To start at the beginning of the story go here.
As we lay there afterward, my head was deliciously empty, all the worry and fear gone, my mind only occupied by the sight of the water stained ceiling. None of the guilt from the times I had thought about this moment was there. When I turned to Sophie, there was just a faint glow that made the dark of the room feel slightly incandescent, light leaking in from the other room illuminating Sophie’s face. She stared back at me, her own eyes holding the same wonderful void, until the panting from her lips became a tittering giggle. She held her hand to her mouth as if she were trying not to laugh in church, but couldn’t help it.
I laughed too, at the ceiling, at the watermarks, at God. With me facing the ceiling, Sophie climbed on top of me and pinned my hands to the mattress next to my head. At that moment, I felt about as strong as a kitten wrestling iron, so I stared at her without resistance. “Cosa l’ha causato?” she asked simply. What brought that on?
I chuckled self-consciously as I stared up at her, my eyes, having waited so long to see her naked, trying to take in every inch of her. Seeing the scars on her made me want to kill Verdicchio all over again, but the usual slow fire of anger that was my background noise was temporarily extinguished by having her warm frame on top of me.
It also made trying to push the jumble of thoughts and worries into words nearly impossible, the emotions that had brought us here barely translatable under her weight. All I could manage was, “I thought you were in danger.”
Sophie gave a lilting laugh and collapsed onto my chest, her mouth deliciously close to my ear, her fingernails playing through my chest hair as she answered, “I am always in danger.” The truth of that cooled me in a way I didn’t think possible in that moment, but it gave a cavalier air to her response that I think she meant to be comforting.
I gazed up at the ceiling, the joy of the moment receding. Flashes of the cliffside beating, the corpses in the freezer, the webs across Pyotr’s hands, all flooded into my mind. “The Russians are following me,” I spoke into the dark.
Pushing against my chest, Sophie lifted her head enough to stare at me. Her eyes weren’t clouded with the anxiety or anger that had been my constant companions at this news. There was only a small disappointment, as if someone told her vacation was over. “Who? When?”
I tried to get up to fetch the Russian’s passport, but Sophie pushed me down, holding me to the bed while urging me to speak. “Someone was waiting for me at the casino.”
Sophie examined my face like a tarot card. “Who?”
“Pyotr something. He had tattoos like gloves.” I waggled fingers demonstrably. “The name ring any bells?” I asked, thinking of the backroom at Mitnick’s party.
“No,” she replied. “Is he of Mitnick?”
“No,” I answered, then gave that some more thought. “I think he’s staying with Mitnick, though, probably an ally’s subordinate. Some sort of advanced element for this Avoritet meeting.”
“Where is he now?”
“I cornered him and we had a conversation. Him and his pals think I killed Mikhail and they want revenge.”
“Mikhail?” Sophie blinked her green eyes at me without recognition.
It was only then I realized I had never given Sophie the name of the man who helped dispose of the pimp. I sagged against the mattress, trying to remember what I had and hadn’t shared with her. This only caused me to frazzle over the many different versions of the truth I was living in and how getting them mixed up could get us killed.
Still, I was superstitiously reluctant to speak of the dead man, so I answered, “The driver.”
“Oh,” Sophie said quietly, perhaps remembering her own shade, wrapped in the old carpet. “Did you…?”
I nodded, unwilling to commit the sin to a verbal response.
The air became delicate between us. Her features, if possible, softened and she clucked softly, her gaze dropping.
What I interpreted as regret at another death caused me to go rigid with anger. “What?”
Sophie raised her eyes to me, tiny contractions of concern around the edges, now beginning to be clouded with confusion. “What is what?”
Some gremlin in my mind reminded me that we wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for her. I ignored that “this” included me being out of prison. I only felt the anger of accusation boil out, “If you hadn’t brought those women here, I wouldn’t have had to…” I paused, my unwillingness to speak the direct truth only made me angrier. “Take a drive with him.”
The clouds of Sophie’s confusion deepened, darkening at the accusative edge of my tone. I braced myself, preparing for things to escalate, but she made a connection somewhere I didn’t and relief flooded out. She held me down, touching my cheek with a hand that felt cool in comparison, but burning all the same. “I’m not worried about him, scemo. My worry is for you.”
She smoothed the wrinkles on my forehead and pressed herself to me. When I wasn’t breathing steam anymore she said, “Tell me everything.”
So I did. I began with going into the casino and spotting Pyotr on the security cameras, and finished with leading him into the parking garage for an ambush. I didn’t want to play it up, but did mention the tattoos, a key differentiator between him and Mitnick’s crew, and that he wasn’t some soft-shell wimp that had rolled over the moment I leaned on him. “So I took his passport and told him to quit following me.”
“Do you think he will?”
“I think I may have caused him to doubt that I killed Mikhail, but I don’t think he’s going to give up.”
“How did he know you worked at the casino?”
“My best guess? When Mikhail went missing they asked around about him and one of Mitnick’s men told him he went out to help the American. Given I’m on Mitnick’s payroll, it probably wouldn’t have taken long to figure out where I work.”
Her weight on me, I felt Sophie nod. “So they went to find you there. If they knew where you lived, there would be someone waiting here, no?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. The fact that Sophie was following the same logic as the more sensible voices in my head had a calming effect.
With a kick of her legs, Sophie stood up and offered her hand to me. “Then we are safe, for now, so let us go eat.”
I took her hand and moved to stand, impressed by the strength in her tall frame that assisted me without strain. We moved into the kitchen. Sophie, remembering her nakedness, covered her scars with a gossamer robe, only giving a shy titter at the greater hunger this produced in me than the mention of food.
I stopped in the entryway and picked up the spilled contents of the grocery bag, moving each item to its proper place of fridge, fruit bowl, or cabinet. We ate a small meal and I answered whatever questions Sophie brought up, but we mostly just sat in a contented silence with Sophie’s long legs reaching out to touch my knee with her long toes.
After the events of the day, I was exhausted and excited, and I brushed my teeth for what felt like the first time in ages. Sophie was reading one of her paperbacks by the time I peeled back the sheets to climb into bed. I laid down and she patted my shoulder, whispering something in Italian that was as sweet to me as it was meaningless.
I woke up near at the wee hours, before dawn, and watched her slowly breathing. Floating in that space, I tried not to let all of the dangers of the outside world threaten what felt, a little bit, like happiness. Somewhere from in between those spaces I heard Cheryl’s voice.
“Well, now you’ve done it.”
To read the next chapter, go here.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
To read a polished and published prequel to this story go here.
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