Collateral (Collateral Damage 1)

“I didn’t say he was a saint. I just…he never carries a gun when I’m around.”

“You think.”

It’s not true, what I said. I’ve never seen my dad hold one, not in a way that suggested he intended on using it, but he did pack one in my duffel, didn’t he? And even if I didn’t see it, I know he has fired at least one shot.

“Besides, how am I supposed to protect Stefan’s fiancée without one?” He spits the words.

When his phone rings, he checks the screen. He declines the call and mutters a curse.

“Did something happen?” I ask, not liking this other side of him, this reckless, almost angry side and feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

My mind drifts to Stefan. To how he took care of me the other night. But I give it a shake.

It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m perfectly safe with Rafa.

I watch the turquoise sea as we drive, and he’s right that it is beautiful. Pristine, because somehow, when the rest of Italy was being overrun by tourists, Sicily has managed to remain unspoiled.

Rafa again plays with the radio but he doesn’t sing along this time.

The next time his phone rings, I see who it is before he snatches it up.

Clara.

Rafa gives me a strange look, swiping the screen and answering. Their conversation is short, like she’s annoyed and I already know he’s annoyed. I keep my gaze forward, pretending not to listen or at least pretending not to understand.

They talk for a few more minutes before he tells her he’ll come by next week and to be patient. Everything will work out. And that he misses her too.

I don’t know why I think it’s a strange conversation. I wonder where she is. I thought the three of them were like the Three Musketeers. At least that’s the impression I’d gotten.

When he hangs up, he turns to me. “She’s bored. Stefan shipped her off.”

“Shipped her off? Where to?”

“Syracuse.”

“New York?”

He shakes his head. “Sicily.”

“Why?”

Rafa glances at me, gives me a strange look. “Don’t you know?”

I shake my head.

“You,” he says one corner of his mouth curving upward.

“Me? Why me?”

He opens his mouth to answer when he shifts his gaze to the rear-view mirror and a look of alarm flashes across his face.

“Assholes!” he curses, and I hold on when he hits the gas as two cars pull up, one on either side of our SUV. I don’t recognize the cars or the men from the restaurant. These aren’t SUVs, which is all Stefan seems to have, and these vehicles are not in the best shape. The drivers are also younger, dirtier looking. Like if you ran into one on a dark street, you’d get the hell out of there.

Music plays loudly, spilling through their open windows and penetrating our closed ones.

“Rafa?” I ask, panic in my voice when the driver of the car next to mine meets my eyes and gives me a smirk before hitting the gas hard as he steers his car into ours. Metal screams against metal, and I scream too as my door dents and we drive like this, the two cars sandwiching us as Rafa speeds up too, cursing up a storm.

“Hold on!” he yells, simultaneous to slamming his breaks.

I scream again.

My seatbelt catches me as my head rolls forward, then crashes down against the dashboard as the SUV swerves, cars honking their horns at us and Rafa spitting curses at the two driving off. One of them flips us off as they disappear and, a moment later, Rafa picks up speed again, turning the car back onto the road.

“You all right?” he asks as we resume our drive.

“What was that? Who were they?”

“Just a couple of punks,” he says, but I know they’re not punks and I know he knows it too. “Shit,” he says, shifting his gaze to my forehead where I feel something warm.

I reach up, touch it and my fingers come away bloody. I pull down the visor and look in the mirror at the cut that’s bleeding heavily.

“It’s all right,” he says, eyes shifting from me to the road and back. “It looks worse than it is. Heads bleed a lot.”

I guess he’d know.

“Here,” he says. He reaches over, opens the glove compartment. He pulls out a handful of tissues and hands them to me.

I take them, put them to the cut to stop the bleeding.

“Are you okay?” he asks again.

I turn to him “Who were they, Rafa?”

“Punks. I told you. I’ll keep you safe, don’t worry.”

“We could have been killed.”

“That wasn’t meant to kill us.”

“Then what was it meant to do?”

He looks over at me and just then, his phone rings. I see it’s Stefan.

His forehead furrows, the worried expression making him look older. He declines the call, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.