12. Vinnie

12

VINNIE

T wo hours later I’m back in my office. I grab a burner phone, leave the office, and then leave the building. I’m on the streets of downtown Austin when I call the number the nanny left on the card.

It was just a number. No name. Nothing else.

“Hello?”

“Yes, hello. You gave me this number?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Are you trying to reach Freddie’s dry-cleaning? Because I get my number mistaken for theirs a lot.”

Is this some kind of message? I don’t know, but I decide to play long. “Yes, I am. My apologies. Looks like I transposed a few numbers. So sorry for the bother.”

“Not at all. I’m used to it. Have a good day, sir. I’m sure you’ll be able to get in touch with them soon.”

The call ends with a click.

Then I wait.

Five minutes go by. Then ten. Just as it’s coming up on fifteen minutes, my phone buzzes with a number I don’t recognize.

“Yes?” I say into the phone.

“Vincent Gallo?”

“Freddie’s dry-cleaning?” I say.

“Yes. My name is Natalie. I’m on a burner phone while I’m out running errands at the grocery store. You got me at a good time. I was able to leave the house.”

“You’re Belinda’s nanny?”

“Yes. More like a governess. I take care of her, and I see to her lessons.”

“How do I know you can be trusted?” I ask.

“How do I know you can be?” she says back.

I frown. “Seems we’re at an impasse then.”

“I only want to protect Belinda.”

“Then we have something in common.”

“If you truly intend to marry her, Mr. Gallo, there’s something you should know.”

How much can I truly say to this woman? I don’t intend to marry that child, but do I need to act like I do?

“Go on,” I say.

“She’s special. I’m not just talking about the fact that she’s a musical prodigy, which she is. Her IQ is excellent, nearing genius level, and her father…”

I already know where this is going. After what my grandfather did to me, I don’t labor under any delusion that these people are above harming children. After all, the McAllisters deal in children. And he was acting pretty lecherous when he was talking about her over our cigars.

“And her father what?” I say, my voice low and dark.

“He… He harms her.”

I knew it was coming. Even so, my stomach sinks like I just swallowed an anvil.

“I… I had a feeling that was the case. Why else would she have asked me for help?”

Her voice cracks as she continues. “She doesn’t tell me a lot, Mr. Gallo. She’s scared. So very frightened. I tell her she can trust me, but she’s still not completely honest with me.”

“Why did she feel she could trust me ? She’s the one who gave me that note.”

“That was my idea,” Natalie says. “I thought… If you were going to be the one who would eventually marry her, perhaps you would be interested in helping her.”

“I’m very interested in helping her. But I’m not sure what I can do.”

“Can you get her out of the house?”

“You realize that would mean you’re out of a job, Natalie.”

She sighs. “I don’t care about that. I’ve been with Belinda for two years now, and I’ve grown to love her as if she were my own. I can’t stand the pain that she’s in. I can’t stand how he trots her out as a showpiece when people come over, as he did with you and your grandfather today. She hates that. But what can she do?”

“I wish I could help.”

“He’s going to break her, Mr. Gallo. He’s going to take that beautiful and talented little girl and strip her of everything.”

“But why would he do that if?—”

I stop abruptly. That’s exactly why he would do it. Revenge. He wants to leave me a shell of a human being for a wife. Even at the cost of his own daughter’s mental health.

These bastards truly think of women and girls as chattel and nothing more. Pawns in the big boys’ games with each other. They don’t see them as human at all, not even when they’re defenseless children with no means of fighting for themselves. It’s disgusting. Just the thought of it sends a wave of anger through my entire body.

I have to stop this.

“Let me think about this, Natalie. You can reach me on this burner phone when you need to. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Please, Mr. Gallo. If you care anything at all about this little girl…”

“I don’t even know this little girl, Natalie. But I won’t sit around while any child is harmed. I just have to figure out the best way to go about this.”

“Please don’t tell Mr. McAllister that I reached out to you. I don’t regret it. I would do anything for Belinda.” She sucks in a breath. “But if he finds out…”

“I know. Trust me, this will stay between the two of us.”

I’m tempted to tell her everything. That Belinda and I will never be married, and that the Bianchis and the McAllisters will be out of business as soon as I can make it happen.

But I can’t.

I can’t tell anyone that.

Not until it’s over.

“All right. Thank you, Mr. Gallo. I need to get back to the house. And I still have to stop at the store so I have some groceries to show for my trip.”

“I understand. Reach out on the burner whenever you need to. And I’ll be in touch.” I shove the burner back in my pocket and pull out my regular smartphone.

I have a missed call. From a number I don’t recognize.

Dare I call it back on this phone?

I pull out my burner again and tap in the number.

“Hello?”

God, that sweet voice. It’s Raven. Raven tried to call me. I already had two missed calls from her regular number.

“Hi, Raven,” I say.

“Oh my God, Vinnie.” She lowers her voice. “How are you? Are you okay?”

So very Raven. The first thing she thinks of is me. How I’m doing. When I’m the one who left her alone in her bed in the middle of the night and then proceeded to screen her calls all day.

I don’t deserve this woman. No one does.

“I’m fine. More importantly, how are you ?”

“So much is going on, Vinnie. I mean, physically I’m fine, but…”

“But what?” I ask.

“That lawyer. The one who asked me out.”

“Right. What about him?”

She pauses. “You really don’t know?”

My heart begins to accelerate, and I’m not sure why. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Raven.”

“You mean it’s not all over the news?”

“What the hell are you talking about? What happened?”

“He must not have gotten my text in time. You know, my text breaking the date. So he showed up at our house. But my parents were out for the evening and…”

Her voice is sad, fearful.

“Baby, what happened?” I say, my voice lowering an octave.

“Someone… killed him, Vinnie.”

My stomach drops out from under me. This couldn’t possibly be the work of my?—

“Someone killed him, and then got into our house, and…” She starts crying.

“For the love of God, Raven. What the hell happened?”

“My mother found him in my bed. In my bed in her house. His throat was slit, Vinnie. There was a note attached to the body.”

This can’t mean anything good. “What did the note say, Raven?”

“It didn’t make any sense.”

I have a horrible feeling it’ll make sense to me, but I don’t say that.

“What did it say?” I grit out.

“It’s said, ‘your move, Cobra.’”

My blood runs cold.

My fucking grandfather. But why would he leave such a note when he’s the cobra?

Except he’s the king cobra.

“Vinnie?”

I can’t respond to her yet. I’m too damned angry.

“Vinnie, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Do you know what the note means?”

Do I tell her I do? She’ll only worry about me. It’s enough that I’m worried about her.

“No. I’m sorry. I don’t.”

“You think it has something to do with…”

“Don’t say anything else, Raven. Please.”

She lets out another sob. “He was helping me. The attorney. He was helping me set up my nonprofit. It’s because of me that?—”

“Don’t you dare go there,” I tell her. “Don’t you dare take the blame for any of this.”

“Vinnie… Why did you…”

I swallow. I try to find the right words. The last thing I want to do is hurt this woman. This beautiful, wonderful woman who I love more than my life.

“It’s better this way,” I say. “I love you, Raven. But trust me. It’s better this way.”

“No. I don’t accept that. If you love me?—”

“I do. Don’t ever question that. It’s because I love you that I’ve chosen to stay away from you. I should’ve never let it go as far as it did.”

“So you regret it then?”

Oh, she’s jabbed a stake into my heart. “Regret it? Being with you? Of course not. I regret everything else. Regret having to leave you. Because if I don’t, you’ll only be in more danger.”

“Falcon and Leif found surveillance equipment in my home.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Why do you think I insisted that we go outside to talk on Friday?”

“I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Believe everything I tell you about what my family is capable of, Raven. I’m sorry you had to see so much of it. That’s why I need to stay away from you. So it doesn’t touch you again.”

“Can you do it?”

“What? Stay away from you?”

She pauses. “Yes.”

God, that voice. So much emotion in that one little word. Yes . She’s clawing at my heart, and how I want to give in. How I want to drive over to her right now, take her away, and keep driving. To Mexico. To Canada. Somewhere where we’re both away from all of this. Where it can’t touch us anymore. Where all we have to do is love each other.

But that leaves my sister vulnerable. My mother and father as well. And that poor little girl, Belinda.

I can’t in good conscience leave them to fend for themselves just for my own happiness.

And there’s no guarantee my bastard of a grandfather wouldn’t find us anyway. He knows I’m a flight risk, and he’s had his eyes on me like a hawk ever since I returned.

So the correct choice is clear.

“I have to,” I say. “There is no choice, Raven, if I want to keep you safe. And I want that more than anything in the world.”

“So you want to keep me safe more than you want to be with me?”

I rub at my forehead. She’s not making this easy on me.

“If I keep you safe now, perhaps we can be together sometime in the future. But being with you now will only put you in danger. I can’t have that. I couldn’t live with myself. You’re everything to me, Raven Bellamy. Every fucking thing. I didn’t ask for this. Neither did you. No one could’ve predicted it. I sure as hell couldn’t have. But my heart beats for you, Raven. Every fucking beat. Despite that, I can give you up. As much as it hurts me, tears out my own fucking heart, I can give you up to ensure your safety.”

“Vinnie…”

“Please. Don’t fight me on this. If something were to happen to you, I wouldn’t be able to go on. I wouldn’t be able to do what I came back to do. It must be done, Raven. Please believe me. It must be done.”

A slight whimper comes through the phone.

God, this is killing me.

“Please don’t make it harder than it has to be, Raven. Please…”

The phone call ends with a soft click.

I’m sitting on a bench on a downtown Austin Street.

What I want to do is look to the heavens and scream. Curl my fists and release all the angst from my body into the stratosphere. Why? Why now? Why now did I find the love of my life, only to have to let her go?

The unfairness of it all.

But I have to be stronger. Raven needs her strength for other things. So I need to stay away from her. This is on me. On my shoulders, and I can’t let her down.

I draw in a deep breath, rise, and walk back to the office building owned by my grandfather’s coffee import company.

This is my life now.

It’s become volatile. So volatile. I’ve killed a man, and now my future bride is being harmed by her father and she has reached out to me for help.

And they know about Raven.

They know about my Achilles’ heel.

Which is why I have to stay far away from her.