Mafia (DNF)

Thirty-one

GEORGE

The burns were definitely still painful, but the next day I was back to work and my headache was gone. For some reason, Dream was awfully quiet, and seemed distracted all day.

As we were getting into the car, I tapped his shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

He didn't look at me, but shook his head. "We'll talk about it when we get back to the apartment."

That sounded a little ominous, but I waited quietly as we drove home. It was sort of awkwardly silent as we got our stuff, got into the elevator and arrived at our floor.

I closed the door to the penthouse behind us, and turned to him.

"Sooo..?"

He took a breath, and handed me a form. I took it confused.

At the top, in bold black letters, read, "Resignation Form."

I looked up, alarmed. "You're firing me?"

He rubbed his forehead. "In a way. It's too dangerous for you here, and after the incident yesterday, I can't put you in any more danger."

I was speechless. I waited for him to tell me he was joking, but he was silent.

"What about my pay check and job?" I asked. I didn't care much about either of those things, but I needed to see how serious he was about this.

"I'll pay you for your work so far, and find you a new job right away," he said. "I'll get you an apartment too, and you can live your life away from the mafia."

"What? No!" I said, grabbing his arm as he started to walk away. "Why are you just throwing me away like this? I thought it was hard for you to hire assistants?"

"Don't you get it?" He raised his voice. "You could've died yesterday. Even worse, you could've been tortured for days, even weeks if we didn't find the address. I can't bear the thought of it happening again."

I was a little angry now, but also felt betrayed, for some reason. "Who are you to decide what's too dangerous for me? I knew you were in the mafia when I agreed to the job, and you hired me. You can't fire me without a good reason."

I didn't want to leave him. I'd grown attached to him these past few weeks, and he'd turned out to be completely different than the cold-hearted CEO I'd imagined.

"Can't you see I'm protecting you? You haven't had to shoot and kill anybody yet. You haven't seen the horrors of this job. It wasn't fair of me to drag you here, and now I'm giving you the chance to leave."

"Well, I don't want to leave," I retorted. "And you can't make me."

"Why are you against this?" He said, turning to me. "I'm trying to help you."

I wished I could tell him that I wanted him, wanted to get to know him more. I wished I could say I was falling for him, but the words got caught in my throat.

I wasn't an impulsive person. Never had been, never would be. But my arms moved themselves, and I grabbed his face and kissed him.