I stared at him.
Did he DO it?
Or did he NOT do it?
Ice-cold fear swelled up inside me.
He chickened out.
Maurizio is going to terrorize me for the rest of my life.
Then Giorgio said, “It’s over. He’ll never bother you again.”
At that, a new kind of terror overtook me.
OH MY GOD –
He really DID kill him!
I made this wonderful man into a murderer!
Giorgio looked alarmed by my expression and whispered, “I didn’t do anythingpermanent.Nothing he’ll have to go to the hospital for.” Then he paused. “Well… actually, he probablywillhave to go to the emergency room for his hand. But he won’t stay overnight.”
Then the reality of it dawned on me.
“You beat him up?” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Bad?”
“Bad enough to make sure he’ll never follow you again.”
I can’t describe the feelings that flooded through me.
Disbelief that it reallywasall over –
Shame that I couldn’t take care of it myself –
And an overwhelming sense of all the things I’d lost… all the time I’d spent living in fear… because of one horrible, fucked-up man.
I stared at the bottles across from me and wondered what would have happened to me if I’d never met Giorgio.
Someone might have found my body in my apartment a few nights from now.
I might’vedied.
“Let’s get you home,” Giorgio said. He sounded worried. “Why don’t you finish that up and – ”
I slammed the rest of the brandy and set down the glass.
“…okay…” he said like he was impressed. And maybe a little worried.
He gently took my arm and guided me out of the restaurant.
Once we were out on the street and away from the noise, I whispered, “What did you do to him?”
“I beat him up.”
