Page 18 of Gardener for the Mafia

“You’re crazy,” she whispers, fighting back the tears.

She walks to the leather corner couch that sits beside a full size faceless mannequin. The mannequin is a modern art piece that is carved of granite, chips and nicks purposefully littered up and down its contorted form. I’d much rather have a painting or perhaps a Roman statue, but I’ve never been here before and I guess this modern art piece was put here by the studio’s manager.

She drops down and picks at the leather with her red painted fingernails. I move closer and sit down next to her, but lean back slightly, sensing that she needs space to articulate whatever’s hounding her mind.

“I was sixteen years old,” she whispers, rubbing at her face. “I guess you could say I was a little messed up from growing up in the orphanage and being bounced around foster families, none of which ever worked out. I don’t know.

“Anyway, there was this football player, basically the star jock that all the girls wanted and his name was David. I didn’t even like him, not really. But then one day he came to me and started saying I was the love of his life, that he’d had a crush on me since middle school. I was just so flattered and I just let myself get whisked away with the moment. I didn’t even want him, not specifically. It was just nice to be seen for once. I was such a nobody in high school.

“He told me to meet him at this lake near the school at midnight. He really messed with my head. He said I should get ready for the craziest night of my life. Maybe he could tell I was nervous because he gave me this bottle of vodka and told me to drink that before I came.”

I clench my fists so hard my knuckles protrude against the skin, the beating of my heart like a war drum. Suddenly, it’s like I’m standing in a muddy field during a war of the past, a sword clenched tightly in my fist, ready to face down a whole army of Davids.

I want to cut and slice and roar as the blood showers down around me.

“What did he do to you, Lena?” I snarl.

“When I got to the lake,” she whispers, “he was waiting there for me. I’d only had a sip of the vodka, but he made me drink more. Then he stripped off my clothes and said he wanted to see me naked. But he didn’t. He just wanted to push me in the lake.

“Thankfully, it was almost summer break and it was a hot evening, so the water wasn’t too horrible. But when all the cheerleaders and football players came out from the trees, where they’d been hiding, I was just so embarrassed. They only hung around long enough to laugh and make sure I wasn’t going to drown, and then they left. I put my clothes back on and tramped back to the orphanage, and then they made fun of me at school. God, I so don’t miss high school.”

I leap to my feet as my body fills with the searing lava of a thousand volcanoes, my veins burning and scorching every inch of me. I put my whole body into the swing as I clench my fist, battering the solid granite modern art pieces.

My fist connects and chips of stone fly away, the impact surging up my forearm and into my body. I swing again, barely aware of what I’m doing, just letting the savage protectiveness fill me, imagining that it’s David’s body I’m laying into, bones I’m crunching and breaking to pieces instead of unyielding stone.

Except it does yield.

It shatters and flies apart under the force of my six foot six body, my muscles roaring like a war cry.

“Lorenzo,” Lena says.

The way she says it, I know it’s not the first time. She lays her hand against my back, which feels almost cold against the flaring rage of my hot skin. My suit and shirt has torn with the movements of my looping punches.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Please, calm down.”

I turn to her, my queen, watching as she blinks away crystalline tears.

“It’s not okay,” I growl. “It’ll never be okay. He’s a monster. He doesn’t even deserve to hear your voice, to look at your damn shadow, let alone see you naked.”

She snorts, shaking her head. “There’s not much to see, is there? Let’s face it. I’m not exactly a supermodel.”

I grab her and pull her close, my anger morphing to lust filled want, my need to claim her like an irrefutable demand from my seed.

She needs to know that this is right, that the signals my seed and her womb are undoubtedly sending her are true, that this isn’t some fucked up trick.

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