“Careful, Arturo!” I jump out of my chair and catch the stack of folders before they tumble off the side of my desk and to the floor. He’s already broken a small statue with his fidgeting around my office and if he inadvertently messes up the files I spent a full two days organizing, I’ll actually kill him.
I point to the furthest corner of my office where there’s nothing but a chair and a side table. “Go sit over there before you cause any more damage.”
He grumbles, cursing under his breath just loud enough for me to understand every word, and moves as instructed.
Ever since the day Franklin attacked me, Arturo has come to work in the mornings and gone home in the evenings with me. He’s got a face like a smacked ass, the same miserable expression that’s been my constant companion these past few weeks and I’m getting tired of it.
“Listen,” I say with a tired sigh. “I know you hate being here. You won’t be shocked to hear that I’m not thrilled with this arrangement either, constant ray of sunshine that you are,” I add drolly. “Why don’t you talk to Thiago? I’m sure he can replace you with someone else if you ask and it’ll be a nice break for me to spend some time with someone who can actually tolerate my presence.”
“He won’t. I’m the only one he trusts to protect his wife.”
Warmth unfurls inside me at his words. It’s been two weeks since Thiago and I went to Excess and we’ve grown closer every day since. We’ve even crossed a couple other items off my bucket list — seeing Ludovico Einaudi live and taking a Thai cooking class. The next item on my list was skydiving but he categorically refused, saying that he wasn’t going to endanger me ‘for the fun of it’.
I’m not giving up on it, it’s just going to require a bit more convincing from me.
“It’s an honor,” Arturo continues.
“An honor?” I repeat, surprised. “Wow, that’s high praise coming from you.”
He scowls. “Don’t take it to heart, Barbie. It has nothing to do with you.”
I’m putting a book away on my shelf and pause at his sharp tone. I look over my shoulder and find him sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, eyes keenly tracking my movements.
Arturo has been cold with me from the very beginning. I’ve never understood what his problem is; I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to deserve his ire. Whatever the reason, I’m tired of dealing with the bickering and tension. It can’t go on forever.
“Why do you hate me? Did I do something to offend you?” I turn to face him. “You know, if you took the time to get to know me, you might discover that I’m not so hateable after all.”
Arturo sits back in his chair and gives me an appraising look. He seems to measure his words before speaking. Finally, he sighs.
“I don’t hate you.”
I raise an unconvinced brow at him. “Well, you don’t like me either.”
“That’s true.”
“Why?”
“It’s not personal.”
“Why?”
“You distract him,” he explains through clenched teeth.
I frown, confused. “Not intentionally.”
“That’s even worse.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to get him killed one day.”
I rip in a shocked breath. The suggestion alone wraps around my lungs and suffocates the air out of them. My chest constricts painfully at the accusation.
“You think I would risk him?”
I realize that Arturo doesn’t know the extent of my feelings, why would he? He doesn’t know that I’d do whatever it took to protect him, even if it meant sacrificing myself.
“I told you, it’s not personal.” He explains, “It’s not about what you would or wouldn’t do. It’s about what he would do for you. He’d run into a burning building and jump head first into a riptide for you. His feelings blind him to his own weakness and that’s a dangerous place for any man to be, let alone this man. It’s my job to advise and protect him against all potential threats, so I can’t like you. Not when I think you might be the biggest threat of all to his survival.”
Arturo has known Thiago his whole life. He’s his most trusted advisor, his consejero. I’d be a fool to ignore his warning. I was so caught up in my own safety, I never stopped to consider how I could unknowingly hurt him.
I swallow painfully. “What would you have me do?”
Arturo’s gaze softens somewhat, the first glimpse of something other than frost covering his features when he looks at me.
“If he’s going to continue to risk it all for you at every turn, you need to decide once and for all if this is the life for you or not. You can’t be one foot in and one foot out, with him but disgusted by the world he leads. He can’t be running out of meetings to track you down because he thinks you might have run away again. He can’t be murdering capos if you’re not actually planning on remaining his wife. If even part of you is unsure about committing to him, to this, for the rest of your life, then you need to walk away.”
I shake my head. “He’ll never let me.”
A humorless smile tugs at his lips. He doesn’t like this conversation any more than I do, but he’s looking after his boss’s best interest. Although, I think the man in question would disagree. If Thiago ever found out about this conversation, the following day we’d learn on the news that Arturo’s body parts were recovered scattered across the English countryside.
“You’re a clever girl, Barbie, you’ll find a way.” He pauses, then adds, “If that’s what you decide.”
His nickname for me doesn’t carry its usual venom. Instead, he says it with the familiarity of a friend like it’s some inside joke between us.
The door to my office flies open, slamming against the wall with a deafening sound and cutting our conversation short. I feel the color drain from my face when I see my father haunt the doorway. I haven’t seen him since I’ve been back.
“Tess.” He says my name with the warmth one might reserve for dog poop on the sidewalk and takes a step into my office. His gaze cuts to Arturo who jumps to his feet. “Who the fuck are you?”
He turns ashen when recognition dawns on him.
“You don’t remember me, Alex?” Arturo says jovially, walking towards him and placing himself between us in a not so inconspicuous display of protection. No matter his personal feelings about me, Arturo has never done anything other than guard me. “What if I break your other elbow to see if we can jog your muscle memory into activating your actual memory?”
My father shakes his head. “That won’t be necessary. What are you doing here?”
“Bodyguard duty,” he says, tipping his head in my direction.
My father straightens, trying to regain some semblance of power here. “Wait outside,” he orders.
Arturo’s answering laugh is long and loud. A hand comes to his belly as his shoulders shake.
“You’re a real comedian, Alex.”
I place a hand on his arm and his attention slides down to me. “It’s okay, Arturo.”
His jaw clenches and he doesn’t move, staying stoically in place. I nudge at his arm, edging him towards the door.
“It’s fine, you’ll be right outside,” I say, before looking at my father. “I’m sure he just wants a debrief on last quarter’s reporting.”
I don’t know what he wants to talk about, but I know I’ll be safe with Arturo right outside the room.
He grits his teeth but does as I ask, stopping next to my father on his way out to add, “If her voice raises even one decibel above its current volume, you won’t walk out of this room. Comprende?”
The door closes behind him and then we’re alone.
“Where have you been?” I ask. He came back from his business trip weeks ago but he hasn’t made it into the office since.
His head snaps towards me. “Who do you think you are to question me?”
My heart races so fast, I hear the frantic beat in my ears. I tip my chin up at him defiantly. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
He laughs, a cruel sound. “Is that right?”
“I finally see you for what you are. A coward and a bully. A pathetic excuse for a man. I’m glad Mum finally left you, although if you ask me she would have done so fifteen years ago.”
He takes a dangerous step towards me, a sneer twisting his features. “Look at this brave little girl act. You get yourself a husband with an ounce of power and you think that protects you from me, is that it? It doesn’t. Your husband is gutter scum, not worth the air it takes to keep him alive and not worthy of ever being around people like us.”
A red mist descends over my eyes and suddenly I’m going toe to toe with him.
“My husband is a thousand times the man you’ll ever be. He has more dignity and honor in his little finger than you could ever dream of having. And he has a code of ethics even in the Underworld, whereas you beat women for sport. You could never measure up to him. The way you look disdainfully down your nose at a man who is your better in every way is proof of that.”
My father’s eyes jump skyward and then he laughs loudly. Unease coils in my belly at his reaction. I’d expected anger, not… whatever this is.
“Tess,” he starts, still laughing and making a joke of me. He makes me feel so small and insignificant that I want to disappear. “Please tell me you’re not actually falling for Thiago da Silva?”
Silence robs the words from my tongue and I find I can’t answer. I look down instead, the unease turning to full blown discomfort.
“You are,” he notes, voice tinged with mirth and shock. “You’re actually falling for the man, if you haven’t already.” He gives me a pitying look that makes me want to zip myself out of my skin and seep into the floorboards beneath us. “I didn’t have high expectations for you, but I thought you’d at least be smarter than that. All those years of trying to prove yourself to me and now you’ve finally shown yourself to be exactly what I always knew you were – brainless, stupid, and emotionally unbalanced. Categorically unfit to work here.”
Ice crawls down my spine. I still can’t speak. I hate that he can reduce me to being nothing more than a speechless moron with just a few snarled words.
“Did you forget that he paid for you?” he continues. “You fell for a man who chose to buy you rather than woo you. You’re just as stupid as your mother.” My throat dries, tears stinging my eyes. “When he came to me and proposed forgiving my debts in exchange for your hand, do you know what he told me?”
I shake my head, not in answer to his question but because I don’t want to hear the next words that come out of his mouth. I don’t want to know.
“He said he wanted a woman who would be seen and not heard. Someone quiet who he could manipulate and get to bend the knee to him. I lied and promised him you fit that brief to a tee so I could save myself, but now I can tell you delivered on it anyway.” My world spins under the weight of his verbal assault. “You were never meant to be anything more than wallpaper to him, a nice decoration on his arm whose biggest contribution was your last name and nothing more.” He laughs again. “You pride yourself on being so smart Tess, but you’ve gone ahead and done the dumbest, most predictable thing in this situation. I’m embarrassed you were so weak. Even I didn’t expect that low of you.”
Every word is a stabbing knife wound to the gut. I feel fresh tears well in the corners of my eyes, but I blink them away.
“You’re lying.”
A slow, arrogant grin stretches his mouth as he reaches into his pocket. Lead weighs me down, a massive fog rolling into my brain and making my movements sluggish.
My father presses play on his phone and Thiago’s voice echoes in the room like he’s here with us.
And I hear every horrible word he once said to my father from his own lips.
“After he attacked me, I started recording our conversations in the event I needed them as insurance,” he explains as Thiago keeps talking in the background, every word causing more pain than the next. “I didn’t think it’d come in handy this way, but I’m not mad about the additional use case.”
He pockets his phone once more and looks at me.
“Which brings me to my original reason for coming in here. I’ll be back in the office full time and your brother will return to London in a few months so your services are no longer required. You have until the end of next week and then I want you gone. Think about all the free time you’ll have to spend with your loving husband now,” he finishes, throwing in one last loud laugh before walking out of my office. He stalks past Arturo who takes one look at my face and comes marching back in.
My father was right – I’ve been so stupid.
