Entrapment (Morelli Family 7.5)

Everything but this decanter full of alcohol, keeping the feelings at bay. Well, sort of. They’re swimming all over the place, but I don’t have to feel them. I just have to drown them.

I didn’t plan to do this. I’ve successfully exorcized the damn girl form my house, so I should be able to move on with my life.

I already miss her.

My trip to Dubai is coming up. I’m going alone, but since I had to go and invite her along, I know I’ll think about her the whole time I’m there.

At least I planned it when she has extra time off school. Better to be out of the country than at home, tempted to head into the security room and see what she’s up to.

I reach beside me for the decanter. It feels heavier than usual; I think I’m drunker than I’ve been in a long time.

My drunken self comes up with a wonderful plan. Gas leak. I could just blow up the fucking duplex with Vince sleeping inside—boom, then Mia’s single again.

I drink a little more, telling myself what a good idea that is.

Oh, or I could hire a freelancer to set up a fake robbery. Make sure Mia’s out of the house but Vince is there. Boom, dead again, Mia’s single.

There are so many ways to kill him. I just need to pick one and execute it. I’ll lock Mia up in my room again. Why should I give a fuck if she wants to be there or not? She got used to be once, she can do it again.

More alcohol, and I’m convinced there’s no reason. Nope. None. These plans are perfect. I could do any of them.

Goddammit, Mia was right. I am fucking lonely.

And I scared off Mia. The most forgiving person alive, probably.

It was only supposed to be one more night, but I never got to tell her. I thought about telling her on the way home from the poker game, in the backseat of the Escalade. I imagined the ride home—imagined her asking me questions, trying to figure out which pieces of those days were real and which pieces an act. I imagined telling her that Saturday was real until I was an asshole. Then it wasn’t real anymore. There are plenty of Jessicas in the world, but none that interest me. From the moment Mia landed in my bed, I didn’t want to fuck anyone but her.

Only, she didn’t talk to me on the way home. She kept to herself, lost in her own thoughts. She probably didn’t feel great about fucking me, even if it was to get her and Vince out of my house. In our room during those days, it was different. Vince had given her up, he’d left her, she was free to be mine.

The night of the poker game she belonged to him, so fucking me made her feel guilty. That guilt probably made her try harder to make it up to him instead of pulling her toward me, even though she’s clearly still attracted. Instead of spilling the truth all over the place and changing her mind, I waited to see if she had anything to say to me in the relative privacy of my backseat. Consequently, we sat together in silence and went our separate ways once we were back at the house.

Mia slipped right through my fingers.

“What are you doing up?”

I keep my gaze on the fire roaring in front of me as Francesca interrupts my solo drinking. I’m not much for company right now, but I guess I don’t feel like being alone either.

I try to shrug. My head feels too heavy to move. Fuck, I am drunk.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks.

I think about my bed—my vengefully empty bed. It mocks me now. Maria has changed the sheets every morning since Mia left, but still I can feel her absence. The glow, the joy, the something to look forward to at the end of my day…

It’s all gone.

Because Mia’s gone.

It’s going to be a long night, a long week, a long month.

Maybe it’s the expensive liquor filling my head with such thoughts, but I can’t help feeling it’s going to be a long life without Mia.

Even now I’m tempted to go in my security room and watch her sleep in the new house I gave her, in the new bed I bought her, with the lucky asshole who gets to keep her.

He doesn’t deserve her.

I didn’t either.

I needed her, though.

I needed her.

SURVIVING MATEO

Takes place during chapter 8 of Surviving Mateo, when Meg is serving drinks in Mateo’s study, then following when she meets Mia and grills her for sex tips.

The New Maid

Mateo

I’m not sure how I feel about Meg taking it upon herself to take my daughter under her wing. I can feel her watching me, waiting for some response to what she just said, wondering what the big deal is. Whether it was a calculated move to try to get closer to me or just her maternal instincts kicking in, I can’t be sure. I don’t even care why; I just wish she hadn’t done it.