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She knows I could have given her everything she’s ever wanted, and she’s still choosing to walk away from me without any consideration for her own wellbeing or future. All she would have had to do was keep being herself, keep being the person I’ve known her to be since I met her. I wanted that version of her, the genuine, selfless girl who tried to bring down Vitale’s empire of her own volition.
Now, she’s just showing who she really is.
She didn’t care about bringing Vitale to justice, she just wanted to write the most subversive, provocative article that this city has seen all year. She doesn’t care about justice or seeing these women saved from their fate. All she wanted was a headline and an award.
If I had thought about it like this before, I probably would have just sent her on her way once I knew she was stable enough to care for herself. She just needed a bed for the night, water, and some supervision. I didn’t have to take her on the way that I did.
But, just like I always do, I let my ego get in the way.
I could have solved this Vitale issue months ago if I hadn’t spent all this time trying to convince Iris that I’m a good guy in a bad situation.
I’m not.
I’m exactly who everyone thinks I am, just not with the sex trafficking business.
After years of watching my father fuck people over, I’ve made an effort not to follow in his footsteps. However, I’ve killed people without a second thought. I’ve gunned down men with families, men with mothers, men with ambitions and goals of their own. They were just fighting for the wrong team at the wrong time.
Someone like Iris doesn’t even have the perspective to understand this lifestyle, anyway. She’s too sheltered. How would she even know how to write about the mafia lifestyle without putting it through her suburban lens? She might do more harm than good, making me out to be a pussy or a fool to allow her into my life in the first place.
She swayed me with her looks and her charm, but letting her live with me was a massive mistake. How could I let a civilian into my mansion like that without any kind of background check? It wouldn’t have been hard to find information about her. I mean, she works for the newspaper. I could find her opinions about all kinds of topics that would have shaped my opinion of her before all of this happened.
I’m willing to bet that there’s some shit in her portfolio that would make me cringe. She strikes me as the kind of girl who has never experienced any hardship, at least not anything notable or significantly traumatizing. She’s the kind of girl who sees others in adversity, envies the community they’ve formed through their shared struggles, and attempts to hijack said struggles. If she truly knew what it was like to go through life-altering experiences that shook her world to the ground. She acts so spoiled and naïve.
I imagined that getting kidnapped would shake some of that from her, but somehow she’s allowed that experience to roll right off her. She’s learned nothing. That’s the reason that she was so unbothered about going to the lunch meeting with Amy – she doesn’t understand how easily everything can go to shit in a matter of minutes.
Was it stupid of me to send her? Absolutely. I should have just chanced it with one of my men going undercover. It’s not like Vitale has the discernment to understand when someone is trying to trick him. I’ve seen the way he looks at people when they’re telling him blatant lies just to fuck with him. It was a common joke among the guys at the warehouse. They knew he would believe anything short of an angel with a vibrating vagina descending from earth to give us all the ride of our lives.
I just thought we would get to the point more easily with a woman, and I wasn’t wrong about that. Things went poorly, and I didn’t plan on Amy being bold enough to drug Iris at a five-star restaurant. She’s far more ballsy than I expected. I’ll give her that.
I need a woman who is going to understand the darkness that I live within, the darkness I was born into. There’s been an unrelenting shadow of mistrust and anger over me for my entire life, and I just don’t mesh well with people who grew up safe, loved, and supported throughout their lives.
I’m willing to bet that the worst thing that happened to Iris when she was a teen was getting broken up with. For me, it was holding my uncle in my arms after he was shot in a drive-by. My uncle, the only person who looked after me like a son while my actual father ran bullshit deals and made a bad name for all of us. I’ll never forget that day, looking into his eyes the moment the light left them.
People like Iris can never quantify just how fucked up it is to witness that as a teenager, or really at any age. They love to glorify lifestyles like mine because of the glamor and luxury it brings, only to forget that it can all be stolen out from under you in minutes if you piss off the wrong person.
I never had a chance at the life she has. Being a journalist in this day and age? Are her parents bankrolling her or something? Did they pay for her to go to one of those private yuppie colleges where everyone is studying a subject that doesn’t apply to the material world, like communications or business?
Fuck.
I can’t believe I was naïve enough to think she would be a good match for me.
As I’m sitting in my office, festering in my anger and resentment, I hear Leonardo enter the house.
“Hey, are you here?” he asks from the hallway, knowing exactly where I’d be if I was home. He just likes to let me know he’s here, so I don’t pull a gun on him by accident. It’s never happened yet, but I don’t want to risk it if he sneaks up on me.
“Yeah, I’m in here,” I reply.
He comes over to the office and opens the door, only to see me frothing with anger.
“Jesus, what the fuck happened?” he asks, stepping back as if my rage is going to burn him from thirty feet away.
“Iris is gone, and I doubt she’s coming back,” I reply, spitting out the words like I swallowed snake venom.
Leonardo looks at me with confusion, cautious not to step on my emotions more than he already is by being here.
“Okay, but... why?”
“She’s pissed at me for the thing at the warehouse. I mean, I know she was scared, but she signed up for it. She had already been through the same exact thing, for fuck’s sake. I thought she knew what she was getting into. She had more experience with something like that than a lot of journalists have, and she had me convinced that she could handle it. Now she’s blaming me for the fact that it went bad,” I reply.
