“Okay?”
“I’ll do it. I’ll be your partner.”
“Good.” He leaned closer. I felt his breath on my skin. I nearly screamed, but I couldn’t tell if I wanted to scream from fear or need. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”
He pulled back and took my hand. I let him lead me away from the back. I stared at my shop and saw something else in the tile floor, in the neat rows of t-shirt designs, in the retro washing machine counter.
I saw my doom. I saw my downfall.
But when I looked back at Owain, I saw my future, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it.5OwainI grimaced as Dr. Chen reset my nose. It hurt like hell and made my eyes water. He adjusted it slightly then nodded to himself.
“You’ll have some bruising, but it’s not too bad.” He took off his rubber gloves. “How’d you do it this time? Get into another fight?”
“Something like that.”
Dr. Chen shook his head and ran a hand through his graying hair. He looked more and more tired every time I saw him, but really he was probably tired of my shit. He sat on the coffee table in my living room and had his bag open beside him.
“You won’t need any more bandaging. Just be careful for a few weeks.”
“How about swelling and bruising?”
“Should be pretty minor. Like I said, you were lucky. Broke in the same spot you broke it a couple months ago.”
“Guess I need to stop pissing people off.”
That almost got a smile from him. Almost, not quite.
He cleaned up his medical gear and stood. His shirtsleeves were rolled above his elbow and he wore slim dark trousers.
“I’ll take a check,” he said.
I laughed, got up, and found my checkbook. “Not a lot of gangsters put cash in the bank, doc.”
“I know. But you do.”
“Guess I’m old fashioned like that.”
“Guess so.”
I wrote the check and handed it over. He slipped it into his back pocket.
“It was a pleasure.”
“I’m sure.” He walked to the door. “You know my number. Call if you need me again.”
He left and shut the door behind him.
I stood alone in my living room and breathed in through my nose. It felt a little stuffy from the swelling, but all in all, the doc was right, it wasn’t so bad.
Clean break. Nice and neat.
I smiled to myself. I didn’t think Leigh had it in her. She was right to try and kill me, that really was the only way out of this mess, at least other than working for me. All her other options must’ve seemed pretty fucking bad for her to actually try it.
But she only went half way. I keep thinking of those long, orange-handled scissors and their sharp blades. There were probably a bunch of other weapons in that plate that would’ve worked better than a shelving unit rod.
Maybe, deep down, she liked me.
Or maybe she didn’t know how to properly kill a man.
I cooked dinner and set it down on a tray. I carried it upstairs to her room, unbolted the door, and knocked twice.
“Come in.”
I opened the door. She was sitting in bed, knees drawn to her chest. “This a bad time?”
She gave me a look. “How’s the nose?”
“It’s better.” I scrunched it up. “Doc fixed me.”
“You look good.”
“I bet I do.” I walked over and place the tray down at the foot of the bed. “Chicken breast pounded flat, breaded, and baked, steamed broccoli, and some roasted potatoes. Not fancy, but good enough.”
“Do all mafia guys cook?”
“Pretty much, yeah, they do.”
She almost cracked a smile. I liked it when she was withholding, as fucked up as that was.
“So how’s this going to work? Are you going to keep me locked up in this room all the time?”
“I thought we’d talk about that, actually.”
She came closer and pulled the tray toward her. I saw hunger in her eyes, but she hesitated for a second, then dug in. She probably figured it wouldn’t make any sense for me to poison her, and that was right. I needed her too much to hurt her, and anyway, I wasn’t the poison type.
When I killed someone, I did it with my hands.
“Well?” she asked.
I smiled as she took a few more bites of chicken and seemed to actually enjoy herself.
“We should establish ground rules. I don’t want to leave you locked up in your room all the time, but I also need to be able to trust you.”
“Okay. I understand that.”
“First rule is, you never leave the house without my permission. You don’t step foot outside, you don’t even think about the outside world. From now on, I’m the gatekeeper.”
“Fine.” She ate some broccoli. “What else?”
“No phones. No internet. No email.”
“Seriously? How am I supposed to live without that stuff?”
“You’ll survive.”
“What about my friends? My family?”