Page 11 of Blood Ties

He wrote on a piece of paper.

A guy you started seeing

I choked.

“Niv?” Concern and irritation bled through the line. My dad was not happy.

I sighed. “It’s a guy I’ve been seeing,” I said with resignation.

Silence.

“A guy?”

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Yeah, Dad. A guy.” I closed my eyes, waiting for the explosion.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me, Niv. We have talked about this time and time again.” Someone who didn’t know my dad would think that was a calmly stated reply. Those of us who knew him knew there were a million nukes going off in his brain. We had a procedure if I was eventhinkingabout seeing a guy.

“Dad, it’s new,” I whispered as I leaned close to the phone. Not like that kept my new “guy” from hearing it, but Jesus, I was embarrassed as hell. I’d blocked the trauma of being shot at and chased halfway across Chicago, but this was putting a strain on that box I’d carefully packed it into.

I burst into tears.

“Everything Changes”—Staind

Fuck.

“Niv? What the hell is going on?” Nivea’s father shouted through the phone.

She had dropped onto one of my barstools and her face was buried in her hands. I wasn’t sure if I should try to comfort her or what the fuck to do. I didn’t deal well with emotions like that. I was an organizer—a planner. I was a fixer, but shit, I didn’t know her like that.

And I was afraid to get too close to her, because in the elevator, I’d nearly fucked up. I couldn’t start blurring the lines any worse than they already were. The text messages that had started as a ploy to work my way into her head had somehow become more.

They’d become real.

And I found myself liking her more than I should.

Finally, I picked up the phone and took it off speaker. “Sir?”

Initially, there was no reply. I looked at the screen and it still showed I was on an active call. Before I could say anything else, Nivea’s father spoke. His tone was calm and cold.

“You took the phone off speaker?”

“Yes.”

“Who the fuck are you and why did my daughter just call me from a burner phone?”

I was a little taken aback. Once I shook off that uncharacteristic feeling, I wondered how the hell this guy knew that. The whole purpose of a burner was anonymity.

“My name is Alessio.” I gave him that much. And quite frankly, I wasn’t sure why I gave him my real first name other than I figured there were a million guys with the name Alessio in the world.

“And how do you know my daughter?”

“Well, I met her when we discussed commissioning a sculpture for my parents’ restaurant,” I replied. After all, that wasn’t completely untrue.

The unmistakable sound of fingers rapidly typing on a keyboard could be heard as I waited for his response. “And why is my daughter crying?”

---