"I'll choose not." His voice is cold again, detached. I tell myself it doesn't matter. He’s no friend of mine.
I go back to the questions.
"What's your job in the Rossi family?"
He gives me a slow smile. "I do what no one else wants to do. And I do whatever they tell me to. "
I swallow because I feel suddenly nervous. Without speaking, he lifts the water to my lips again. I drink.
I don't want to think about things that he would do. He does the dirty work. The leg breaking, threatening, and so, so much more. If Romeo says jump, he'll ask how high.
Time to change the subject before I let myself imagine him pulling someone’s fingernails off or conducting an interrogation with a drill.
I’ve seen both and you don’t forget that shit.
"Why did your grandmother raise you?”
"Because my mother was in no position to raise a child. She was a child herself."
I don't ask him why he uses the past tense when talking about his mother. She’s either dead, or so far in his past she no longer matters. Both options pain me. Sometimes I hate how I feel.
I can already see him in my mind as a young boy too tall for his body, who hadn’t grown into himself yet, maybe bullied at school because he lived with a poor grandma in the poor part of town and had to wear faded clothing and old sneakers. Maybe he learned to fight then. Maybe he got the attention of his classmates when he started to earn more money. Maybe they feared him when they found out how he did it.
But I don't ask about those details. I don't know if I want to ask anything else that would make him seem more human to me. It's important that I keep a very close distinction between who he is and who I am and where this is going.
He tells me about school, about his grandmother, and all the while feeds me small bites of my sandwich until it's gone. He lifts the cup to my lips again, and this time I look straight into his eyes as I swallow. It's the only control I have in this entire situation. He holds my gaze, and I wish I could read his mind.
"We had a long night," he says. "It's a lot of work living in a rustic cabin. You look exhausted." I wonder if he has to point out how tired I look to justify his own need for rest. Men like him don't rest easily. They work, and work, and work some more. They wake up at a moment’s notice and put their own lives on the line as a matter of routine.
There I go with the damn compassion again. Why couldn’t I have inherited some of my mother’s ruthless genes?
“We’re gonna take a nap.”
We. We, together, because there’s one damn bed in this place. Involuntarily I look at the only bed in the only bedroom.
"So did they leave, like, any toiletries? Toothbrush perhaps? Cleansing wipes? Exfoliating body wash?” I looked down at my dirty, ragged nails. "No chance there's a nail file somewhere."
"You won't need much more than soap and water."
I try to hide my disgust. “At least I don't have to boil lye to make my own soap or some shit like that," I say with a shudder.
He makes a low growling sound. "We don't have to get that rustic. But remember what I said about those words coming out of a pretty mouth like yours.” His voice hardens and takes on a lecturing tone. “I don't want to hear you swear again, am I understood?”
What will he do if I swear again?
I don't know why my body reacts the way it does. The control he has over his voice… the subtle implied threat… the knowledge that he could so easily overpower me it would be laughable, feels strangely erotic.
I decide to try something. Without a trace of humor or sarcasm I nod my head obediently, giving him the submission that he supposedly wants. "Yes, sir."
"Don't do that, Vivia.” His voice is husky, barely civil. I struck a chord in him.
There's a certain desperation in his tone. I'm genuinely curious, though. What about my reply affected him?
"Do what?” My voice is a whisper. We're inches away from each other. He shakes his head at me.
“Tempt me. Play with fire just to see how hot it burns.”
His voice drops to a lower register, dark and dangerous and terrifying. "They’d scorch the tattoo from my flesh before they murdered me. And you…”