Page 15 of Unforgivable Ties

“What the fuck, Vincenzo! I should have never agreed to—” I clapped my hand over her mouth before she could finish her sentence.

“I need to check this first,” I said, gesturing to the car.

She sighed and looked away from me, staring out into the city streets. I wasn’t looking forward to her chewing me out later.

Stephanie

Ihad torn into Vincenzo when we arrived back to my house. This agreement was supposed to be me patching up thugs, not playing his mafia girlfriend. It felt like I was being dragged into the underbelly of the mafia world inch by inch, and I wasn’t sure how to claw myself out.

What would have happened if I had been caught with him? The FBI wouldn’t care that I had been forced into this situation or that my involvement was limited to patching up the wounded. They’d view me as complicit, an accessory to these crimes. “Guilty by association,” they’d say, with their stiff suits and stern faces.

And I’d never get to work as a doctor. My dream was to wear a white coat, not heal criminals under a shadowy canopy of secrecy. No, my dream was to save lives in the world of light, in a hospital where people cared for and respected each other.

My best friend, Jessica, had sensed my distress and, as always, tried to bring a bit of light and levity into my life. She stopped by my apartment with cookies she had baked herself, the sweet smell of chocolate and vanilla filling the room almost instantly.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, genuine concern in her voice. “Are you still thinking about Preston?”

“Ew, no,” I responded.

It was the truth. I was distraught when we had initially broken up, but the arrival of Vincenzo in my life had tossed Preston to the farthest corners of my mind. Jessica’s eyes widened at my dismissive response before narrowing with suspicion. She knew me better than anyone, and she could tell when I was hiding something.

“So what is it, then?”

“I’m just really busy with school,” I lied, avoiding her piercing gaze.

Jessica and I had met in undergrad, although we had different majors—mine in pre-med and hers in journalism. We bonded through late night cram sessions and conversations about future aspirations, pushing through school by consuming insane amounts of coffee. She had graduated and was now working at The New Yorker while I was still knee deep in school.

“You’re always busy with school,” she said with a hint of exasperation. “Something else is going on. You’ve got that look in your eyes.”

“I don’t have alook.”

“You so do! It’s like your brain is trying to solve a thousand piece puzzle while running a marathon. It’s your ‘I’m-in-over-my-head’ look.”

As much as I wanted to confide in Jessica, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about the dark world I had stumbled into. She would tell me to go to the police, or worse, use my situation to write an article.

This secret was a poison, and I could feel it slowly spreading through my veins, seeping into every corner of my being. Only with this, I couldn’t cure myself.

“I swear, Jess,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. “The classes are just really hard this semester. And having Preston as a lab partner is miserable.”

“See, I knew he was part of it!” Jessica’s eyes gleamed in triumph as she bit into one of her cookies, her grin spreading chocolate crumbs across her lips. “You’ve been looking at those fancy medical books for too long, Stephanie. You know you can’t lie to me.”

“Whatever,” I said, waving my hand.

I was going to ask her how her boyfriend Ted was doing when I heard the steps outside my apartment crack as someone walked up them. Oh no. They only made that noise when the behemoth mafia man I knew walked up them. Why right now, of all times?

Vincenzo knocked on my door, the force of it rattling the pictures on the wall.

“Is that your neighbor?” Jessica asked.

I knew I had to answer the door, because the last time I had ignored him, he had picked the lock and made his way in. That would be really hard to explain to Jessica.

“Uh...sort of.”

I strode towards the front door and yanked it open with all my might. The rusty hinges screeched loudly, and I half expected them to snap off completely. On the other side stood Vincenzo, looking nonchalant as ever.

“What do you need?” I hissed quietly so that Jessica couldn’t hear.

“Well, I,” he saw Jessica sitting on the sofa behind me and stopped talking. “You have a guest.”

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