What do I do in six to eight weeks when he’s gone?
The only purpose I’ve had since leaving the Marines is going to vanish. I’ll be in a world that will no longer include the only person I really, truly care about. The one person I’d lay down my life for without question. I’m going to lose the one person who has ever called me son.
I end up pulling over and walking around Grant Park. My hands are shaky, and driving doesn’t seem like a great idea right now. I wander around in a stupor amongst the flower gardens instead. There isn’t much growing yet, just a few bulbs with green shoots sticking out of the ground, and there’s hardly anyone around. The rain has tapered off, but everything is a muddy mess. A couple of guys shoveling mulch from a pickup are my only company.
My eyes burn, but my face is wet only from the mist. I can’t bring myself to cry. If I did, I wouldn’t even know who I was crying for—Rinaldo or myself.
Even with everything else going on, my thoughts keep turning to Alina. I wonder if she’s got some magic touch that will help me deal with all of this, but I doubt it.
She helps though. She helps a lot, maybe more than I should let her.
Jonathan was right—I have become a little attached. Initially it was about the sleep, and then it was about the sex, but the last time we were together, it felt different. I’m not sure exactly in what way, but definitely different.
And the whole thing about her father… When I think about it, I see red. Maybe that’s what I need to do—go take care of him. I know it isn’t what she wants, but I’m going to do it anyway. If nothing else, it’s going to make me feel better.
I get back in the car and drive over to Oak Park. I still have his mug shot on my phone, and the address is easy enough to find. The apartment is a shithole next to a shabby strip mall in a high-crime area, which is perfect.
I park across the street and just watch the place for a while. Shortly after four in the afternoon, he emerges. I watch him walk next door to a liquor store and come out with a bottle in a brown sack. He heads back into the apartment.
I could just go in there and do it now, be done with it. I’m still on edge though. If I do it now, without a formal plan in place, I’m likely to mess something up. His apartment has a window, but it’s small and there’s no place around here to get into sniping position. This will have to be more personal.
A plan forms as I drive away. I need a few tools and a decent night’s sleep first. I drive over to Alina’s corner, but she’s nowhere in sight. In fact, I can’t seem to find any of the girls she usually hangs out with either.
I drive around for a full two hours, making my usual stop for gas and cigarettes. She still isn’t around. I’m getting hungry, and though I had thought to take her out for dinner, I decide to waste time feeding myself instead.
I eat, but the fast food sits in my stomach like a wad of uncooked dough. I drive around, and I get more and more frustrated when she doesn’t appear. I listen to the radio to try to distract myself, but as the time ticks by, the song lyrics start to piss me off. I slam my fist into the power button and silence the singer.
Finally, I see her. It’s after midnight, and the rest of the girls are there with her, too. I pull to the curb, and she comes over to me, smiling as she opens the car door.
I don’t say a word as she gets in.
I’m actually a little afraid to open my mouth. Instead, I grip the wheel with one hand and throw the Camaro into gear with the other and speed off with my teeth clenched. Alina grips the handle of the door as I take a corner much too quickly.
We still haven’t spoken as I pull into the parking garage and head to the elevator. Alina trails behind me, silent and timid. As soon as we’re inside, I grab her and push her against the wall in the hallway. Gripping her chin with my hand, I crash my mouth to hers and invade her with my lips and tongue.
Alina brings her hands up to my shoulders and clasps the back of my neck with her fingers. I feel the pressure from her fingertips. Knowing what she’s trying to do only annoys me this time and does nothing to relax me.
I expect to find the scent of some man on her, but I don’t. She smells fresh and clean, like she’s just come from a long, hot shower. Her mouth is minty. There’s no clue as to where she’s been or what she’s been doing.
“Get down on your knees.”
She complies instantly as I release my belt. I stare down at her as I undo the buttons on my jeans. A few second later, she has my cock in her mouth. She looks up at me, trying to maintain that devoted cocksucker expression, but I can see the confusion in her eyes. Even as her tongue circles the head of my dick and her lips wrap around my shaft, I can tell she knows something is wrong.
Maybe it’s guilt. Maybe it’s because she knows I’ve been out there looking for her for hours. Maybe she even planned it that way. She might even consider it some fucked-up version of foreplay while I sit around in my car, waiting my turn.
Who else have you been sucking off tonight?
My heart pounds as sweat forms on my brow. How many other men have seen that same look from those same, beautiful eyes? How many others does she comfort every night by letting them come all over her? How many times tonight?
Where was she?
I lean one hand on the wall and use the other to wind her hair around my wrist. I glare down at her as I pull at her hair, driving my cock into the back of her throat. I feel her gag on me, and she squeezes her eyes shut for a moment as her hands dig into my thighs. She shoves me with all her strength.
Suddenly realizing exactly what I am doing, I step back, and my cock pops out of her mouth along with a string of saliva. She coughs and grasps her throat with her hand.
“Evan! What the hell is wrong with you?” Alina shifts to one side, but she’s only pinned herself between me and the front door. She reaches up and wipes the back of her hand over her mouth.
I want to kick her. I want to pull out a gun and empty the clip into her face. I can see myself doing it—vividly. My heart is still beating rapidly, and my stomach starts to churn at the thought. My throat constricts, and I can’t take in air. I shove my dick back into my pants and turn away from the sight of her beneath me on the floor.
“Fuck!” I run my hand over my face as I leave her there in the hallway. I go to the kitchen and lean over the sink, trying to decide if I’m going to heave or not.
“Evan?”
“Just get the fuck out!” I grab blindly for something to throw, but all I manage to find is a container of liquid dish soap. I still toss it behind me, but it just ricochets off the island and onto the floor.
“Evan, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Leave!” I squeeze my eyes shut. I need her to get out of here. I don’t even know what’s happening to me; I only know I can’t control it. If she stays, I could hurt her.
“I’m not leaving while you’re like this.”
I whirl around to face her, my head still dizzy.
“Don’t you fucking get it?” I scream. “You don’t want to be anywhere near me! What do you think you’re doing, helping? You can’t help me! There’s nothing you can fucking do!”
I take a step away from the sink and point my finger at her.
“Can you massage away cancer? Can you? Can you fix that shit? No, you can’t. You can’t do anything but suck whatever cock is put in front of you!”
Alina’s eyes widen, and she takes a small step back as her mouth drops open. For a long moment, we just stare at each other. I’m honestly not even sure what I just said to her. My heart is thumping in my ears and my temples. Her eyes suddenly narrow, and she takes a step forward as she places her hands on her hips.
“I’m going to pretend for a minute you didn’t say that,” she says slowly. Alina’s eyes are fixed on me, and her jaw is tight. “Back up a second. What did you say before that?”
I’m caught off guard, which is happening way too frequently for my liking. I blink a couple of times as the woman in front of me wa
its for my answer. All I can do is shake my head.
“There’s nothing you can do,” I finally utter.
“Evan…” Alina stops and takes a deep breath. “Evan, do you have cancer?”
“Me? What? No! Not me!”
“Who has cancer, Evan?”
My chest starts to heave visibly as my diaphragm starts doing flip-flops in my stomach. I can’t inhale all the way, and my breath comes out in choppy pants.
“Rin…Rin…Rinaldo.”
“Oh, no.” Alina steps forward and reaches for my hands. I just stare at them as her fingers wrap around mine. “Evan, I’m so sorry. Is it bad?”
Bad.
Such a simple word, but it carries so much weight. Is it bad? Yeah, it’s bad. It’s really fucking bad.
I stare at her, and it feels as if everything around me is crumbling. If I were to look down and find my skin peeling away from the rest of my body, I wouldn’t be surprised. My shoulders slump, and my knees start to buckle.
“He’s going to die, Alina. They say he’s going to die!” I drop down in a crumpled heap on the hardwood floors. I jar my knee as I fall, but I don’t care about the pain shooting up my leg. It doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters.
Alina is there on the floor with me, wrapping her arms around my head and holding me to her chest. The last thing I deserve at this point is to have her comforting me. I want to push her away, but I don’t. I grab onto her as if my life depends on it.
Maybe it does.
Rinaldo had been threatened many times before. I’d always been there; I’d always put myself between him and whatever adversary was out to get him. I’d eliminated them all, but how do you put a 50-caliber slug into a killer like cancer?
“He’s going to die.” I can barely hear my own voice muffled in her hair. I tighten my grip around her, crushing her against me, and I press my forehead against her body. Her hair falls from her shoulders, surrounding me. I drag oxygen into my lungs, and it spurts out again, sounding like a truck running over those hiccups on the side of the highway. “I can’t stop it. There’s nothing I can do to stop it!”
I hold her tighter, as if I could transfer the tightness in my chest and gut into her body to somehow alleviate it. I can’t breathe.
“I can’t…I can’t do anything!”
“It's okay, Evan. Just let go.”
My whole body is shaking, and it takes a second to even realize I’m sobbing into her chest. I should be embarrassed, but I can’t manage to feel anything but loss.
He’s not even gone yet. What am I going to do when he’s gone?
Tightening my hold, I squeeze my eyes shut to try to block out everything that’s running through my mind, but the images come anyway. I see myself at his hospital bedside, watching him grow weaker and weaker, hearing him beg for more morphine to stop the pain, and then finally giving up completely. I see a casket with Lele dressed in black, standing beside it and holding a tissue to her face. I see Lucia beside her, trying to offer her some comfort, but unable to say anything that makes any difference. I see Nick off to the side, unable to mourn with the rest of his family.
And then there’s me, stoically carrying the coffin along with the other pallbearers—out of place and knowing there is nothing I can do to fix it all. They put him in the ground, and he’s gone. Completely gone.
I don’t know how long we’re there on the floor of my kitchen, me sobbing and Alina holding me. Eventually, she coaxes me off the floor and leads me to the bedroom. She undresses me and sits me down on the bed. I stare dumbly at the floor as she goes across the hall to the bathroom, returning a minute later. She looks at me a moment, then takes my arms and lays me down. She climbs in beside me and then pulls the blanket around us both.
I’m exhausted, mentally and physically. Alina wraps her arms around me and holds my head to her shoulder. At this point, I should be accustomed to the lavender scent on Alina’s skin, but it hits me every time she joins me in bed. I can’t help but close my eyes, inhale deeply, and coil myself around her. It smells right. It feels right.
Turning my head to look at her, I watch her face carefully. Her look is still a bit guarded, but she stares into my eyes as her fingers stroke the hair at the back of my neck.
“Where were you earlier tonight?” I ask.
Alina rubs a little deeper into my neck and licks her lips before she answers.
“Working,” she replies quietly.
“Who were you with?”
“Evan”—she tilts her head away and closes her eyes—“I don’t usually talk about other clients. It’s kind of a business taboo.”
Of course that makes sense, but I don’t care.
“I want to know.” I tighten my grip on her hip, pulling her a little closer.
“I’m not going to discuss that.”
My chest tightens along with my hold on her. I’m not used to people refusing to give me the information I want, and it doesn’t sit well with me. Even when I told her to get out, she hadn’t listened. That is also a first.
It should anger me, but it doesn’t. In fact, I think I rather like her standing up to me. Paulie backs down when I tell him to, and he’s probably six-foot-four and weighs well over two hundred pounds. Alina’s maybe five-foot-five and can’t be much more than a hundred and thirty.
I consider all the wasted time I spent looking for her tonight. If she were already here, I wouldn’t have to go looking for her. I could just come home, and there she would be.
Can you put a hooker on retainer? What would that look like?
The last time I’d had a regular hooker, it was Bridgett. I don’t want to think about her because I always end up remembering the last time I saw her—the last time anyone saw her. She’d betrayed me to Rinaldo’s enemies and suffered the ultimate price. I do not handle betrayal well, and she found that out minutes before she was dead.
I focus on the time before that day, when she had been around the apartment a lot. She wanted to be around me though I never understood why. I knew she had feelings for me despite how many times I tried to deter them.
Toward the end, Bridgett had lived in my apartment. I’d killed her pimp, and she didn’t really have anywhere else to go. Even before then, I never had trouble finding her on the street. Alina must be a very popular whore.
I grit my teeth and look at her.
“Who were you fucking tonight?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alina replies.
I don’t like the way she dodges the question, and I’m certainly not going to let her get away with that shit. She looks away from me, silent. I reach over and grip her chin in my fingers before turning her to face me.
“I asked you a question.”
“I don’t know any names,” she finally answers.
Her face flushes slightly, and she won’t meet my eyes. I know she’s lying.
“Who’s your pimp?”
“Teto.”
I recognize the name. A while back, he worked for Greco. Teto went independent for a while but had recently joined Rinaldo’s payroll for the added protection. This is both simple and complicated because he works for Rinaldo. If he weren’t one of ours, I might have opted to just get rid of him, but now I can’t because it would interfere with Rinaldo’s business.
“Call him.”
“Call him?”
“Pick up your phone and call him now.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
She nods slightly, and I loosen my grip on her so she can roll over and reach for her purse. She retrieves an iPhone with a bright green case and pulls up Teto’s number. She hits the button and holds the phone to her ear.
“What am I supposed to tell him?” she asks as it rings.
“Tell him I want to talk to him.”
She looks at me nervously but doesn’t have time to ask any more questions.
“Teto, it’s Alina.”
I can hear his voice on the phone but can’t make out his
words.
“I have someone who wants to speak with you,” she tells him. There’s a pause. “It’s…um…it’s a john.”
I reach out and take the phone from her hand.
“Teto, this is Evan Arden.”
There’s another pause, and I hear Teto clear his throat.
“Mr. Arden, I didn’t realize Alina was with you.”
I ignore what he says and get straight to the point.
“Do you have your girls tested?”
“Of course I do!”
“When was the last time Alina was tested?”
Alina narrows her eyes at me.
“Mr. Arden, if you think you got something from one of my—”
I cut him off.
“I’m just checking up on her, not myself.”
“They’re all tested monthly.”
“And her last test?”
“About a week ago.”
I pull the phone away a bit and look at Alina’s eyes.
“When was the last time you were tested?”
“It was a week ago yesterday,” she says. She bites hard on her lip and her eyes fill with panic. “I’m clean, Evan—I swear I am.”
She has obviously gotten the wrong impression. I give her half a smile and a wink to reassure her. She seems to understand, and sits back a little against the pillow, listening to one side on the conversation.
“And she’s clean?”
“Completely, Mr. Arden. I can even provide you with a copy of the tests if you like.”
“Not necessary.” I hear him sigh into the phone, and I decide to get to the point. “How much do you want for her?”
Teto pauses again and then rattles off the hourly rate I’m already paying for her.
“I’m interested in a purchase,” I say to clarify, “not a rental.”
“What?” Alina touches my arm, but I shake her off. “Evan, what are you doing?”
I shrug her off and listen to Teto’s breathing on the other end of the line. There’s a long pause before he responds.
“My girls aren’t for sale.” His answer doesn’t surprise me, and I’m ready for it.
“This one is.”
“Alina is a good whore,” Teto continues, “and she’s worth a lot to me. I couldn’t just let her go.”