Page 5 of The Taker

Sammy: We miss you at work, it’s not the same. I’ll come by again soon and tell you all the gossip about my latest disaster date.

The restaurant left me off the schedule for a second week to heal, and aside from the occasional text from friends, things have been quiet here. Aside from taking the girls to school and back, all I do is watch brain-rotting daytime television and worry.

I’m going out of my mind stressing over how I’m going to keep this house of cards I constructed from falling in on itself. How will I pay our bills? We barely scrape by as it is, and I can’t afford to miss two weeks of work, even if it’s warranted. My savings account is almost nonexistent.

The television fades to white noise, allowing me to stew in my anxiety until it feels like I’m drowning. My self doubt is shouting at me with a bullhorn and it’s not afraid to tell me how awful I am.

You can’t even pay the bills. What type of man are you?

You can’t feed your sisters if you’re not working. They’re going to starve.

If you fuck up, there’s no one to help you. Mom doesn’t give two fucks about whether you all live or die.

Why would you risk your life for a man who couldn’t give a shit less about you?

I can’t help but wonder why I haven’t heard from Rocco. He knows how to find me—with countless resources at his disposal, it would be easy. I may not know exactly why I took a bullet for him, but I didn’t do it for a thank you or for monetary gain. But if someone saved my life, I would have at least thanked them…

No one would save you, because you don’t mean anything.

I shake the intrusive thought away, and try to focus on the crime drama show on the screen. After watching them all week, they all sort of blur together. There’s only so many ways to pull off a convincing plot twist. Secret societies, long lost siblings, convoluted revenge schemes, and crime syndicates are only so interesting. My doctor stressed how important it was to rest and not strain myself, but parking my ass on the couch all week when I’m used to the hustle and bustle of a restaurant kitchen is pure torture.

The show drags on, yet I’m half invested and too lazy to change the channel. A tall, dark, and handsome man with lab goggles tells his colleagues how a particular spore of mold was found under the victim’s fingernails, a variety that only grows in direct sunlight. This woman, whose name I already forgot, excitedly connects the dots about how that piece of information impacts their investigation, but all I can think about is how the man on the screen reminds me of Rocco…bringing me right back to the thoughts I was trying to avoid in the first place.

I am such a fucking loser—laying on the couch in sweatpants and a tee shirt eating cold, left over lasagna with extra parmesancheese and hot sauce right out of the container. I’m the man I tell my friends never to be—the type who pines over someone he has no business thinking of, let alone jumping in front of a bullet for.

The day my father died, I promised myself I would never be with a mafia man. My mother is a cunt for leaving her children behind, but I saw the constant neglect she went through. The nights of waiting by the phone for a worst-case phone call because she hadn’t heard from my father in two days. Him coming home covered in blood, on edge from whatever nefarious deed he carried out with zero explanation of what happened. The dead expression on her face when he’d get a call in the middle of dinner or a family outing and suddenly have to leave. Nothing came beforela famiglia.

I promised myself I’d never settle for the mafia lifestyle or fall for a man who didn’t give two shits about me, but apparently I’ll hallucinate about one.

When I was high as fuck on pain meds in the emergency room, I swore I saw him standing by my bed and felt his hand caressing my cheek. I heard him speak to me, although I was so out of it, I can’t remember exactly what he said.

You’ll need your strength…

Obviously that was complete fiction, but I can’t shake the image from my mind of his brooding face haloed by harsh fluorescent lighting looking down on me like a god on earth.

Sometimes I dream of him sitting by my bedside, watching me as I sleep. Or of the big, bad mafioso giving a fuck about some random guy he doesn’t even know and whisking me off to his multi-million dollar estate outside the city to recuperate.

Ew, what’s wrong with me? Why am I like this? Because I read too many romance books. That’s why.

Right as I mentally curse myself for being so delusional, there’s a firm knock on the door. A few of my neighbors havestopped by, but I doubt they’d stop by twice. Sammy visited yesterday, so I doubt he’d come again so soon.

There aren’t a lot of people in my life who’d just drop by for a visit…

There’s another knock, this one more insistent, and I slowly rise from the couch to answer the door. Even though the wound is mostly healed, I still feel a twinge when I brace myself on the couch arm.

I peep through the door hole. A man in a bespoke, three piece navy suit with a light pinstripe pattern stands on the other side. He checks his phone as he shifts his weight impatiently, but that’s not my problem. I’m not answering the door for a complete stranger.

“Who are you?” I shout through the door.

“Giuseppe Mariano. I’m looking for Leo Costa.” He talks so fast, like he has a million things to do and not enough time to do them.

“Why?”

Giuseppe sighs, then rolls his eyes. “I work for Rocco Vettore. I’m here to drop off a letter.”

I crack the door enough that he can see my face. He glances at his phone again, then quickly hands me the letter and walks down the hallway toward the elevator.

“Um, thanks?” I call after him before I close and lock the door.

---