- Chapter 24
THEO
“Dinner? Like right now?” I asked when Aldo said he wanted me to come and meet him.
It was odd. Aldo seemed to be pretty pissed off at me, and I didn’t think he wanted to have a meal with me anytime soon. Certainly, there had to be something else going on. I thought that Abby was still with him, but he didn’t say on the phone. He simply told me to come have dinner with him. So of course, I obliged and got my ass ready and headed down to the restaurant.
Perhaps something had happened between him and Abby and she had convinced him to let me and her be together. Or maybe it was something else entirely; I just couldn’t decide what to make of it all.
I wanted to get things settled between Aldo and me, and I wanted him to be done with Abby. I couldn’t stand the idea of her going out with him any longer and was happy to meet with him over dinner and discuss things.
Over the years, Aldo and I had gotten to know each other very well, and he had never threatened to kill me before. Although I knew he was obviously a very dangerous person, he and I had always been on the same side, and I wanted to make things right with him again.
There were so many years of history between the two of us that I just couldn’t imagine things going so horribly wrong all over one girl. Aldo could have his pick of any woman that he wanted and apparently his wife was even alright with that sort of thing; there was no reason for him to pick Abby. She didn’t love him and didn’t want to be with him, I knew that. Over dinner, I would simply explain the situation to him and ask him nicely to stop going out with her and let me date her myself. Surely our ten years of friendship was enough that he would be willing to do that for me.
I grabbed my things and made it to the small restaurant that Aldo had suggested. I had been to Rubio’s once before, and it struck me as a weird place. They had food from America, Italy, and France; it was like they couldn’t decide who they really wanted to be.
When I walked into the restaurant, I was looking for Aldo, but I couldn’t find him at all. I looked around the front of the restaurant and even glanced into the back, but he was nowhere to be found. For a brief moment, I thought it had been some sort of trick to get me out of the house, but then I decided I was being a little paranoid.
“Is Aldo Gioacchino here?” I asked like the woman at the front would know exactly who I was talking about.
Fortunately for me, she did know who I was talking about and quickly took me through to a private room where he was. But Aldo wasn’t there alone. He had Abby and his wife with him at the table. I was more confused than ever. The three of them looked pretty damn comfortable together, and I got a sick feeling in my stomach.
There had only been a few other times in my life where I truly felt like things were going wrong and my gut had warned me. But at that moment, I felt it and I wanted to turn and leave right away. The only thing that kept me there in that room was the fact that Abby was there with them, and I didn’t want to leave her there. I had no idea why Aldo wanted to have dinner with me and Abby and his wife, but I was going to stick around; no matter what my gut was telling me to do.
“Theo, it’s so nice of you to join us,” Aldo said in an unusually pleasant tone.
Considering the last time we had talked I pretty much got threatened with murder, I didn’t really see how he was so chipper all of a sudden now that I was there to have dinner with them.
“Abby, would you like to have Theo sit by you?” Aldo asked.
Abby looked at me with wide eyes and then back to Aldo as she obviously was trying to figure out what she should say. She looked lost as she sat there, and I wanted to just grab her and pull her out of the restaurant. Nothing about the situation seemed good, and I felt like something bad was about to happen. I felt the feeling so strongly in my gut that I could hardly think about anything else except getting Abby and leaving that restaurant as fast as possible.
“Sure,” she finally answered.
So I took a seat to the right of Abby and Aldo, and his wife sat on the other side of them. There was an empty chair on my right, and I assumed that it was for Briggs when he decided to arrive. But Briggs was notoriously late for things, so I didn’t expect he would be coming anytime soon.
“Theo, it’s so nice to see you again,” Nicole, Aldo’s wife said as I sat down.
“You too Nicole. How’s the lawyer world treating you?”
“It’s very busy, but I love it. Thank you for asking.”
Nicole was pretty uptight, and it was weird to me that things worked out between her and Aldo. But I figured every couple had their own weird things, and whatever happened in their private life seemed to work for them just fine.
Nicole was a beautiful woman, and she reminded me of Abby in a lot of ways. Not because of their looks, Nicole and Abby didn’t look alike, but in the way they carried themselves and interacted with the world. Nicole seemed to be able to adapt herself to whatever situation she was in, and she could easily change from being very cold and unfriendly to being personable and warm. It was a special gift that I was sure had helped her in dealing with Aldo over the years.
“Hi Theo,” Abby said shyly.
“How are you?” I asked quietly, although I could tell that Aldo could hear me.
“I’m good. Starving to death here, though. Hopefully they will bring some food.”
Abby had barely spoken the words before Aldo raised his hand at the waiter and did this weird number thing with his fingers. Within five minutes, our table was covered with a wide variety of different foods.
I hated that Aldo felt like Abby was his and he was going to impress her by having food delivered to the table quickly just because she said she was hungry. In fact, I hated everything about sitting at that table with Aldo and Abby so close together. My body continued to scream at me to grab Abby and leave, but I fought myself and tried to sit and figure out what exactly was going on and why Aldo had brought me there.
I had a little pull with the some of the restaurants I went to, but nothing quite like Aldo had. He had been around much longer than I, and he was able to really get people to do almost anything that he wanted them to do. Sometimes, I thought they were afraid of him and other times I just thought that they really wanted to please him. But for whatever reason, they always clamored to make Aldo happy.
“So Nicole, this is Abigail, isn’t she delightful,” Aldo said as he started to talk to his wife. “I think you two will get along great.”
“Yes sweetheart, she is,” Nicole said, a little bewildered at why her husband was making such a bold statement. “Abigail darling, why don’t you switch spots with Aldo so us girls can talk, and we can leave those men to their boring conversations.”
Aldo jumped up out of his seat and pulled Abby’s chair out so she could move over to sit by Nicole. It was the last thing that I wanted to happen. But I would rather have Abby talking to Nicole than talking to Aldo, so it was good enough for me. It seemed incredibly odd to me how Aldo and Nicole were acting, though, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“I have a proposition for you, Theo,” Aldo said as he sat down and turned toward me.
The women were both talking to each other, so it didn’t look like they could hear us, or they weren’t paying attention at least. This was it, this was the reason he had brought me to the restaurant with Abby and his wife. I was eager to hear what the proposition was that Aldo had for me.
I could still remember the very first dinner the two of us had when Aldo had made the proposition to me to fund my business with him. He offered to loan me the necessary money to take over his escort business and make it my own. Over the years, he had stopped putting money into the business and hadn’t been hiring new girls at all. He had just started to transition himself into more legal avenues and was wanting someone else to run his smaller operations.
Even though I was young, I knew enough that I didn’t want to be controlled by Aldo, so I offered to pay him a stipend each month if the business could be mine alone without his control. It was a bold move for me to make a counter offer to a man like Aldo, but it all worked out in the end, and I gained sole control of a brand new escort business and Aldo loaned me the money I needed to get it back on its feet.
“Sure, what is it?”
“You want out, right?” Aldo asked.
I wasn’t sure if it was a trick question or not. But I decided to just go with it. Aldo had a way of asking a question that seemed totally normal but was really a trick. I thought about it for a moment and then decided there couldn’t be a trick to this question and I should just answer it.
“Yes.”
“Okay, here’s the deal. You give up Abigail to me, and I’ll let you shut down your escort business and live the legal life if that you want.”
He knew damn well that the only reason I wanted to get out of the escort business was because of Abby. What good would it do to get out of the business if I didn’t have her? It was a trick question and a rotten one at that. Aldo always wanted his own way; he never really cared what was best for anyone else, and I knew he didn’t care what Abby really wanted.
“Aldo, I want Abby,” I said decisively.
“I thought you might say that. So I have another proposition for you. Share her. You go off and have your happily ever after, but you let her come play with me when I want her.”
“No,” I said without thinking at all.
There was absolutely no possible way I was going to share Abby with Aldo. I had finally come to the conclusion that she was the one for me, and I wasn’t going to give that up just because Aldo wanted to have her too. No, there was absolutely no way I was going to let Aldo have Abby.
Well, unless that was what Abby wanted. I guessed that I didn’t really know Abby’s feelings on the matter, but I couldn’t imagine that she would want to be shared between Aldo and myself. I just didn’t think that was something Abby was into.
“Don’t you want to talk it over with her? Maybe she would be alright with the offer?” Aldo said as he turned to look at his wife and Abby talking.
Nicole had her hand stroking Abby’s hair, and I literally almost freaked out on them all. Aldo and his freak of a wife were trying to set up some weird foursome or something like that, and I didn’t want any part of it. No I wasn’t going to share Abby with him or his wife, and I didn’t need to talk to her about it.
“Aldo, Abigail and I are getting along famously. Thank you so much for inviting me to dinner with you all,” Nicole said in a weird Stepford wife sort of voice.
“Abby, can I talk to you for a minute?” I said as I stood up, walked over and grabbed her.
I felt like a brute grabbing his woman and pulling her away from other people. But I couldn’t just stand by and watch as she got sucked into their weird web. Abby was an innocent Kansas girl, she certainly didn’t have any idea what she was getting herself into.
I expected that Aldo was going to object to me talking with Abby alone, but he didn’t seem to have a problem at all. Instead, Aldo just smiled and winked at Abby as I pulled her away. Something was going on, and I didn’t like it at all. I really want to just grab Abby and leave. Certainly it was a bluff that Aldo was going to kill me, that was a bit dramatic. He wanted me alive so I could keep giving him money, and he could keep in control.
“Let’s just get out of here. You and me, whatever happens I don’t care,” I said as I held onto her.
I really didn’t even care what had happened between Abby and Aldo up to that point. It had been my fault for forcing her to go out with him again. I desperately wanted to leave with Abby and would have picked her up and thrown her over my shoulder if it had been an acceptable thing to do.
“Theo, Aldo is a nice guy; I’m not going to just take off on him,” Abby said with a sweet smile. “I think I’d like to spend more time with him.”
Her voice was very monotone, and I knew something was going on. The Abby that I knew wouldn’t have talked like that, and she certainly wouldn’t have wanted to spend time with Aldo over me. I couldn’t help thinking she was doing this just to keep Aldo from getting angry, and I needed her to know that it didn’t matter anymore.
Couldn’t she see what was going on? Did she have some sense that Aldo was just playing her and didn’t really care about her at all? She wasn’t as street smart as her friend Isabella, but I knew Abby was smart and knew she could see through Aldo.
Even if she couldn’t see through him, I had told her about him. I had told her that he had murdered people before. How could that be okay for her? I didn’t know what was going on, but I wanted to shake Abby out of it.
“Abby, what the hell is going on? I know it’s my fault for telling you that he was dangerous and you should go out with him again. Don’t hold that against me, please. You need to get away from him.”
“Theo, you’re being a little melodramatic,” she said to me again in a flat monotone voice. “I want to be here with Aldo.”
“Melodramatic? What are you talking about? His freak wife is petting you like you’re her dog and what … they are going to take you back to their place and keep you as their pet or something?”
Abby laughed at me, but she turned around and wouldn’t look at me. That was when I knew for sure that something was going on. Abby had always made eye contact with me ever since the very first night we had met. The connection we had when our eyes locked onto each other was far and above something that just couldn’t compare to anything else. She didn’t want to be saying the things she was; I felt it, and when she wouldn’t look at me, I knew it for sure.
“Theo, I’m fine. You know we have only known each other for a few days. I think it’s probably time for us to take a break from whatever this is that is going on.”
“Look at me Abby; I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you need to look at me when you say this shit.”
I grabbed onto her and twisted her around so I could see her. There were tears in her eyes. I didn’t know why, but it couldn’t be good.
“Go on Theo, I’m staying with them for dinner,” she said as she walked back to the table.
“Then so am I,” I said defiantly.
“You two done with your little talk?” Aldo asked.
“Yes, Theo was just telling me that I had forgotten some things at his place. I told him I would get them another time.”
“Aldo, is Abigail going to be joining us tonight?” Nicole asked.
“Only if I’m joining you as well,” I chimed in.
Aldo, looked at me with a look so filled with distain that I thought he might actually punch me right there. I didn’t know exactly what his end game was with Abby, but I wasn’t about to make the same mistake I had made earlier. I wasn’t leaving her with him.
“Well, that’s a delightful little surprise for me now isn’t it?” Nicole said as she eyed me.
Instantly, I tensed up at the idea of sleeping with Aldo’s wife. Was that what they were into? She was a very attractive woman, but she wasn’t really my type. Nicole Gioacchino was very uptight and proper. Well, at least on the outside she was. Who the hell knew what she was like behind closed doors.
I thought Aldo might chime in with something interesting to add, but he just sat down next to me with a look of amusement on his face. He had under-estimated me, and I wasn’t about to let him have his way. But there was one thing I needed to prepare for: retribution. If things turned out badly this evening, then certainly I wasn’t going to end up getting out of anything alive.
“Do we need anything else?” the waitress said as she stopped by the table.
“I need vodka,” Abby said a little too loudly.
Aldo pressed his hand on her back and leaned in to whisper something to her. Whatever he said made her laugh, and I was instantly jealous. Why was he making her laugh? Why the hell was she actually laughing?
“So Aldo, you want to keep my girlfriend for yourself do you?” I said boldly.
It wasn’t politically correct to say such a thing directly to Aldo, and I certainly knew that Abby didn’t like being called my girlfriend. But I wasn’t about to sit back and let any man walk all over me like Aldo was trying to do. He needed to understand that I wasn’t just going to be alright with whatever his plan was.
He laughed at me and again leaned in and whispered in Abby’s ear. I couldn’t take it another moment.
“Doesn’t it bother you that your husband is sitting there flirting with my girlfriend?” I asked Nicole, although by this point I was pretty sure she was crazy herself.
“Jealousy isn’t something that I enjoy much at all. I prefer to skip that emotion in my life. As for Abigail, I think she is delightful, and I’ve fantasized about tasting her since the moment I saw her in the restaurant. It was Aldo that denied me the opportunity of getting her number at that time. So I’m eternally grateful to you for bringing her into our life again.”
“This is craziness, Abby. Just come with me. I don’t know what’s going on here, but we need to just go back to my place and talk.”
“Like I told you already, Theo; I’m going to stay and have dinner with Aldo and his wife,” Abby said without even looking at me.
“Theo, you are welcome to stay with us, and I think Nicole would love to have you return to the house with us as well. But I think maybe you should have a drink to cool down a little.”
“Cool down … you want me to cool down? Just hours earlier you were threatening to kill me because I didn’t want to tell Abby about the escort business and now here you are dragging her into your sick twisted marriage. You know what Aldo, you can kiss my ass. I’m not fucking your wife for you, and I’m certainly not going to sit back and watch you fuck my girl!” I screamed, standing up and hurrying over toward Abby.
I reached for her to pull her away, but this time Aldo did stop me. His arm grabbed hold of mine, and I felt the power in his grip.
“Leave without her,” Aldo said.
“Abby, please come with me. I know it’s crazy. I know you probably hate me and this is all because of that, but please just come with me. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Theo, this is your last chance to leave,” Aldo said, standing up and facing me.
Then, without thinking at all, I cocked my fist back and let it land smack dab on Aldo’s jaw. For a man of his age, he took a punch really well because he barely moved at all when I hit him.
“Theo, no!” Abby exclaimed. “You have to leave; he’s going to kill you.”
There! That was it! Aldo had threatened to kill me if Abby didn’t stay with him. That mother fucker had her going along with his plan because he was threatening me. I felt the anger building inside of me and was ready to punch him again.
“Leave now or she’s going to get hurt,” Nicole said as she held a black 9mm gun toward me and then slid it toward Abby’s head.
The whole situation had just turned insane in that moment. Abby looked at me in fear, but it seemed like she was more in fear of my life than her own.
“Tell him he can leave now,” Aldo said to Abby.
“Theo, this has all gotten out of control. I don’t love you; I barely even like you. Please leave me alone,” Abby said, but this time she looked me right in the eyes, and I knew she didn’t mean a single word of it.
Reluctantly, I backed away from the table to leave.
“I guess life isn’t about the lemons, it’s about the lemonade you make,” I said, looking Abby right in the eyes.
I saw a small grin flash across her face, and Nicole put her gun back in her purse; then I turned and left the restaurant. I wasn’t giving up, but I knew when I needed to back away.