Maybe I was misreading the emotion.Maybe I was simply pushing my own mixed signals there.Or maybe it was just…
Pain.
I tucked my hands between my knees again, shivering from a draft that had snuck up on me.
“I’m here.”
I shook my head, trying to deny him.But it was weak.Fragile.
The brutal truth was, I still mourned his loss even though I was the one who’d pushed him away.I simply couldn’t live my life with a killer.It would place me into a cage that I thought I’d escaped before.
The truth was, I hadn’t escaped.I’d only dug back under the fence and planted my stupid butt inside the zoo I knew.
Johnny Porciello was a killer.A guy who wanted to be “mobbed-up” so badly, he cheated on me with a twisted woman made even more evil by the patriarchal organization who’d never let her manage her own destiny.Her failure, as evilly executed as it was, meant yet another generation of women who would live their lives at best as commodities, and in the worst ways, as victims.I couldn’t possibly want that, could I?
With every fiber of my being, my heart cried.It begged for Ringo’s touch.His gentle care.His lies.I could easily settle into the false ignorance my sister embraced.Living with Ringo would be one long nightmare.
And probably the one great love of my lifetime.
I was smarter than that.I had to be.
With new determination, I cleaned up the mess on the table and forced myself to accept what I couldn’t change tonight.He’d invoked Don Manca’s name.Even I wasn’t strong enough, or stupid enough to try to argue with the leader of a group of assassins.
Once the main kitchen-dining area was sorted, I moved to the bedroom to get Ringo a blanket for his cold camp on my couch.At least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting murdered in my sleep.I had an assassin guard dog.
“Embrace the good.”It was my new mantra.Or maybe an old one I’d resurrected.
“Wait.”Ringo shoved past me and did a quick sweep of my bedroom, even going as far as rising on tiptoe to peer out my window at the dumpster fence.
“I heard a noise there earlier.Was that you?”
He glared at me.“No.”
Crap.
I tugged the comforter I’d meant to retrieve off the shelf I’d crammed it into.“Grab a pillow, but not any of the feather ones.Those are mine.”
He picked up one of the plush throw pillows I kept on my bed and stared at the fuzzy raised lettering crocheted into the cover.“Fuck off?”
“Turn it over.”
He laughed as he read.“…You.”
He missed a word.
“You’re sleeping on the couch,” I said as I flounced out.
6
Ringo
Ellie played a good game, but she was hiding in more ways than one.
She retreated to her room after dumping me on the couch with not only her foul-mouthed pillow, but a printed blanket that tossed me right back to my childhood.Except that dang cartoon handed out its advice peppered with profanity now.She had stuff like that all over her little two-bedroom condo.During my security search, I discovered tiny mustache stickers on her outlet covers, a rooster clock that really needed to be shot, and a bathroom word sign that read, “If you let them SHENAN once, they’re just going to SHENANIGAN.”
Cute, or a cry for help?
I played with the overlarge planchette on her coffee table as I pondered that question.Then noticed, even it had picked up her personality.
