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“Oh, sorry,” he said. “There’s another spot up there. Or I can take you back to your new boyfriend’s place. He’s pretty important, isn’t he?”
I didn’t want to talk about Aleksei with him at all and ignored the question, searching for the next open spot on the busy street.
“I’m really sorry you’re hurting, but I need to get back,” I told him firmly, my patience waning.
We passed another place he could have pulled into, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter, pressing down on the gas pedal. He turned to me, the tears on his hollow cheeks not looking so pathetic anymore. They looked like what they really were. A ruse. And I fell for it. His eyes were empty and cold as he moved his hand from the steering wheel to click the door locks. The thunking sound sent a chill up my spine.
“Put your seatbelt on, Theresa,” he said, voice no longer shaking with anguish. There was no emotion there at all anymore.
He pulled off the street onto the causeway, speeding toward the mainland. Even if I could have opened the doors, flinging myself out of the car now would have killed me.
“What in the hell are you doing?” I demanded.
I tried to reach for my purse, kicking myself for letting him distract me with his crocodile tears so that I’d never sent a message to Aleksei. Donny put the pedal to the metal, zooming dangerously through the morning causeway commuters. I clutched my seatbelt and snapped it into place.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now take out your phone and hand it to me. And I swear if you do anything but that, I’ll crash us into the divider.” He laughed at my look of horror. “You think I care about my life right now? I bet you care about yours, though. Give me your fucking phone.”
He was still going way too fast, zipping around the other cars that honked at him or flipped him off. They thought he was a garden variety bad driver, not an actual psychopath.
He was right about one thing, though. I did care about my life and the baby’s. And the other people on the road who’d suffer if I caused him to do something so dangerous. Furious, I took out my phone and handed it to him. He turned it off, opened his window, then chucked it out. My head swiveled to watch it bounce off the tarmac, gone from my sight in an instant. That might have been a way for Aleksei to track me, but it was gone now. He slowed down to the speed limit and I stopped clutching the edges of my seat.
I was still more mad than worried. And my anger was mostly at myself for being such a soft-hearted idiot. I didn’t think Donny was really going to hurt me. He was only acting out of pain over my mother dumping him like moldy leftovers.
“Listen,” I said, forcing the same kindness into my voice from when I still felt sorry for him. “You know my family mostly runs grifts, does high interest loans. You know all about our art scams. We’re a money family, not really a violent family. Not a whole lot of people get killed by us. You know that as well as I do.” I stared at him until he glanced over at me, annoyed. I smiled at him, ready to deliver my killing blow.
“But I don’t think you know about the Russians. Especially the Morozovs. They’re a different story. You don’t want to push your luck with the Morozovs. And Aleksei Morozov considers me one of them. Just pull over and let me out, Donny.”
Instead of buckling under my warning, he only laughed. Long, hysterical laughter until more tears ran down his cheeks. He patted my leg, making me recoil.
“Just because your family is weak doesn’t mean mine is,” he said when he got his breath back. His dark glare was chilling. “You don’t know anything about me or my family. I was promised a cushy life as head of your mother’s operation, if I just put up with both of you long enough.” His jaw quivered and his voice cracked. “Then Giana had to make me go and fall in love with her. She made me believe we could share everything together.” He slammed his palms against the steering wheel, letting out a shout of frustrated anguish. “She had to ruin everything with her lies.” The sobs were back, twisting my stomach, but this time with fear. He was completely unhinged. “She tossed me aside like I was nothing,” he wailed.
“That’s just my mom,” I said as carefully as I was tiptoeing through a field of landmines. “You can’t take it personally. You’re young and handsome and powerful. You’ll get over her and find someone else.”
He gripped my knee painfully, sneering at me. “Like you, Theresa? Someone like you? You could barely stand to be in the same room with me.”
Well, I guess I wasn’t as good at hiding my disdain as I thought I was. “That’s not true,” I said.
“Stop lying!” he screamed. “I’m so sick of you Lorenzo women lying to me.”
“I’m sorry.” I hurried to get his attention back on the road as we swerved into the lane next to us. “Whatever you think, I never had anything against you.” Until now, of course. “Please, let me out before you’re in too deep.”
He slapped the steering wheel again, but was less hysterical, more in control again. “It’s you and your mother who are in too deep,” he said menacingly. “Do you want her dead?”
The question made me rear back, especially the way he asked it in the same tone as if I wanted to go through the drive thru for a drink. “What? Of course I don’t. I mean, yeah I was pissed at her, and yeah, she’s treated me like a pawn my whole life, but no, I don’t want her dead.”
I had to believe he wasn’t the monster he was claiming to be and was just confused and heartbroken.
He sighed. “Shut the fuck up, Theresa. I’m done talking,”
I watched his stony profile, his ice cold eyes staring straight ahead. The way he dismissed his feelings in the same breath as he dismissed me made me fearful at last. I did what he said and lapsed into silence. We arrived at a big, nondescript hotel not too far from the airport, and I relaxed a little. At least it wasn’t an underground lair or empty warehouse. He gripped my shoulder, digging into my collarbone with his fingers.
“If you make any kind of scene, if you so much as look at anyone in there on our way up to my room, I will gut you the second the door closes behind us. No one will be able to save you in time.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
It shouldn’t have been possible, but his fingers dug deeper into my flesh, making it feel like my bone might actually snap. “Keep your eyes down and stay at my side. Not a hand wave, not a peep out of you. Or you’re dead.”
I could barely reconcile his words with what I knew about him, but it was becoming increasingly clear I didn’t know a single thing. I nodded, and he hopped out of the car and ran around to my side, dragging me toward the doors.
