Page 6 of Rescued By the Mafia

Tears burned, briefly, behind Iris’s eyes and she dropped the note onto the counter before forcing her feet to take her from the kitchen. She left the light on, wanting to go through the apartment for peace of mind. Elise wasn’t home. No one else should be there. All she wanted to do was confirm that, so it was okay to poke her head into her roommate’s room long enough to check the corners. She didn’t touch Elise’s stuff and didn’t linger, then backed out and clicked the door shut.

The bathroom was a little more intimidating, and for a heart-pounding minute Iris was tempted to simply hunker down in the tub with the door locked. But that was an old habit. A habit she refused to revert to.

She went through her own room with her phone in hand and unlocked—not that she had the first clue who’d she’d call—one small step at a time. All the lights on. Heart in her throat and lungs in her stomach as she crouched down to peek beneath the bed. Shaking by the time she opened her closet, hastily and sloppily shoving what clothes she’d accumulated to the side in an effort to be thorough.

There was no one. There was no sign of anyone who shouldn’t have been.

Then why were my tires slashed?

They had been. She and Aurelio and a guy from the bar who rebuilt cars in his spare time had all gone out and looked around while they waited for the tow truck. All four tires were in shreds, which of course they most definitely had not been when she’d last used the car. But just in case anyone had doubts, there was a switchblade stabbed into the limp, deflated rubber of her driver’s side front tire.

Her vehicle was the only one with any signs of damage. She had been targeted.

It has to be him. But if it was him, why was he not there, waiting to strike? If he’d found out where she worked—and when—then surely, he had found out where she lived. Was he toying with her? Taunting her?

Iris snapped her closet doors shut and faced her small bedroom. Maybe there was a chance it was someone else. Aurelio had said something about reviewing security footage, so she would ask in a day or two if they’d seen anything. In the meantime, she would tell herself the attack had been targeted at some jealous colleague who didn’t like that she’d gotten to wait on the boss’s table. Or maybe an overly vain colleague who thought her older model, obviously well-traveled Corolla didn’t belong amongst the admittedly nicer, newer crowd of employee vehicles.

There were other options. Other possibilities. There had to be.

It might not have been him.

Iris repeated those words to herself as she went back through the apartment, double-checking locks and turning off unnecessary lights. She finally shed her work uniform, took her pajamas and phone into the bathroom, and locked herself in before starting the shower. She felt more like a soak, but she wasn’t quite that brave tonight. The shower would suffice.

It might not have been him.

“This is the best image we got,” Mikey said. He turned his laptop around and indicated the screen, frozen on a view of a familiar lot in the dark of night. The image was centered on a figure in black, zoomed in enough to be blurry around the edges, standing in close proximity to a lighter color sedan. A vehicle Dante knew to be a bronze-adjacent Toyota Corolla.

Dante leaned forward, bringing himself closer to the screen, as he attempted to scrutinize what he was seeing. It was difficult to say, but he suspected the perp had their back to the camera—which made sense, if they were targeting the car. The person’s right hand was low at their side, angled in such a way that they could still have been holding the knife when this image was captured. “He never came closer to the camera?” The body shape looked masculine enough that Dante was comfortable making the assumption of at least that much.

“Never,” Mikey said. “I watched the whole thing. He comes out from between some cars, as if he came from the alley side, and goes right for the Corolla. Only takes a few minutes to do the deed, then takes off in the same direction. The guy doesn’t even look around for witnesses.”

Dante scowled and dropped back into his chair. He very much disliked the sound of that.

Mikey kept talking. “Benny came out for his smoke break barely half an hour later, so at least we have a good timeline.”

That was hardly pacifying, but Dante understood his brother’s point. Information was useful. He indicated the screen with a flick of his fingers. “Can you use that to get an idea of the guy’s height?”

Mikey reclaimed his laptop, tapped a couple of keys, and closed the lid. “I should be able to, but it’ll take a few days.” He let his head tilt to one side, a sure sign that his curiosity was getting the best of him. “Are you this worked up because some guy made a mess on your territory? Or because you have a hard-on for the woman they might be targeting?”

Dante didn’t flinch. “It doesn’t matter.” He shoved to his feet and strode around the table where they’d gathered, back to his desk. “What does matter is that I want this fucking dealt with.”

Mikey chuckled. “I’m only curious. I’ll do what I can, you know that.”

Dante narrowed his eyes at his brother as he lowered into his office chair. “Then fucking get to work, Michele.”

His baby brother didn’t linger and Dante was left alone in his office, his anger boiling. He’d read the file Aurelio had forwarded him and a twist in his gut insisted there was a dark explanation behind the serious gaps in her background check. So he’d run one of his own. He woke up his monitor and brought up the information again, despite knowing that re-reading words he’d already poured over wouldn’t offer new enlightenment.

A standard headshot of a man in a crisp sheriff’s uniform looked back at him. Paul Bishop, currently thirty-one-years old, sported a thin, trimmed mustache and a permanently crooked nose. According to the information Dante had accumulated, Iris had lived with this man for about three-and-a-half years. Her last provable employment before her arrival in Newark ended shortly after her change of address. And during that time, Iris Jayne disappeared in nearly every way. Her phone was transferred to an account under Bishop’s name, both her credit cards were paid off and closed out, and her socials were deactivated or abandoned.

She showed up in a handful of group photos, alongside Bishop, on other people’s social media. In each successive photo she was thinner. Her smile weaker. The visual progression felt like a punch to the gut when Dante saw it. It had been close to two years since Bishop had posted or been tagged in anything that featured her, but Dante harbored no delusions. Bishop was still listed as an active-duty deputy for his local Sheriff’s Office.

Iris herself didn’t pop back up on the map until she was already in Newark. She’d acquired a part-time job at a local craft supply store and purchased herself a phone. She opened a new bank account and applied for a debit card, and only three short months earlier had she moved to her current address. It was her first new address on file since her time in Paul Bishop’s home in Brody, West Virginia.

Seeing everything laid out in black and white, Dante understood the situation plainly.

Iris Jayne was a survivor of domestic abuse. And the man she had run from—the man who she would always be hiding from—was an officer of the law. The fact that she’d found the strength to flee, and done so successfully, was damned impressive. The fact that she still trembled in fear at the mere thought of her abuser coming for her made Dante want to set the world on fire.

Paul Bishop would never lay a hand on her again.

---