Page 19 of As Devils Love

Three days have passed since Father ordered Tomas to remain at my side in everything I do. The only peace I’ve had is when I’m sleeping – and I’ve had to start a habit of locking my bedroom door – and using the bathroom.

Luckily, mine’s an en-suite. I’m sure I’d have caught him rifling through my clothes for my panties by now, had it been a shared situation. I shudder at the thought, disgusted with myself for even thinking it and at him because it’sdefinitelytrue.

I glance over my shoulder at him while Simone and I walk hand-in-hand down the busy New York street. Tomas doesn’t walk. He lurks like a real-life reincarnation of Frankenstein’s monster, with a thick brow and dull-eyed gaze to boot.

He gives me the heebie-jeebies.

“Ogling him isn’t the deterrent you think it is, Fi,” Simone snickers, and tugs my arm snapping my focus back in the direction we’re walking.

“Yeah, but what else am I supposed to do?” I’m complaining for the sake of complaining and we both know it.

I know that Father’s idea to have someone watching over me is the purest form of love. He cares about me, so much so that he’s willing to let his second in command follow two women around New York, rather than help find the man responsible for all the deaths in the family. But there are many other better-looking men carrying the Napoli flag. It’s hard to accept that I could’ve had one of the hot ones, who I would’ve enjoyed gawking right back at, but instead I got the creepy one.

“Go on as normal. Pretend he isn’t there. Carry on living,” Simone drops her airy tone in an attempt to break through to me.

“Easier said than done when you don’t share a house with him.” Not that Tomas has tried anything, yet. When he isn’t on the phone to my father or someone else under his command, he drinks himself to sleep before ten P.M.

“You need to relax. It can’t be easy, but we’ve got a long night of work ahead, and I don’t want to see your sourpuss the whole time.” Simone smiles as if it’s a joke, but I know she is serious. And she is right.

She is also making me feel bad for getting sucked into my own problems, which are pretty inconsequential, when we’re headed to a place ofactualsuffering. I can handle Tomas looming over me like a heavy, gray cloud about to pour, because tonight I can get into my warm bed, with a full belly, and no genuine concerns in this world. Well, unless you count the fact that I was drugged and the mysterious stranger who slipped it into my drink broke into my apartment. Probably touched me while I was sleeping and...

I cut myself off right there, as butterflies start fluttering in my tummy, instead of the nauseated pit I used to feel. God, I must really be screwed up to think of that night with anything but horror. Yet, the more I do, the more tantalizing it’s becoming.

Part of me knows it’s because it won’t happen again while Tomas is on guard. No one is getting into my apartment without his express approval. So maybe I’m not messed up for feeling this way. Without really knowing what happened that night, it could just be a wild fantasy.

Who hasn’t had one of those, involving some cloaked hottie pinning them down and—

Not the time, Fia. And those fantasies are usually reserved for strangers. Not the mysterious masked man whom you’ve placed on a pedestal. He’ll never be able to live up to your imaginary version of him.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Tonight isn’t about me.” I move my hand up Simone’s arm and hook it around her elbow.

Our destination is in what most would call the bad part of town. A free-standing building beneath an overpass ramp onto a bridge that leads to Manhattan. I’ve always found it so messed up that on one side of the water, there’s beauty and wealth in massive abundance, whereas the other side is riddled with poverty and depression.

We arrive at the Davis Diner soup kitchen early, out of necessity. Any later, after the folks start to arrive for their meals, and we won’t be able to get inside the building, let alone offer our help.

“Hey, Joe.” Simone’s voice echoes inside the vast emptiness of the soup kitchen’s eating area.

“Si-Si and Fi-Fi, my two favorite twins,” Joe Davis says with pure seriousness. I would’ve believed we were twins had I not been one of the two names mentioned.

“I told you, we aren’t twins,” Simone giggles, and wraps her arms around Joe’s shoulders, taking care not to startle him.

“Anyone ever tell you your voice is like honey on a blind man’s ear?” Joe returns the hug, with the biggest, goofiest smile I’ve ever seen.

“Anyone ever tell you, that you’re too sweet for your own good?” Simone rolls her eyes as she pulls away.

“The only way for your medicine to go downisby being sweet, Sugar.” I’m damned sure Joe would be winking at Simone right now, if it wasn’t for the blacked-out Aviator’s covering his eyes.

“Medicine is usually a bad thing,” I chime in before jumping into his arms for my hug.

I’d never admit it to Joe, but these hugs have become something of the highlight of my week. He’s around my dad’s age, with a similar dad-bod build, and for the few minutes we share an embrace, it feels as if I can picture what a normal life with a normal family could’ve been.

“Look where we are,” he releases me and waves his arms around the empty recreational hall. “Ain’t nobody coming here for a big bowl of mama’s loving.”

“Too true. But we do what little we can to give ‘em a taste of it on a Wednesday night.” I gently rub his shoulder in a comforting way.

Before Joe opened his soup kitchen, he lived a terribly hard life. He worked with hoodlums and thieves to make ends meet, until he lost his vision. The old adage rang truer than ever when it happened, and with no honor among thieves, Joe found himself in a place not unlike this one.

Penniless, homeless and on the verge of giving up, he managed to turn his life around. And rather than enjoy the excess of his success, Joe opened his own kitchen to help those in need, believing that each and every person who walked through hisdoor, could turn their lives around. All they needed was a push in the right direction.

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