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Moving to my feet, I turned away.
“Where are you going?” he asked immediately.
“Going to grab my uncle.”
“Wait, he’shere?”
I left the room long enough to slip toward my bedroom without answering him. Grabbing what I needed, I returned to the living room. By the time I set the urn down on the side table, Marco was already demanding an explanation.
“My uncle died two years ago,” I explained as I sat back down on the ground. “I really don’t think you know who you’re looking for.”
Marco moved his eyes from me to the urn, staring long and hard. Finally, he shook his head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“If I had to guess, someone is using my uncle’s name as a coverup.” Drawing my knees up to my chest, I sighed. “You know, you aren’t the first person to come looking for Jimmy.”
Marco lifted his gaze, his frown growing. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. I’d lost count of how many times unknown men had approached my home, asking questions.
“Whoever you’re looking for must get around. I’ve had different men bang on my door at all hours of the day. Tan suits, navy blue, black and gray ones as well. You all dress pretty much the same. Yet, you are all brutes, I swear. The last guy that came here didn’t exactly take no for an answer,” I explained slowly. “He wanted to look through my home to make sure I wasn’t hiding the guy.”
Marco was staring at me, hardly speaking a word. His expression was blank, giving none of his thoughts away.
“What?” I asked, not liking the way he hadn’t looked away.
“You just let a guy go into your house and roam around?”
“What other choice did I have? The sooner he realized I had no one to hide, the sooner he’d leave me alone. Dude freaked me out.”
Marco straightened, his expression morphing into a scowl. “You’re an idiot. You’re a woman living out in the middle of the woods with no way of defending yourself. What do you think would happen if the guy decided to take advantage of the fact?”
Why did Marco sound so angry? Was it because I went out of my way to do something abouthimand not the others? He couldn’t have possibly been worried. I wouldn’t allow my heart to think otherwise.
I decided not to answer his question. We both knew the answer.
“Well, I didn’t make that mistake twice. After all, as a defenseless woman, I still managed to capture you,” I tried to argue. “You’re the first one to creep around my home. If you would have knocked like the others, maybe you wouldn’t be chained up.”
“Clearly, I’m smarter than the average mobster,” he explained sarcastically. He then glanced over toward my front door. “You get these sorts of visitors often?”
I forced out a laugh. “If you’re hoping someone is going to save you-”
“Do they bother you often or not?” he asked impatiently, an unexpected sharpness to his voice.
“I mean, I don’t know. There have probably been at least four times this month?” I tried to think back to which encounters were which. One week, I had two visits in one day.
My answer didn’t satisfy him in the slightest. Didn’t help that I was stirring uncomfortably either.
We sat in silence for minutes, lost in our own thoughts. Deciding to put my uncle back in my bedroom, I came back to see Marco contemplating. I didn’t want to know what he was planning.
He looked my way after a few seconds, remembering my existence.
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
Those were not the words I wanted to hear. Honestly, I knew it would come eventually. I just didn’t exactly know what I was going to do.
“You can’t hold it?” I asked, grimacing.
“No,” he answered before lifting his arm. Shaking the chain, he didn’t move. “I won’t do anything to you.”
