I put my hands on my head and paced back and forth in the bathroom until Nash followed me in. I stopped in my tracks and threw my hands out. "What the fȕck are you doing here?" I demanded and stormed past him to the door and locked it before turning back to him with hands on my hips and a smoldering glare.
"You told me bathroom!"
"Not here here, here." I pointed to the ground firmly.
"I don't follow."
I rolled my eyes. "In the restaurant Nash. You swore you wouldn't come in."
"I was worried about you."
"You swore on everything!"
"What the hell was I supposed to do? Wait outside and twiddle my thumbs until I heard a bang? Go home and wait to see your death on the news? You've known from the beginning that your safety trumps the investigation. I wasn't going to just wait for you to get hurt!
"I'm fine, now you need to leave." I took several steps to meet him in the middle of the bathroom.
"Kate-"
"Nash right now I just can't. Okay. We can talk about this later but right now you need to get out."
He frowned.
"I'm serious! Alessio owns this restaurant. Need I remind you who you are and who you work for? No one I'm sure he would willingly serve. You need to leave."
"Just say the word."
"I am saying it now! Leave!"
"Forget."
"I'm not in danger. There's no reason to say it." I said and slowly lowered my eyes to his side. His coat covered his gun but I knew it was there.
He looked exasperated for a moment. "Katie-"
"Nash, please. I can't, not right now. I can't do this."
"I wasn't trying to trick you."
I frowned deeply. "Fine. Stay, but you're going to get yourself killed hanging around here." I started towards the door but then stopped. Damn it all to hell, I didn't want Nash to get killed, I couldn't leave him here and pretend I did. I spun around to face him again. "Damn it Nash! Please, just go."
"Just promise me you know that. I wouldn't Kate. I wouldn't try to trick you."
"You mean like you're tricking the hundreds of men you're working with in the mafia?"
He frowned. "That's different and you know it. That's for the greater good."
"How do I know that you don't think tricking me is for the greater good too then? Huh? How do I know you aren't thinking oh if she does get killed as long as I can pin it to Alessio and get him thrown in jail it was for the greater good. How am I supposed to trust anything you say? How do I know you weren't trying to trick me just to catch Alessio and rationalizing that it would be okay because it's for the greater good. I look like a fucking idiot now! All that shit that I accused him of!" I threw my hands into the air exasperated and let them drop dramatically back to my side.
"Look at me! Look at me and tell me that you honestly believe I would do that to you? For fȕcks sake I introduced you to my daughter!"
"And how am I supposed to know this isn't some clever ploy to win me over? For all I know she might not even be your daughter. I'm certain it wouldn't be your first lie!"
His face straighten, clearly annoyed. "Really Kate?"
I threw my hands up again with nothing else to say.
"I am not lying to you." He said slowly putting emphasis on each and every word.
Fȕck me, I believed him. I'd be damned if I admitted that now though. "Wolf in sheep's clothes." I reminded him and he groaned.
"I wish you would quit saying that!"
"I wish you would leave." Suddenly someone was pounding on the door.
On instinct, and despite the fact that he had made no noise whatsoever, I smacked my hand over Nash's mouth. "Occupied. Sorry." I said loudly.
"It's me." Alessio said through the door.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to calm myself. I opened my eyes, Nash was watching me intently. He didn't look concerned, didn't appear to be scared of Alessio's presence in the least bit, he was still just invested in our conversation. "Just a minute." I finally said in a raised voice to ensure he heard me.
"Open the fȕcking door!" He demanded.
I shoved Nash back into a stall and raised my index finger to my lips. He nodded. "I'm coming, just a second." Alessio pounded on the door again and I heard him ranting in Italian from the other side of the door.
I unlocked the bathroom door and opened it just a crack and peered out at him. "Can I help you?" I asked in my best confused and totally innocent voice.
Alessio had a stern face and pushed past me and into the bathroom fully. "Where is he?" He pushed the first stall open with one hand and held his pistol in the other. I cut in front of him before he could reach the second.
"What?"
"That Bonanno bastard, where the fȕck is he?" He pushed past me again and kicked the second stall open.
"Alessio stop!" I gasped and cut in front of him again.
He reached his arm straight past me and aimed his gun at the third stall. "Cameras Katherine. We have cameras every-fȕcking-where. Where the hell is he."
"Calm down." I pushed his arm away.
"Move." He demanded.
"Put the gun down." I said equally as stern as him.
"Katherine-" He started in a dangerous tone.
"Alessio." I said matching his tone perfectly.
We were in a stare down for over a full minute before he said in a raspy tone. "Move. Or I will move you myself."
"You are acting like an irrational fool!"
True to his word Alessio forced me away. It took only seconds and minuscule effort for him to push me aside with his arm as if I were nothing more than stray hairs hanging in front of his eyes my back was against the stall. It was not painful or startling, not a shove or attack, he'd simply brushed me to the side and the guy in the stall next to us apparently did not appreciate the action.
Nash was out of the stall before Alessio had even reached it with his own gun pointed.
"Woah, woah, woah." I planted myself quickly between the two of them and by the grace of God, neither shot. "Let's all just calm down here a second."
"Move Kate." Alessio said and I frowned.
"If I move you're going to shoot him!"
"That's precisely the point!"
"I'm with him." Nash said through gritted teeth. "Get out of the way."
I sent Nash a sharp look over my shoulder and then back to Alessio. "Baby." I said and his gaze flickered from Nash and to me for a brief second before back to Nash. "Put the gun down."
"What the fȕck are you doing in my restaurant?" Alessio hissed to Nash.
"Oh? This is your place? I'm just here because I hear it's got the best cannoli in town."
Alessio narrowed his eyes. "True as that may be, you know exactly who fȕcking owns this place and that your people aren't welcomed."
"Fine. Sorry." Nash said with little sincerity.
"Okay, enough!" I yelled but both ignored me.
"You followed her in here, why?" Alessio demanded. Nash didn't say a word. "Thought you could take her again? Snatch her from under my own God damned nose?"
"No."
"Alessio he's not a bad guy." I tried and Alessio's cold glare lifted from Nash and immediately fell on me all fury and intensity still present.
"The hell he isn't. Do you even know what they were going to do to you? Why the hell else would he have followed you in here? Get out of the way." He snarled and for the second time swept his arm against me to force me out from between them.
Nash took an immediate step forward his grip on his gun tightening even more if possible and I blurted out the only thing I could before either could shoot. "He saved me!"
Nash came back a step, back tracking. Alessio didn't move. He hadn't shot him, but he didn't pull his glare away from him either. I wasn't sure who looked more furious, Alessio or Nash.
"From the Bonanno the last time. He's the only reason I'm here now." I yelled again and even though they were only inches away from me I didn't pull myself away from the stall again
"What the bloody hell are you talking about now?" Alessio growled but didn't look at me.
"They captured me, hit me in the head and everything. He gave me an ice pack and some pain pills. When we stormed the place he's the one who pulled me up off the ground, cut my wrists free, gave me a gas mask and led me out of there. You know I would have been killed if someone wouldn't have helped me!" I yelled purposely neglected the part of the story where he'd been the one to hit me.
Everyone was quiet. Too quiet. "Matteo?" Alessio finally asked to verify this new set of information I had dropped onto his lap.
Slowly Nash nodded, and even slower both guns lowered only slightly.
"Why?" Alessio demanded.
Nash was quiet for a few moments before glancing to me. "Because like you, I knew exactly what they were going to do with her."
I sighed heavily. Alessio opened up one arm and I came to him. He put his arm protectively around my shoulder and pulled me against him, his other hand still holding the gun. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him, quietly thanking him for not being rash and trusting my word and instincts.
Even if I hadn't trusted his before.
"Why are you here now?"
I couldn't see Nash with my face in Alessio's chest so I had no clue what his expression may have been but he spoke firmly. "To warn her."
"Warn her." Alessio parroted and I half turned to face Nash to study him.
He nodded again. "Listen, I don't condone it but Giovanni is still alive and he's pissed as all hell."
"Of course he is. And he wants to take that rage out on Katherine?" Alessio demanded in a seething voice.
"No." Nash said sharply. "He wants to take it out on you and the only way to do that is through her."
Nash and I had already talked about this before. Giovanni was alive and while he was all for hurting Alessio he didn't have his eyes set on me. Not unless I would get in his way again. He would certainly take and kill me if he had an easy chance but under no circumstances was he interested enough to hunt me down. Should we pass one another on the streets he would surely sweep me up and shove me into the trunk of his car, but he was not on some sort of manhunt. He had a plan, and as it was currently that plan did not involved a direct attack to Alessio or myself. Clearly, this was a speech made just for Alessio's benefit...and Nash's life.
"Does he have any plans on how to do this yet?"
"No."
Alessio was quiet for a moment and I suspected he was probably still contemplating shooting him. Finally he muttered in a dismissive tone. "Alright. You've warned us, now get the hell out."
Nash put his gun back in his holster and held his hands up submissively. He walked backwards to the door keeping his eyes on us the entire time to ensure Alessio didn't shoot him, and then he left.
I turned to Alessio who was frowning deeply. "Come on. We're going home." He said and released me.
"Alessio-"
"Why the fȕck were you even in here with him?" He yelled.
"What?" I pulled back surprised. Moments ago he was holding me protectively and now he was screaming at me. I wasn't going to stand here and pretend I didn't deserve to be screamed at but his feelings spun so quickly I swear I was suffering from whiplash.
"You! All those damn pictures of the two of you I had before, and now you're running off and hiding in bathrooms with him. What the fȕck is this shit?"
"This is that jealousy thing we've talked about before."
"No!" He boomed and I stepped back. "It isn't. Tell me why Katherine. We didn't discuss it before, you blew me off, laughed at me and then like a God damned fȕcking puppy I begged you to come live with me and completely ignored fȕcking Matteo. Why are you hanging around with him? Why did you run off and hide with him in the bathroom? What the fȕck is going on here?"
"You trust me, don't you?" I demanded because really, what could I tell him?
"Do you trust me?" He shot back. "Ten minutes ago it sure as hell didn't seem like it."
"Alright! I had my doubts! But I mean, come on. It looked bad."
"And this looks fabulous, wonderful, amazing."
"I wouldn't cheat on you if that's what you're implying here." I snapped defensively.
"Then why did he look at you like that?"
"Look at me?" I practically scoffed. Were we such children that we couldn't even stand to have someone look at each other?
"Yes." He rolled his eyes. "He looked at you like...like...well he looked at you in a way that made me want to take an aluminum baseball bat to his face until his eyes rolled in two different directions and he couldn't look at anything that way ever again."
"You're ridiculous, you know that right?"
"Yeah. I'm the ridiculous one here."
"You are! You're making a huge stink over nothing! I'm allowed to have friends Alessio. Na-" I stopped abruptly and clamped my mouth shut, he raised an eyebrow. "Naturally," I tried to recover from my slip of the tongue. "I didn't think it would cause a problem."
"You can have friends. Friends are great. I want you to have tons of friends, have friends by the boat loads, friends coming out the wazoo. I don't give a damn. But friends who've threatened your life, my life, my family's lives, friends who are determined to ruin our lives, those are the kinds of "friends" you can't have."
"You threatened my life minutes into meeting me! You've done more than threaten my family's lives, and you've ruined plenty. So it's okay when you do all of that, but no one else? Don't try to play mister innocent to me, I know you better than that. And for the record Matteo has never threatened me or my life and you don't get to dictate every single aspect of my life to the point that you get to tell me I can't be friends with someone!"
Alessio fell into complete silence, he glared at me for a full minute, sixty seconds of fuming rage. Just long enough for me to regret every word I had said, just long enough for me to shift my weight from one foot to the other and back, just long enough for the anger I had fade into feeling awkward and exposed under his glare and then like complete shit all together. He glared at me for 1/60th of an hour and then turned wordlessly and walked out of the bathroom.
I silently followed Alessio back out into the restaurant. He gathered his coat from the back of his chair and slipped it on. I stood awkwardly at the table as he made a bit of a show in getting ready to leave.
"Should I leave the Lexus?" I asked finally breaking the silence.
"What?" He asked not bothering to look up at me but rather pat his pockets to ensure he had everything he needed.
"The Lexus. Should I just leave the Lexus here?"
"No. Take it. Take it and go where ever the hell you want."
"What?"
He finally looked at me for a second and then returned to a much more important task. Lighting a cigar. "Go. I wouldn't want to ruin anything else for you."
"Alessio!" I groaned. "I didn't-"
He sighed too heavily and I stopped. "I'll take the Lexus. Simone will drive you back to the house or wherever the hell you want to go. He'll stay with you. I don't want you alone."
"You're not coming to the house with me?"
"No."
He took a long drag on the cigar and I rocked awkwardly from my heels to my toes. "I didn't mean what I said. You don't ruin anything. You act without speaking, I speak without thinking. It's what we do."
"It's fine."
His choice of words stung and the sharp tone he used cut to the core. "When will you come back? An hour? A few hours?" He didn't answer and my frown deepened. "At all tonight?"
"I don't know Katherine." He finally sighed. "I don't know, alright? I have to think."
"Think about what?" I demanded.
He didn't answer. Again, he took a drag from his cigar instead and dug a pair of keys out of his pocket. He tossed it to me. "Don't lose it."
Along with the key was the fob. The precious key fob that controlled every single aspect of the car. There were far more buttons than just the panic, lock, and unlock button. He was angry at me, Simone was one of his best men, and yet he still didn't trust him enough to leave me stuck.
"The panic button set off an alarm but not the loud kind you might expect. It'll send a message to a few of the guys and activate their GPS tracker on the car. Worse case scenario they'll be there in ten minutes. The red button in the middle stops the car completely, if you press that button he's obviously going to know you know something is up, so I wouldn't use that unless he's going to drive into a wall or off a cliff. Your best bet is either the panic button or to unlock the car and tuck and roll out the door."
"You're so paranoid."
"I'm careful." He corrected and took another key out of his pocket.
"Still. It's Simone. I'll be fine."
"It would be useless to give you the fob if you had no clue what to do with it." His tone was uninterested and dismissive and it hurt.
"Alessio."
"Go. I already have a key to the Lexus."
"If we could just talk-"
"Go."
I would have at that point, with that tone, with that glare. But my feet wouldn't move. He looked annoyed as he watched me, waiting for me to obey him, for my feet to take me away. But I couldn't. God did he hate it when people disobeyed him and here I was, in his restaurant in front of countless family members and friends and I wasn't leaving like he'd demanded of me.
"Don't look at me like that. Like I'm the asshole here." He snapped.
"I'm not-" I tried.
"You are! You're the one whoring yourself around to the sick bastards who want to serve me your head on a silver platter-"
"Whoring myself around?" I repeated in utter disbelief.
"And here you are looking at me like I'm the asshole."
"I'm not!"
"You are!" He yelled and finally my feet moved. I took two steps forward and he met me in the middle immediately. We were making a scene, in the middle of his restaurant, and not a single person dared to turn to face us.
"I'm looking at you like you're going to leave me again!" I yelled back.
The anger evaporated from his face and he looked to be almost understanding, almost.
"You left before and I mean like, you had no reason not to. What was it you always said? I wasn't special? We weren't anything back then. But you left and it hurt me to my very core. Now I live with you, now we're a couple, and we've had all these perfect moments and we are like meshing our lives together and you're teaching me all these things and we do all these things couples do and I think we're in love. Like, actually in love and if you left now-"
"Katherine."
"I just, I couldn't. It's a blow I couldn't handle. If you left now I-"
He cupped my face and I stopped immediately and bit my quivering lip. "I'm not. I'm not leaving you. But I am angry. And I am mean as hell when I'm angry and if I stand around looking at you and remembering why I'm so angry it's not going to be pretty. I don't want to be around you right now. But I'm not leaving you. Not ever."
I nodded slowly and he kissed my cheek lightly.
"I'll see you in a bit."
"Okay."
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Hey readers! Here's a nice looong update for you.
This is an EARLY Monday update because I'm just too excited I had to share, but it has an ulterior motive too (; I'll get to that in a minute.
Props to Kate for giving Nash hell? Or nah for still believing him and her snapping at Alessio. These two! I tell ya!!
And what of Alessio, might he have crossed a line today? Is the jealousy real?
Just out of curiosity....who wishes he would have shot Nash today?
Now as I stated above this is your Monday update, on Saturday. Early lol. Partly because I'm actually looking forward to the next few chapters, and partly as a clever ploy to gain more from you guys (;
I made a twitter account like two weeks ago solely for writing purposes. Building a larger following on twitter will be just one more thing to boast about when approaching agents, so here is my proposition. Currently I have a whooping 12 followers on twitter. I have over 2k on wattpad, and am averaging even more than that on reads per chapter. So to start out, I will ask for a pretty 300 followers on twitter and I will then post the next chapter. If I don't hit 300 followers your next update will come next Monday (not two days from now Monday, this is your update for that Monday, I'm referring to NEXT Monday.) If I hit 500 followers I'll even do another chapter in Alessio's POV. So! Get to following! I know of the lot of you at least 300 of you has a twitter :P
You can find me on twitter here:
https://twitter.com/RaFranc0
Or simply look for me (at)RaFranc0
That's rafranc0 with a ZERO not an "o"
You'll recognize my user picture as the same one I have on wattpad to make me easy to recognize. Get to finding me on twitter and follow me there as I'll probably start getting more serious about my actual twitter usage. 300 followers and you get your next update, 500 and you get your next update and another chapter in Alessio's POV. GO! Remember this is a limited time offer so act fast lovies! (:
Oh yeah, and as always, don't forget to vote and comment!