"I haven't—"
"You have," I say, cutting her off. "Your little innocent act isn't going to work on me… not anymore. You know what you're doing. You're not ignorant. You know how it affects me, and yet you keep on doing it. I let you, because you needed time, you needed my patience, but you're out of time now, Karissa, because I'm out of patience. You want to play this game? You want to fuck with me until you get a reaction? That's fine. I'll give you exactly what you want."
I press up against her, my nose brushing against hers as she struggles to break the hold I have on her. Tilting my head, leaning further down, I pause with my lips just a breath away from hers.
I want to kiss her.
I'd give anything to have her kiss me back again.
I can feel it as she whispers, "Let me go."
"Make me. I dare you."
She shoves me with her free hand, slipping around me so quickly I hardly have time to react. I let go of her wrist a second too late, and she winces as her arm awkwardly twists. She grabs her wrist where I held her as she backs away, shaking her head, another stray tear flowing down her cheek.
"There's something wrong with you!" she shouts, loud enough that Melody hears, calling out from the den to see if Karissa's okay. "You're… you're fucking sick."
"Tell me something I don't know."
"I hate you!"
"Again, tell me something I don't know."
"Karissa?" Melody calls, stepping into the doorway of the kitchen, hesitating as she glances between us, her eyes laced with suspicion. "Is everything okay?"
I stare at Karissa, cocking an eyebrow, waiting on her to respond. She doesn't want me to address her friend, not right now, not when I'm in this mood.
Karissa slowly nods, still rubbing her wrist. "Yeah, it's fine, but uh… you should probably go. Naz and I… well…"
"I get it," Melody says quickly, waving us away. "Lover's quarrel and all that. I'll, uh… I'll see you later this week, okay? We still on for the café?"
"Of course," Karissa says, forcing a smile. "I'll see you then."
Melody waves before scurrying out of the house. It isn't until the front door opens and closes, signaling she's actually gone, that Karissa turns back to me again. The fear is gone from her eyes, as is the anger I've been accustomed to these past few weeks. All that greets me now is sadness.
Heartbreak.
She keeps rubbing her wrist, clutching onto it. My anger lessens as worry seeps in. I step toward her, reaching for her arm. "Are you okay?"
Before I can touch her, she yanks away, backing up to put some more space between us. "Like you care."
"I do," I say. "If I hurt you…"
She scoffs. "All you do is hurt me."
I want to say something, to refute that, but I can't.
Karissa's silent for a moment before looking at me, her voice a whisper. "You know what the worst day of my life was, Naz?"
I barely hesitate. "The day I killed your father."
She flinches at those words, but she shakes her head as she crosses her arms over her chest. "The worst day of my life was that day in my dorm room. You warned me to stay away from you… but I didn't listen. You said if you didn't walk away then, you never would… but I didn't listen to that, either. And I see now you meant it. You really meant it." Her voice cracks. "I made a mistake. I should've never asked you to stay."
She could pick up a knife from the counter and plunge it in my chest right now, and it wouldn't bother me—wouldn't hurt me—as much as those words do.
I'd rather be shot again than to hear what she just said.
But she knows that.
And maybe she means those words.
Maybe that was the worst day of her life.
But that offers little consolation to me.
It stings.
Wordlessly, I push away from the counter and take a few strained steps toward her. Karissa stands still as I slowly walk right by her, refusing to meet my eyes as I stare down at her.
I pause beside her, leaning closer, my lips near her ear. "But you did," I say quietly. "You asked me to stay, so get used to it, sweetheart, because I'm not going anywhere."
Her skin is soft. Pure. Rarely touched.
Although Karissa keeps her eyes closed, her body completely still, I know she's awake. I can tell it from the catch in her throat, the soft shudder of a breath she lets out when I climb in bed beside her. She's wearing a flimsy black tank top and a pair of underwear.
She always wears very little to bed.
I wear even less.
I sleep naked. I have no qualms about it. I try to be a gentleman, try to be understanding and keep my hands to myself, but it's hard.
It's fucking hard.
Especially times like this.
Times when I know she's awake, when I know she knows I'm here, so close but so damn far away. It leaves an ache in my muscles that is hard to shake. I catch myself touching her, my fingertips trailing whatever sliver of skin is exposed. She remains still but I can feel her shiver, feel the goose bumps rising in the wake of my touch.
It's too much.
It's never enough.
I want more. I need more. I'm greedy and I want all of her. I want to love her, want to hold her, want to be inside of her again.
I want to fuck her mercilessly.
Last time I did, I hardly remember it.
I was drugged, and she was planning to leave. It's been a month... a long torturous month without her touch. I want to slip my hand beneath the fabric, strip her bare and hold her close.
But if I try, she'll use the word. Red.
I wanted to rip her fucking tongue out for using it on me the way she did.
Sighing, I roll away from her, facing the other way. I won't touch her tonight, as much as it pains me. She's upset, and I don't want to make things any worse than they already are.
I don't know how we're ever going to get over this.
One step forward, half a dozen back…
I'm a light sleeper, my body naturally attuned to my surroundings. Every time she shifts in the bed, rolling over or stretching her legs, curling up or clutching her pillow tighter, I'm startled back awake, jolted to a consciousness that isn't easy to shake.
Sleeping with someone—sharing a room with them, letting them into your most private places, seeing you in your most vulnerable moments—takes a lot of trust. I'm strong, and fast, but even a dim-witted asshole could slit someone's throat in their sleep, incapacitate them before they even woke up.
All it takes is a few seconds.
I know.
I drift off eventually, in and out of sleep. I can feel it when Karissa gets up in the morning, can hear her quiet footsteps as she leaves the room. I try to go back to sleep once she's gone, but it's impossible.
As hard as it is to sleep with her beside me, it's even harder having her gone.
Curiosity gets the best of me after a few minutes.
I climb out of bed and throw on some clothes, slowly making my way downstairs. Karissa is in the kitchen, standing by the counter, pouring herself a bowl of cereal. Coco Puffs. It's still weird, seeing this space used so much, utilized for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sometimes she just hangs out in here, just leaning against the counter for the fuck of it.
Strange.
Stepping past her, I grab a bottle of water from the fridge, opening it and taking a sip when she speaks.
"I'd kill for some coffee."
Her voice is light, the words coming out easy, like talking to me these days still comes naturally.
Huh.
Leaning back against the counter, I eye her peculiarly. "Literally?"
She turns her head my way, rolling her eyes. "It's an expression."
"I know it is," I say, screwing the lid back on my bottle. "If you want coffee, call the café down the block and have them bring you some."
"And what, order fifteen cups of coffee?" she asks. "They have a minimum delivery amount, you know. I'm
better off just walking there, but that requires putting on pants, and well…"
And well, she's not wearing any.
My eyes slowly scan her at the mention, drinking in the sight of her creamy skin in the soft light from the window. Sometimes I think she does this just to tease me. She never used to show so much skin. It's tempting, that's for sure.
I want to caress every inch of her.
"Do you want me to go get you some?" I offer when I meet her eyes again. "I will."
"No, it's fine," she says right away. "I don't want anything from you."
I shrug, pushing away from the counter to stroll past her when I hear my phone ringing off in the den. Ray again. Always Ray. "Fair enough. If you change your mind—"
"I won't," she says. "I'm not going to change my mind."
It's quiet again, as I walk out of the kitchen, her voice barely a breath when I hear her amend, "Not when it comes to you, anyway."
"So there's this guy…"
This is how a lot of conversations start with Ray. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard those four words…
Actually, I'm sure I have a few thousand for every time.
"What guy?" I ask needlessly, knowing he'll tell me whenever he's ready. Ray has a flair for the dramatic.
"This guy," he says, "who did some work for me. He's in the car business, you know… he owns a shop and stripped a few cars. He got in deep, though, and decided he wanted out, but you know as well as I do there is no out, so the jackass filed a report. For harassment! Can you believe it? He called the police and thought they would do something for him!"
Yes, I can believe it.
People seem to believe the police are actually there to help them.
I used to think it, too.
Before I learned the truth.
I glance at Ray as we sit in the back office of Cobalt, sipping drinks even though it's not even noon. Brandy is fast asleep in the corner, on a leather couch along the wall. I wonder if they spent the night here. I've never seen her at Cobalt so early in the morning before.
"And what, you want him taught a lesson?"
"Nah, we already took two knees," Ray says. "I'd rather he just be dealt with already."
"Yeah, okay," I say. "I'll handle it."
Ray rattles off the guy's name and some identifying details—Josh Donizetti, late forties, blond hair, walks with a limp because of the kneecap incident. The garage he owns is over in Brooklyn, not far from where I live. That's really all I need, but Ray reaches into his desk and pulls out the man's business card for me anyway.
I finish my beer as Ray switches topics, rambling on about something. I don't know. He's not talking to me. Not really. He's just talking. Unlike me, Ray doesn't like silence.
When my bottle is empty, I set it aside and stand up, slipping on my coat before reaching my hand toward Ray.
He shakes it, smiling genuinely. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Vitale."
Without me, he'd be poorer, and weaker, and probably would even be dead. He relies on me more than he likes to admit… more than the other guys know. They think their boss is the strongest man in the city, the most powerful, and on the surface it seems that way. He slaps his name on most of my deeds, taking credit.
I don't mind.
I don't do it for the glory.
I don't need any credit.
I don't want people kissing my ass every day.
"I'll call you," I say. "Just as soon as it's done."
I spend all afternoon finding the garage in Brooklyn, staking it out, watching the man of the hour as he limps around the workspace, struggling to bend down, straining as he works on cars. Bastard probably suffered enough, both of his knees wrecked. He's lucky to be walking at all.
But he made the grave mistake of going to the police. It's unforgivable in our world, something nobody is immune from. No matter who you are, or what you do, or who loves you… it's a deadly sin we don't forgive.
The first person I ever killed was a guy named Joseph Manchetti. I did it clean and simple, a shot through the back of the skull. My hands shook that day when I pulled the trigger, and I barely made it a block away before doubling over along the side of the road and losing everything in my stomach.
It wasn't because he was dead, wasn't because I took the life of a married man, the life of a father, the life of a man severely in debt to a mob that only wanted his mortality as payment.
It had nothing to do with him.
It was the adrenaline.
It had been the first spark of life I'd felt in my veins since the night it was all stolen from me, the first time I felt normal again. It was a high unlike any other, the high of controlling someone's last breath. My heart beat wildly in my chest, a heart I wasn't sure existed anymore.
The most inhumane moment of my life reminded me that I, too, had once been human.
I felt alive again.
I grew addicted to that feeling.
Eventually, I stopped getting sick afterward. The high didn't feel as high. The adrenaline didn't come on as strong. Like any true junkie, I needed more and more to gratify me. Clean and simple became messy and torturous, the sensations heightened by witnessing the aftermath. I perfected it, figuring out the best way to get the biggest thrill with the least amount of risk.
I didn't care how they felt as long as I got to feel again.
As I sit in my car across the street, watching the man move around the shop, my fingers start to tingle from anticipation. I toy with his business card, running my fingertips along the rough edges of it, biding my time, but the pull is strong. It's funny, in a way, that they call it a hit.
Because it is.
It's a hit.
A high.
And I crave it.
I wait until dusk, the neighborhood quiet, everyone from the garage gone except for the man I'm here to deal with. He's working on an old muscle car, lying beneath it.
Carefully, I get out, discarding the business card in the center console, and tug on my black gloves as I cross the street. I quietly step inside the garage, my footsteps hardly making a sound. The man doesn't hear me, or see me, doesn't know I'm here until it's too late.
I hit the old jack, the car abruptly lowering, so fast the gimp doesn't have a spare second to get out of the way. He can't move, can only scream, as two tons of metal come crashing down on his chest.
He kicks his legs as he silences, his body violently shaking.
I linger for a moment, watching.
There's something mesmerizing about death. It's the offering of peace, I think. No matter the pain of life, the torture, the struggle, it'll all end eventually.
We're born to die. That's just the way it is.
I'll die someday, somehow, and I'm not afraid. Death will be a release for me. Until then, I live vicariously through others, watching them reach the point of acceptance, watching as they fight for one more breath.
Life never grants them it, not when I'm around.
Just like it never gave her another chance.
Sometimes I think I'm cursed that way.
It's a self-imposed punishment that barely keeps my demons at bay. It's cathartic, but only temporarily.
The release leaves me unstable.
I walk away while he's still twitching, keeping my head down as I cross the street again to where my car is parked. I drive away without giving the garage another look, pulling out my phone and calling Ray, merely saying "it's dealt with" when he answers before hanging up. I don't go home right away, instead navigating the streets for a while to clear my mind, to let the rush of adrenaline purge from my system.
Facing Karissa like this would be dangerous.
The silver and black machine takes up a quarter of the stretch of countertop, the pristine fixtures shining under the early morning sunshine streaming through the window. I lean against the counter on the opposite end of the kitchen, hearing Karissa move around above me, her footsteps making their way through the hall and down
the stairs.
My eyes meet her as soon as she steps in the room. I squint when she flicks on the bright overhead light, watching as she hesitates, seeing me lurking in the darkness. The fear that greets me makes my insides coil, my skin taut. My chest feels heavy, like she punched me in the gut with that look.
No matter how many times I swear I'm not going to hurt her, she still forgets. And even if it's only for a moment, it's too much.
"Good morning," I say.
She stares at me, the panic dissolving to her usual shade of confliction. She doesn't respond, her gaze shifting away from me, her brow furrowing when she spots the machine on the counter.
"It's a countertop coffee system," I explain. Her eyes dart to me, surprised, and I shrug, snatching the user's manual off the counter beside me and holding it out to her. "You said you would kill for coffee."
"So you bought a machine?" she asks, taking the manual from me before looking back at it. "You couldn't just buy a normal little coffee pot? One that doesn't take reading a novel to learn how to operate?" I start to respond when she cuts me off, grumbling, "of course you couldn't."
She looks at the front of the manual for a moment before tossing it down and turning away from it. She snatches a bowl from the cabinet, slamming doors and drawers as she fixes herself her usual morning cereal. I watch in silence as she brushes right past me, grabbing the milk out of the fridge. She pours it into her bowl, some sloshing out that she doesn't bother to clean up.
Standing there, her back to me, she takes a bite and stares out the window.
Still so angry…
Slowly, I stroll over to her, pausing right behind her, so close my tie rests against her back. I'm still wearing yesterday's clothes. I don't know if she even notices, or cares, that I didn't sleep beside her, that I didn't come home until some godforsaken hour and then spent until sunrise putting together a goddamn machine to give her coffee. I don't know if she missed my presence then, but I know she feels it now.
I know, because she shivers when I lean forward, and in the reflection of the window I see her eyes briefly flutter closed. I bring my lips to her ear, my voice low as I say, "I think the words you're looking for are thank you."