The Woman in the Back Room by Jessica Gadziala

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four

Alessa

 

 

 

 

Santiago Costa clearly had money.

What was even more impressive about that, though, was the fact that his money couldn't have been mob money. If he'd been out of the Family since he was a teenager, that meant he'd found some other way to become extremely wealthy, judging by the multi-million-dollar apartment he shared with his son.

It was a fancy-ass place, if a bit sterile for my taste.

It was weird.

Santiago had been married. His wife lived here. But the place had no feminine touches. It was almost showroom-quality sparse in the details.

There was no art on the just barely off-white walls, no throw pillows on the cream couches that catty-cornered to face the massive white marble fireplace that matched the kitchen counters.

The floors were the only real pop of color, a deep brown wide-planked hardwood floor.

There was no art on the walls, or mass-produced little knick-knacks or signs with cheesy sayings on them.

It just all felt really, I don't know, cool. Detached.

I guess like the owner himself.

The redeeming part of the whole design was the floor-to-ceiling windows around the whole main space.

A bit nosy by nature, I went through the kitchen, checking out the cabinets, cupboards, pantry, and fridge.

And, well, this Costa family apparently ate very healthy. As in tons of spinach and a whole shelf of lentil pasta healthy.

I was going to starve, it seemed.

Finished with the kitchen, I moved through the living room, checked out the TV, finding a bit of reality TV drama stuff saved. Likely the late wife's selections. I didn't see a man like Santiago sitting down after a long day of work to watch some Real Housewife type of show.

"Who are you?" a voice asked, making me turn.

"Damn, kid, you have the feet of a cat," I told him, a little impressed that he could sneak up on me.

There he was.

The youngest Costa.

He looked like his father in a shrunken form. Dark-haired, tan-skinned, tall—at least he seemed tall for his age. But where his father had dark brown—nearly black—eyes, his son had bright blue ones. Likely from his mom.

If the world was a kind place, he would grow up to be as annoyingly attractive as his father one day.

"I'm Alessa," I explained. "Didn't your father tell you about me?"

"He said I'm getting a babysitter," the kid grumbled.

"That's ridiculous. You're too old for a babysitter," I insisted, because I would have been pissed if someone said that to me when I was his age.

"What are you then?"

"Your personal bodyguard," I told him. I probably wasn't supposed to say that. But what were they going to do? Fire me?

"You?"

"Girls can be bodyguards. Don't give me that look. If you came out to greet me earlier, you would have seen me toss Emilio onto his back."

"Yeah?" he asked, lips twitching just a little.

"He's going to have a nice bruise on his as—butt," I said, catching myself.

"But why did they pick a girl when Uncle Enzo has mostly guy bodyguards?"

"I guess they figure I will blend in better. Or maybe they think I know how to cook for you. Which, I don't. So don't get your hopes up. I'm a top-notch takeout orderer, though."

"I never get to eat takeout."

"Well, that is going to change. At least for the next like two and a half months."

"That's how long you're going to be here?"

"Seems like it. You pissed?"

"I, ah, I guess it's okay."

"So, you're Ottavio, right? What?" I asked when he grimaced.

"I don't like my whole name."

"No? What do you like then?"

"Avi."

"Avi. I can call you that."

"Should I call you Miss..."

"Morelli. But, God, no. Makes me sound like an old lady. You can call me Alessa. Or Less."

"Okay."

"So, are you hungry?" I asked.

"Not yet."

"You wanna watch some TV?"

"No."

"You want to go sulk off by yourself? It's okay if you do. I like to sulk too. I'm an expert sulker, actually."

"I was gonna play some video games."

"Yeah? What ones?"

"Do you even know any?" he asked, tone condescending in the way only pre-teen kids could be. Like you were ancient and out of touch with everything. I imagine I used that tone a lot on the adults around me at his age.

"Ah, yeah. I bet I can kick your as—butt," I said, shaking my head at myself.

"My dad curses. It's okay."

"Yeah, well, if I slip up, promise you won't tell on me, yeah?"

At the opportunity to keep something from his father, his eyes brightened a bit. And, hey, it was a firm belief of mine that kids needed to get away with some shit from time to time. So I didn't feel bad at all about it.

"Okay."

"Alright, so what gaming system do you got?" I asked.

We went ahead and got a little wrapped up in his favorite game then. We were both stubborn and competitive, so we obsessively tried to one-up each other.

Time fell away.

A lot of it, apparently.

Because the next thing I knew, the light was flashing on, and Santiago's voice was booming in the space.

"What is going on here?" he asked, sounding a mix of confused, exhausted, and frustrated.

"Busted," I grumbled to Avi who let out a little chuckle.

"It's midnight," Santiago added.

"Crap, yeah, guess you should be in bed by now, huh?" I asked, giving Avi a guilty look. "Go on. Get ready for bed. I'll clean up our mess. And get yelled at by your father," I added.

Avi offered me a sympathetic look before rushing off, not wanting to get caught up in the possible argument.

"In my defense, you didn't tell me when the kid's bedtime was," I said, climbing off the couch, feeling stiff in a bunch of places from sitting for so long.

I was about to reach to clean up the Chinese food cartons when Santiago unexpectedly dropped down on the spot his son vacated, reaching for a carton, and fishing out some sweet & sour chicken.

"It's fine. He's not in school right now anyway. It looks like you two bonded," he added as I sat back down, reaching for the lo mein even though I'd already eaten my body weight in food over the past several hours. "I haven't heard him laugh since before his mom..." Santiago said, trailing off, not wanting to say it. "Did he mention her?"

"No."

"Not at all?" he asked, sounding concerned.

"No. But in his defense, he was actively trying to slaughter me most of the day. It wasn't really conducive to actual conversation. Unless threats of mutilation count."

"You play video games?"

"When you talk about them to your kid, can I suggest you not do so while making it sound stupid and like a waste of time?"

I knew I was overstepping a line by the way Santiago's brow arched up at me. But I would be kidding myself if I said I could learn to bite my tongue just because I technically worked for him.

"I never played," Santiago admitted. "Guess it's good he has someone to play with."

"Did his mom play?"

"Brit wasn't big on screen time. They tended to go out and do shit. Museums, the park, after-school activities."

"He doesn't do them anymore?"

"I guess he will start up again when he gets back to school."

"What ones does he do?"

"He has an art class and piano and fencing."

"Fencing? Is he an ultra-upper-class, country club kid from Connecticut?" I asked, getting a small smirk out of Santiago.

"I would have preferred some sort of martial arts, but Brit was into that high-brow type shit."

"Is Avi?"

"Avi?" he asked, brows pinching.

"Your son," I said, shaking my head at him.

"His name is Ottavio."

"Yeah, and he told me he wants to be called Avi. So, yeah, that's what I'm going to call him."

"Since when?" he asked. "The nickname thing."

"I didn't ask. Maybe you should."

"Giving me parenting advice?" he asked, reaching up to loosen his tie.

"I just imagine if I didn't like what my parents were calling me, they should maybe know about it."

"I hated my name at his age too," Santiago admitted, shrugging. "That's why most people call me Santi. Should have figured Ottavio was a bit off for him too."

"He might like it when he grows up. Right now, he's trying to fit in with peers. Eventually he will want to stand out."

"Yeah. You talk about anything else?"

"Well, he thinks his teacher looks like a lizard," I said, getting a choked laugh from him.

"That's not a... inaccurate description," he admitted.

"And he likes that his uncle is around a lot more lately. And Brio. Which leaves me to wonder why you let that fucking lunatic around your impressionable kid."

"I let you around him," he countered, shooting me a smirk as he waved at the mess of the living room.

"Well, yeah, I guess that's fair," I admitted. "Though, in my defense, I've never made polite dinner conversation by talking about modernizing medieval torture techniques."

"So, supervised visits with Ott—Avi only. Got it," Santi agreed, rolling his neck.

"You look tired. Go to bed. I'll clean up my mess."

"Different kind of tired," he admitted.

I wasn't exactly an ask-you-about-your-feelings kind of person. My mother had been a selfish woman. My father was nonexistent until I was nearly an adult with the stunted emotional spectrum of a street kid who had no safe space to explore their feelings. I wasn't that person.

And yet I found myself asking.

"How're you holding up?" I asked. "With the dead wife thing and all." Alright, admittedly, I could see how that was the wrong word choice. But not until they were already out of my mouth.

Luckily, Santiago didn't seem the type to get offended too easily. "Might want to not put it that way in front of Ott—Avi," he suggested. "Brit and I weren't together. We hadn't been. Not for a long time."

"But I thought she lived here."

"She did. But not in my room. Not in my bed. We were trying to ease Avi into the idea of a divorce. But we'd been separated for a long time. I loved her as the mother of my son. But not the way a man is supposed to love a woman."

Now that he mentioned it, he didn't have a ring on. I don't know why I hadn't noticed that earlier. I wonder if his son had. Somehow, I doubted that was a detail he would have missed. If they didn't have rings, and didn't share a room, and didn't show any intimacy at all, did they really think they were fooling the kid into thinking they were still together?

"You got together early, right?"

"We dated in high school. We'd both pretty much been ready to break up. But then—"

"The rabbit died?"

"What?" he asked, the word a half-laugh.

"Oh, just... it's an old Southern saying, I guess. There was this way people detected pregnancy by injecting a woman's pee into a rabbit. If he died, she was pregnant. It was bullshit, of course. But a saying was born."

"Forgot you're not from here originally."

"Virginia, yeah. That's where old Gio Sr. knocked up a local prostitute while his wife slaved over his children at home."

"What made you leave her, and come up here?"

"You ready for this conversation?" I asked, folding my legs under me.

"Not much shocks me."

"My mother had the maternal instincts of a cuckoo."

"A cuckoo?"

"It's a bird."

"I thought birds were good mothers. With the whole throwing up food into the babies' mouths and shit."

"Cuckoos can't be bothered to mother. They lay their eggs in another bird's nest, and has her do all the rearing."

"Yeah, not great. That's what your mom did?"

"Inadvertently. She went out, and eventually my relentless crying would get one of the neighbors to break in and take care of me. Eventually, I got old enough to find some food on my own. Then she really had no need to look after me. Until I turned seventeen, though."

"What happened when you turned seventeen?"

"She decided she would pay her debt to her pimp by giving him me."

"Jesus Christ."

"Yeah, luckily I caught wind of her plan before she could carry through with it, grabbed a backpack and what was left of her drug money, and hightailed it the fuck out of there. And here I am," I said, waving around his apartment. "Does it bother you to have the feral daughter of a prostitute taking care of your kid?"

"Who am I to judge? My father had my mother imprisoned for almost my entire life."

"I heard about that. That story was fucking bananas."

"Yeah, imagine seeing that ghost show up at your doorstep twenty-something years later."

"Lot of changes in your lives lately."

"Not all of 'em good," Santi agreed, exhaling a deep breath. "He's crying a lot. But won't talk to me about it."

"I don't know about you, but I don't like people seeing me cry, either," I said, shrugging. "I mean I just met the kid, but he seems to be doing okay considering. If he doesn't, I will say something."

"I'd appreciate it."

"So what are the rules and shit?" I asked. "I don't know much about what happened with your... with Avi's mom, but the gist I'm getting is that everyone thinks it is involved with the little war going on between the Families."

"Brit and I were standing out front of the building," he said. I hadn't exactly asked for the details. But I figured no one had let him talk about it since it happened. I guess we all needed an outlet. And I was a safe one since he didn't give a shit what I thought about the whole situation. "She caught me going in as she was coming out. We were both short on time. And temper," he recalled, eyes far away as he stared out the darkened windows. "We got into it over some stupid shit."

"What stupid shit?" I asked, sensing he needed to get it out. Which must have meant everything about him was screaming to talk about it, because no one would accuse me of being overly sensitive to sensing shit like that.

"Avi," he said, shaking his head. "When we fought, it was usually about Avi. But never in front of him. We had... we always had different parenting styles. And we could never find a middle ground with it."

"Was it her or you who seemed opposed to anything processed or cheese-covered?" I asked.

"To an extent, both of us. We both cared about being healthy, but Brit was the one with the green smoothies and checking every ingredient."

"You fought about the food?"

"Not really. We fought about the extracurriculars and the fact that Avi never really got any time with friends because of them. That morning we were fighting because she didn't like him spending too much time around my family. My mom had been coming around a lot. And she'd just called Brit to invite us to a big Sunday dinner at her place. And, of course, Enz would be there. Probably Emilio too. Maybe Brio. Just... the whole crew, I imagine. And Brit didn't want Avi around that."

"You wanted to go."

"My mom being back, she was hammering it home to me how important family was, even if you didn't want to be in the Family. I was arguing for us going. Then a car pulled up, a window rolled down, and I watched the bullets rip through her body, felt her blood splattering all over my face."

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling the uncharacteristic urge to reach out. I was not a touchy-feely sort of woman. Which was why even though I had the urge, I didn't act on it.

To that, he gave me a nod.

"I probably insulted her memory by going to Enz and demanding back in."

"You wanted to get revenge. Anyone would."

"I could have still gotten revenge if I didn't join. I know that. Enz would have seen to it. I think, just as much as wanting to make someone pay for stealing my son's mom from him, a part of me knew that without Brit, I wasn't going to be able to do it all on my own."

"And, I mean, if you weren't even in the Family, and your family was being targeted, what's the difference if you actually got back into it?"

"Yeah. And this way, I get more help. I get more protection."

"It makes sense. I get Avi's mom wouldn't approve, but it makes sense to me. And that is coming from someone not directly in the Family." At his lowered brows, I explained, "The Families seem to be holding fast to the old-school, penis-having-only members."

"Yeah, they seem a bit behind the times with that, huh?" he asked. "You gonna crash here tonight? Seems pointless to go all the way home when it's so late."

"Yeah. I figure it will be good to get used to it. Will you be home tomorrow?" I asked. "Just so I know if I should be listening for little feet or something early in the morning or not."

"I'll be around until eight, so you'll be up before I leave."

I was a general late-riser, but I could adjust.

"Alright. Sounds good. Are we on lockdown for the time being, or can I take Avi out if he wants to go somewhere?"

"Just... just nowhere open. Not the Park," he clarified.

"You'll find I'm rather... indoorsy. I like to take walks, but you're not going to find me hiking through the woods or shit like that."

"Got it," he agreed, climbing off the couch. "I'll refill the house cash for if you two go out. Just leave me a note or shoot me a text if you do. Just want to know where you're at."

"You got it," I agreed, standing up to grab the cartons of food.

"Goodnight, Alessa," he said, his deep, rich voice smooth and oddly soothing.

I felt myself freezing at the thought that accompanied his words.

I could get used to hearing that man wish me a goodnight.

What the hell was that about?

"'Night," I called back, voice a bit choked and awkward, but he didn't seem to notice as he moved down the hall and into his own room.

As I put the food away and turned off the TV, I didn't think about what Santi looked like as he stripped out of that fancy suit of his, didn't imagine water running down the indents of muscles as he climbed in the shower.

Nope.

I didn't let myself do any of those things.

Except I totally did.

I climbed into bed a while later with two dominant thoughts running through my head.

I, the possibly least qualified woman in the city, was now a nanny.

And I seemed to have the hots for the kid's dad.

My new boss.

Yeah, that seemed just fucked up enough to be typical for me.

Great.

That was just great.

It was going to be a long ten weeks.