fingers stroked over hers softly.

“Do I like what, then?”

“Killing people.”

“It’s a job. I’m good at it.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

I didn’t see any point in lying to her now, so I just spit it out.

“Yeah, sometimes. Some people deserve it.”

“But not all of them?”

“Everyone’s done something wrong,” I said with a shrug.

“And they deserve to die for it?”

“I don’t really think about it much, you know?”

“No,” Lia said as she raised her eyebrows and looked at me pointedly, “I do not know.”

“People die,” I stated. “They might get a disease, or get hit by a fucking bus, or get hit by me, but they all die. Sometimes no one even gives a shit, and the kind of people I kill mostly fall into that category. I definitely don’t care if they die, so I don’t think about it much.”

Lia was silent for a long moment. I struggled with wanting to give her a little time to process all the shit I’d thrown at her. I also needed to deal with my own nervousness at being in the same location as long as we had been.

“What are you thinking?” I finally asked.

“I’m trying to figure out how you can be so nonchalant about it,” Lia said. “I don’t understand how you can reconcile what you’re doing.”

“Like I said, I don’t think about it. It’s usually from far away, and I only see my target through the scope. It’s just like playing a video game.”

“It’s not a game,” she said quietly.

“I know it isn’t.” I took in a long breath and let it out slowly. “Really, I swear we can talk more about it later, but we have to move now.”

Lia nodded and silently gathered up her belongings from the bathroom and shoved them all into the overnight bag she’d brought with her the night before. I asked the motel guy where I could get a cab, and he directed me to a convenience store a few blocks away. I bought a pack of cigarettes while Lia gave me a bit of a look.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Don’t give me that shit.”

“In light of everything else, I’ve decided not to complain about your smoking,” Lia informed me.

“I don’t usually do it.”

“You’ve had a cigarette in your hand pretty much the whole time since the last time you made that statement.”

“I’m trying to remember what it’s like.” I gave her a goofy smile, and she shook her head again.

Lia was quiet while I smoked, glared at the gang-bangers as they went in and out of the store for cheap liquor, and waited for the cab to show up.

“I was thinking I might retire,” I said.

“What does that mean?” Lia asked.

“You know—like you were saying before. You asked what we were going to do after all this. When I was in jail, I thought maybe…well, maybe I’d just see if you wanted to...um….”

Shit, I sounded like a fucking idiot.

“I was thinking maybe you and I could leave Chicago, you know—together. Go someplace where no one is likely to try to track me down. I have to take care of all this other shit first because Trent will definitely be on my ass until it’s done, but afterwards, we could just leave. I’ve got plenty of money to get us by for a while.”

“What? Someplace like that cabin where I first met you?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“And do what?”

I gave her a half smile and a raised eyebrow.

“Alternate between taking you up against a wall and taking you from behind. We could throw in a few other variations, of course. Those are just my top picks.”

She didn’t seem amused.

“I’ve missed a whole year of school tracking you down,” she said. “I still have two years left before I get my degree.”

I was struck again with how little I knew about her. I hadn’t even been aware she was in school.

“What are you studying?” I asked.

“Nursing,” Lia replied tersely. “Don’t change the subject.”

There was a sudden burst of a memory from a couple Christmases ago when Rinaldo’s wife got ticked off at him for sneaking cookies from a tray she was preparing. She had shaken her finger at him as she yelled, and all his attempts at diverting the topic had been unsuccessful.

I smiled.

“Is this funny?” Lia snapped.

“No,” I said, but I couldn’t stop the grin on my face. “Would you hit me if I said you were beautiful when you’re angry?”

“Maybe.”

“I won’t say it, then.”

“Good call.”

I leaned in to kiss her, and she let me though she didn’t open her mouth or push for more. I stopped after just a couple of light touches to her lips and then leaned back a little to look at her.

“You wouldn’t have to go to school,” I told her. “I can take care of you.”

“I want to go to school,” Lia said.

Her tone left no room for discussion even if I was a little inclined to try to persuade her to try the easy life. She would never have to work as long as she was with me, and the places we were likely to end up weren’t likely to have a lot of universities in the area.

“Can’t we work out the details later?”

“If you are saying that when all is said and done, we’re not going to stay here, and you aren’t going to continue with your current occupation, then yes, the details can wait.”

I nodded, hoping the gesture looked sincere. I wasn’t completely sure if I could live up to the whole idea—there were too many uncertainties. I didn’t even know if I’d survive this little endeavor into Greco’s organization, and even if I did, there was no way to know if Rinaldo would just let me walk away afterwards.

Lia didn’t need to know that though. If she did—if she even suspected it—she might change her mind and walk out. I still wasn’t sure how politely I was going to respond to that, and I needed to stop it from happening.

“You’re not going to leave?” I needed the confirmation. I needed to hear it.

“Do you want me to?” she asked.

“God, no,” I said with a sharp breath. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want you to go anywhere. I want you to stay with me.”

“But after all of this,” Lia said as she waved a hand around in the air, “all this shit with the federal agent and all—after all of that is done, we leave, right? Just take Odin and head to wherever you want to go. Then we’ll figure the rest of it out when we get there.”

“Yeah,” I said with a nod as I stared straight into her eyes. “We’ll leave—just you and me and Odin.”

Nothing was going to stop me from making good on that statement.