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“Gee, don’t hold back.”
“Like I said, you can trust me to tell you the truth.”
And one day, this will be true, I promise, I think to myself. But until I fix this, I can’t tell you everything.
She exhales a shaky breath.
“I need to walk it off,” she says, suddenly unlocking her seat belt. “I need to think. Stop the car and let me out.”
“I’m not letting you out. Not until I know you’re okay.”
“I’m not okay. I’m so far from okay I’ll need a fucking map to get back. That’s why I need to walk this off.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone.” I glance at her. “Let me get you back to your apartment, and we’ll talk.”
As I pull up to a red light, my phone rings. Matteo.
When I answer it, Bianca opens the car door and climbs out in the middle of the stopped traffic.
“Bianca!” I yell at her. But she slams the door shut.
“Fuck!” I say into the phone, watching Bianca weave in and out of cars until she reaches the sidewalk and rushes off down the street.
“You okay, Massimo?” Matteo sounds confused.
“Fucking Bianca just got out of the car.”
“Where are you?”
“I was dropping Bianca home to her apartment in Midtown.”
“In Midtown?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because she doesn’t live there.”
24
BIANCA
The streets are busy, the crowds heavy, and as I push through the throng of people, I’m happy to disappear into a sea of anonymity and be alone with my thoughts.
My dark, angry thoughts.
I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is I needed to get out of the car and walk off the restlessness and disappointment clawing at me. I need space and air to figure out what all of this this means, and what I’m going to do now that Harrison is dead, and I don’t have any idea where my money is.
Massimo said we’d go back to my apartment and talk.
But I don’t feel like talking.
I feel like walking.
And punching something.
Just when I was taking a giant step forward, it now feels like I’ve just taken a thousand steps back.
I’m no closer to getting my old life back. This is probably it for me.
I want to cry and scream and yell; instead, I adjust my handbag over my shoulder and keep forging ahead.
I will call Massimo when I get home and find out if Damon has good news. If not, I’m going to the closest gun range, and I’m going to spend my last few dollars on some rounds and unload them into the target.
There are three things I am good at in this life. Spending money. Getting my own way. And shooting shit.
If I can’t shoot Harrison in the face, then I’ll go shoot pretend Harrison at the shooting range.
I know Massimo will be looking for me. But I need time to figure things out, so I plan to stay low for the next few hours, and I’m pretty sure he won’t think of looking for me at a shooting range.
He also doesn’t know my Midtown apartment is actually an eight-dollar-a-night motel ten miles in the other direction, else he would’ve said something when I gave him the phony address. Clearly, whoever planted the bugs in my room hasn’t told him where that room is.
Focus, Bianca.
I inhale the late afternoon air.
Someone murdered Harrison.
I can’t put into words how shitty it makes me feel.
I know a part of me should be glad he’s dead, because he’s a lowlife, thieving asshole who destroyed my life.
But there is another part of me, a gigantic part, that wanted to confront him myself. To look him in the eye and demand answers.
Would I have killed him?
I’ve never killed anyone in my life.
But I was prepared to make him my first.
I take the long way back to the motel, and finally arrive about half an hour after I left Massimo back in Midtown.
I unlock the door and pull it open but freeze in the doorway. Because sitting on my bed, looking fifty shades of pissed off, is Massimo. He stands.
“Get your things, you’re not staying here.”
It takes me ten minutes to gather my things.
The first eight are spent arguing with Massimo about not needing his charity, which he ignored and let me know in no uncertain terms that I was leaving with him, even if it meant he had to throw me over his shoulder and carry me out himself.
Which, if I’m honest, would turn me on if I wasn’t so worked up about Harrison.
The last two minutes are spent actually gathering up my belongings and shoving them into my suitcase and overnight bag.
“Is that all of your things?” he asks.
“This is what an IRS raid, a thieving accountant, and two months spent pawning anything of value so you can eat looks like. Welcome to Down and Outsville, Massimo. I’m the mayor.”
He doesn’t say anything, but something dark and tight moves through his expression as he unlocks the trunk of his car. He takes the bags from me and puts them in the back.
