Chapter Twenty Two
I’m sick with worry the next morning—over all my own shit, and the fact that from what I can tell, Vince never came back to bed last night.
I don’t know where his head’s at, but it can’t be good. I do what I can to check my cycle, seeing if there’s any chance I could’ve even been ovulating, but I forgot to mark my last period and I can’t remember when it was looking at a calendar. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about from one slip-up, but I would feel better if I could offer him something solid.
“You look pensive,” Mateo remarks.
I glance up at him, biting my bottom lip uncertainly. I suppose I could ask him for help. He’s the head of the family, after all.
“Kinda. Um, do you guys have, like… a family doctor, or…?”
Smirking at me, he asks, “A mob doctor?”
“No, just… I mean, maybe, if they can get the same stuff.”
“What is it you need?”
Squirming, I say, “I would rather tell a girl. I can go to my mom, but it’ll take longer and we don’t have good insurance—I don’t know.”
Frowning slightly, he asks, “What’s wrong?”
“I just… I need—God, I don’t want to ask you. Please don’t make me ask you. Is Francesca here? Cherie? Literally anyone with a vagina?”
“I’ve seen my fair share of them, if that helps.”
Grimacing, I say, “Ah, gross! It doesn’t. No. God.”
“We’re all adults here,” he states, firmly.
Well, not all of us, but I don’t argue. “I need birth control. And possibly the morning after pill.”
Dead silence.
My face might combust in actual flames, and I can’t look at him. Why, oh why, oh why did I start this conversation with him? I mean, I don’t really have anyone else to ask… Lena could probably get me the morning after pill, but we haven’t really been talking and that would be a humiliating way to suddenly start talking to her again.
After a moment, picking up his paper, he says simply, “No.”
Swallowing down the feeling of hollowness, I say, “No, you don’t have someone who can help me with that?”
“No, you may not have birth control or the morning after pill,” he amends.
Eyes widening, I ask, “Why?”
Opening his paper, he meets my gaze and says without apology, “Because I said so.”
I sit there for a moment, horrified, waiting for him to be joking, but apparently he isn’t. I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t understand why he would deny me something so basic—at least the birth control part. Given their heritage, they may be lazy Catholics—I know they murder and don’t go to church, but maybe they still cherry pick the traditions they want to keep. Vince did mention all Morelli women tend to have lots of babies, but… I didn’t realize that was because they had no choice.
Jesus Christ.
Well, I’ll have to double down on my fervent hopes that the broken condom incident didn’t ruin my life, because apparently if I’m pregnant, Vince is just going to hate me forever.
Oh, and that’s before he even finds out about my being in the study.
Great.
Just fucking fabulous.
Without another word, and certainly without the usual goodbye and have a good day niceties, I get up from the table and leave.
I make it outside before I realize I have no ride.
I won’t go back in though. I’m calculating how long it would take me to walk and how late I’ll be when I spot Adrian in the driveway.
“Hey,” I call out, impulsively.
He turns to me, but doesn’t speak.
“Could you give me a ride to school?”
“Have you talked to Vince?” he calls back.
I shake my head, brushing a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “No, not since last night.”
Adrian nods, glancing toward the road, then back at me. “He’s still at Joey’s. I don’t think he’s going. Why don’t you stay home today, Mia.”
I frown, shaking my head as I walk over to him. “I have a quiz—wait. What do you mean, he’s still at Joey’s? He came home last night.”
Adrian’s lips press together into a firm line, but his face doesn’t betray his thoughts. “No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did,” I reply, eyebrows rising.
Adrian takes a step closer, getting right in my face. “No. He didn’t.”
I’m frozen again, unable to move. Even in the terrifying moments after meeting Mateo, when he had me on the ground in front of him with a gun pressed to my forehead, I’ve never experienced time standing still until right this moment. My life could have ended then, and still seconds ticked by, then minutes, then hours.
But now, the world no longer spins.
My brain has shut down. Information is flying in, confusing information, nothing I can make sense of. Nothing.
Until one certainty cements itself.
If Vince never came home last night, I couldn’t have had sex with him.
But I had sex with somebody.
I feel at once like I weigh 1,000 pounds and like I’m weightless, falling through time and space, waiting to crash into solid ground.
My knees turn to jelly, but I somehow stay upright. Everything trembles—or it feels like it does. I can’t tell, I can’t feel physical things right now—not the wind whipping my face, not Adrian’s hand on my arm. I think I could take Mateo’s sister’s throwing star and gouge myself in the chest with it right now, and I wouldn’t feel a thing.
Gasping, coming back to life, I turn on my heel and head back into the house. I don’t run. I walk, slowly, impressed with my ability even to do that.
I go back to the dining room, but by the time I get there, he’s gone. I know he isn’t in his study, because I would’ve seen him.
Elise stands at the table, cleaning up the mess I left, and Mateo’s coffee cup.
“Where is he?” I hear myself ask her.
Elise spins around, surprised to see me. “Who, Vince?”
“Mateo.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He was here a few minutes ago, you just missed him.”
For the first time, the enormity of this goddamn house is a hindrance. My blood is pumping through my veins with such violence I can hear my heart beating in my whole body. I don’t know how long the adrenaline will keep me up. But I want to find him and scratch his fucking face off before I crash.
After he fucking admits what he did. I want to hear that, first.
I have no idea where to look, though. I don’t want to go to his bedroom, and I don’t know why he would go back there anyway; he was already up for the day and dressed in his perfect goddamn suit and tie.
Maria is the next person I see, and I stop her. “Do you know where Mateo is?”
I’ve rarely interacted with her outside of the kitchen, but Maria studies my face, then advises, “Why don’t you go to your room for a bit, have a rest.”
“Do you know where Mateo is?”
“You seem angry. Best to go to your room.”
“Oh, my God,” I say, giving up and walking away from her.
After storming through half the house, I come to the largest wing—the master suite. I stand at the center of three separate halls, all leading to rooms of his.
Common sense leaps out at me, telling me to turn back. He’s not up here, and even if he is… I don’t want to go in.
But I’m too fucking angry to listen.
I want to set him on fire.
I need to know he did it. It had to be him, but I need to know.
This wasn’t part of Vince’s tour though, so I don’t even know which hall to walk down. One is the bedroom, one is probably a sitting room… maybe the third is an enormous bathroom? I don’t know.
I go left.
It’s a sitting room, and there’s no one inside. My heart beats faster—I’m not sure if with relief at not finding him, or if it’s because one door down means only two to go.
I go with the middle door next, since I approach it first.
It’s a bedroom, but clearly not used, and possibly for children? There are a few boxes scattered around, one of them with a pink sparkly sweater on top.
Frowning, I back out of that one.
I’m just about to try the third door when I feel him. Not physically, not touching me, but he’s near enough I can feel his presence.
Then he speaks, his voice husky with expectation. “Looking for me?”
Suddenly my body trembles and I feel it all down my spine. My stomach pitches as I slowly turn around and see him standing there at the opening of the hall, where I was just a couple of minutes ago.
My words suddenly dry up and to my absolute horror, tears well in my eyes.
Mateo walks toward me, a predatory glint in his eyes.
I’m supposed to be the one confronting him, but it suddenly hits me as he moves closer, faster, not apologetic, not retreating, not remorseful, but… stalking me.
I chased my rapist to his bedroom.
Launching away from the wall, I go to move past him but he catches me by the arm, his grip rough, not light like it normally is.
“Get your hands off me,” I say, my voice shaking through every syllable.
“Oh, but you like my hands on you,” he says, a wicked smile grazing his lips.
“No, I don’t,” I say, feeling as if he just slapped me.
“Sure you do,” he says, using his body to move me backward. “You liked my hands when they were playing your pussy like a fiddle, making you scream with pleasure. You liked my mouth, when I was devouring you like my favorite dessert. You certainly seemed to enjoy my cock, when I was fucking you in Vince’s bed.”
A noiseless sob escapes me as my back hits the wall, and he presses his body against mine.
“You like me a lot more than you let on, don’t you, Mia?”
I struggle to get my arm away from him, but he’s holding it too tight. I raise my other hand to hit him, but his reflexes are too fast and he catches me, pushing both arms over my head and pinning me against the wall.
I can only shake my head, trying for words that won’t come, gasping for breath when my chest feels like it’s about to cave in.
He doesn’t even have the decency to be ashamed. He looks straight into my eyes with no trouble—and they’re dancing with something. Amusement?
“You’re a monster,” I whisper.
He tilts his head as if considering it, then shrugs.
My words are finally coming back. “You raped me.”
“You were pretty willing,” he tells me.
“I thought you were someone else!”
“Yeah.” Making a face that would seem to indicate ‘this is awkward’ he inhales through his teeth. “I probably wouldn’t go with that. I feel like Vince wouldn’t be terribly pleased that you couldn’t tell when you were having sex with him, and when you were having sex with me.”
“I didn’t have sex with you,” I say, jerking my arms, rabid at his wording. “That wasn’t sex. You manipulated me. You tricked me. You snuck into my boyfriend’s bed in the dead of night when I was asleep, for fuck’s sake. Why would I think it was anyone but him?”
“Well, he did warn you,” Mateo points out.
It’s like another slap to the face, and I physically rear back from the force of it.
“And… Cherie. And… well, everybody, isn’t that right?”
He lets that land, giving me enough time to fully process the truth of that statement. To relive myself fighting with Vince, telling him how sick I was of being warned about Mateo. Telling him he was being paranoid.
“Even I told you I wasn’t a good guy,” he adds, that time looking a little apologetic. “I mean, you just didn’t want to believe any of it. I have this nice house, I bought you pretty dresses and fucking stories about how good triumphs over evil—it doesn’t, I could’ve told you that, but… you were warned, Mia. And still here you stand, a few feet from my bedroom.”
I feel like the biggest fool in the whole entire world. Humiliation swallows me whole as I recall feeling sympathetic toward him, feeling sad because he seemed to lead an ultimately lonely existence.
But he deserves to be lonely. He deserves to have no one.
And me, maybe I fucking deserved this, because he’s right, every single person who knows him tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen.
With no pride left, I break down in tears, right there in front of him. Between sobs, I ask, “Why? I was nice to you.”
Sighing heavily, he says, “You’re right, you were. It’s not your fault. You just saw something you shouldn’t have. It was just rotten luck, and I’m truly sorry for it. I don’t know if I admire or pity your ability to see good in people where none actually exists, but I don’t want to snuff that out of you. I didn’t even want to know you—really, this is Vince’s fault. I could’ve finished it quick, it would’ve been painless, we could have all moved on with our lives.”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” I remind him, even while realizing how foolish it is to remind him of anything he said like it holds any weight.
“I said as long as Vince wanted you,” he responds, correcting me. “If he doesn’t anymore… well, your fate’s left to me then, isn’t it?”
It’s profoundly embarrassing to have been this wrong about someone, but it’s worse that Vince was so right, and I’ve been so goddamn sure of myself.
“You planned to kill me all along, didn’t you? This was just a game to you.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” he replies. “Not yet, even if Vince comes home today wanting to kill you himself.”
“Why would he…?”
“He knows. A little birdie told him some things, so… well, that’s not going to be a fun time for you.”
I can’t stand up anymore. My legs wobble and I try to sink down the wall, but he’s still holding my arms, so I can’t.
“Why don’t you just do it now and get it over with,” I whisper, tears flowing freely down my face now.
He rearranges his grip on me, pinning my arms at the wrist to free up a hand. Then he runs it along my jawline in a gesture that would be tender, except it’s coming from him. “Because I’m not done with you yet.”
I can only stare at him, empty, broken, alone.
Then he adds, “Not to mention, you could be carrying my child.”