Daddy's Here(15)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, feeling unnerved by the question. Of course I knew about Kingsley, as much a wet blanket as his father was a cold hearted villain. Crueller in his own way, no match for someone as innocent as her.

“He hits his girlfriends,” she said quietly, looking up at me with puppy dog eyes so wide, she was almost a cartoon version of herself. “I know what kind of man he is and I will not marry him.”

“I can protect you,” I said, sitting next to her on the bench. “Even after you’re married.”

“Who made you the Godfather all of a sudden? I don’t need your help, I’m doing just fine on my own.”

“So you won’t come with me voluntarily?”

“Not until I’ve seen Ben. If he won’t have me, I’ll marry Kingsley. How does that sound?”

I thought for a minute before answering. “Listen, how about we make a deal?”

“What kind of deal?” she asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“I’ll go with you to see him.”

“See who?”

“The guy who wrote those letters.”

“Ben? But why would you agree to that?”

“Because I’d rather you want to come back, it’s easier than dragging you back. Matteo doesn’t want you damaged.”

“What am I, a Faberge egg?”

“Would you rather we go home now?”

“No, God, no.”

“Well then let’s get some tickets shall we?”

I watched her digging out her card. It didn’t matter that her father would see the purchase, he wouldn’t know where she was travelling to, not from a credit card statement.

Why was I doing this? This wasn’t me, this wasn’t who I was. I didn’t make deals with people, I took what I wanted, what I needed, then I was gone. But something was different about her, something I couldn’t put my finger on.

Part of it was her vulnerability. She genuinely seemed lost in the world, unable to look after herself without help. She stood buying the tickets with her shell of cockiness intact but I could tell it was all for show. I could see straight through it to the little girl she was inside.

It would break her to marry into the Matteo family. She’d get money, sure, power too, maybe. But not help, not protection, not comfort, not the things she so clearly needed. The little girl would get crushed in that world and she’d become as cold as them, as empty hearted as me. No one deserved that.

You want to fuck her too, I thought, doing my best to ignore that fact. It didn’t help me think straight and I needed to think straight.

I thought instead about the relationship between her and her father. That was one thing that was clear no matter how clouded my thoughts were. I’d always been good at seeing through people to who they really were. She yearned to be close to her father but something had happened to drive them apart and now she hated him. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was but it probably involved Tony Matteo.

She loved the boy in the letters, that was obvious too. The words and emotions poured off the page. If I wasn’t so dead inside, I’d have felt something when I read them. Maybe her father had driven them apart, maybe that was why she resented him so much. Combine that with finding out she was supposed to marry a cruel drip of a man and it was no wonder she’d run. She couldn’t hide for shit though, that much was obvious. She’d never had to hide in her life and she had no idea how to do it.

I’d worked all that out but I still didn’t really know why I’d offered her the deal. If I didn’t take her back, I was a dead man. There was no way round that. I couldn’t screw up a job like this and expect everything to be fine. I should grab her, break into the nearest car, drive her back. She’d be damaged but in a way she already was.

Get the job done and get away from her, one side of me thought. Fuck her first, it added. Show her how dark the world can be. The other side of me wanted to wrap her up and keep her safe and I hated being caught between those two opposing sides.

I knew I should take her home but I didn’t do it. Instead I offered to go with her to speak to her lost love. What the hell was wrong with me?

“Got them,” she said, excitedly waving two tickets at me. We went back outside to wait for the bus. “Have you ever made a deal with anyone before?” she asked, looking up at me.

“Once or twice,” I lied. I couldn’t tell her this was a first for me, it would make me look weak. You couldn’t look weak, that was a cardinal rule in my world.

“You’re not going to go back on it, are you?”

“You go see him then we go home.”