“I’m always good for a fuck, but never a conversation. I told you I had to speak to you!” I chase after him, stopping him with a hand to his shoulder.
He whips around. “Don’t do or say anything else you don’t mean right now. I can’t stand it. You think I want to cut into people? Into you? That’s insane. I do it because I know it fucking works. It’s not a fetish for me, it’s a necessity to get the job done. People bend to your will when you have a knife at their throats, figuratively and literally.”
“I get that, and I’m sorry, Alessandro. I came to tell you that there’s a hitman coming after you.”
“Hired by your father?” he replies sarcastically.
“Don’t be that way. He wouldn’t. He knows how I feel about you. Besides, he thinks you should be the next Don of the De Luca family instead of your uncle. I don’t want a divorce, and maybe when all this craziness is behind us, we can give us a chance.”
“Evelyn, I need you to listen and understand me when I say you. Cannot. Be. Here. You take up every free thought rushing into my head, both of them. I can’t pay attention when all I want to do is chain you up downstairs and fuck you for days on end. This isn’t the time for me to disappear into my love life. I need to be the monster everyone knows I am. When it’s all said and done, I don’t want anything to happen to you. If you got killed like my mother, I’d gut this entire city and then spend the rest of my days slicing up assholes in a supermax.”
“I get it. I’ll go, but Alessandro?”
“Yes, Evelyn?”
“Promise me this isn’t the end. Promise me this isn’t the last conversation we’ll ever have. Promise me. Don’t just walk away.”
My eyes burn from holding back tears.
Alessandro looks at me and shakes his head. “I love you, mio dolce. But with the way things are right now, especially after everything that’s happened, it might be for the best. I won’t make that promise. You won’t make a liar out of me.”
The way my stomach lurches at the idea of never seeing or speaking to him again cripples me to my knees. Nausea sweeps over me, and thankfully, I’m already in the bathroom. Tossing anything left in my empty stomach into the toilet is an unfamiliar feeling. The idea of this being the end of us, to go back to being complete strangers, is earth shattering. My eyes scan every inch of the room, the closet, the bedroom, and none of it matters. I need to leave.
The elevator takes me into the playroom, to the bed where I lift the latch to release it. Back through the tunnel and out the other end, where Jenkins is beside the car, waiting for me. It took nearly twenty minutes of arguing and a find-my-phone tracker chip to convince him to let me go inside alone.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “You look pale.”
“That’s because I threw up whatever food and color I had in my body. Alessandro’s done with me, and all I want to do is crawl into bed.”
Jenkins opens the door for me to get inside the car. “Is that what you really want?”
“Yes, shut the curtains and wither away until I own nine cats, three dogs, a guinea pig, and a turtle.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Evelyn.”
“I’m serious. I’m done with this life and the way I feel about Alessandro. I don’t want to feel like that about anyone else ever again. I don’t want to feel this ever again.” I work myself up to the point where I’m sick again, throwing the door open to puke onto the curb.
“Fuckin’ A.” Jenkins curses. “I’m taking you to the doctor.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Believe it or not, Evelyn, I know you a lot better than your husband. You don’t wither, you don’t admit defeat, and you don’t vomit. You bake out your problems. Something is wrong if you’re not sending me on a fool’s errand looking for the best Bavarian chocolate in the city to make a cheesecake chocolate chip cannoli.”
“That actually sounds delicious. Ooh, a cannoli crumble crusted, almond amaretto cheesecake with a Bavarian ganache?” Suddenly, I can smell it in my mind, and that makes me nauseous all over again.
“Fuck. Yeah, come on, let's get you in to see the doc.”
“Take me to the Bireli woman. She’ll see me unannounced.”
A little over an hour away, fighting through evening rush hour to drive into Brooklyn from Midtown, Jenkins lets me out of the car to find parking. When I step into the empty waiting area, Dr. Kathleen Bireli is standing there in a latex bodysuit, wearing matching garter belted thigh-high boots, netted stockings, and a white doctor’s coat over all of it.
“What the fuck?” I eye her from head to toe, salivating at what she must be into.
“Hello, pea.” She grins. “Welcome to our pod. Come, Mrs. De Luca. You and your husband have done everything possible to make sure I don’t get off tonight.”
I follow her to the exam room, where I undress and get onto the table, feet in stirrups and dizziness willing me to close my eyes.
“What did you mean by not getting off?” I ask her.