Maid for the Mafia

**ROMANY**

"You are telling me-" I began softly, my eyes darting about Mickey's face as the shock of his admission skyrockets through me, "-that you have been stalking me all of this time..." He nods and I swallow what feels like a thistle in my throat. "...All the way up til the day I was tossed onto the street and scrambling to Alex's nightclub to meet my cousin..." my teeth clench, anger fissuring through me as I recall how I collapsed in a heap of shattered rubble and *screamed up at the night sky* on the very, very tiny, four foot by three foot alcove of the duplex Matthew and I had shared an apartment in. My face had been *covered* in the shame of my stupidity and my tears had been mingled with the snot of an abandoned wretch... a silly easily duped girl who had lost *everything* that meant *anything* to her long before Matthew had come along.

Matthew had managed to turn me into a *victim.* A casualty. Prey.

That night my knees were wet with the muddied footprints of all those who had traveled in or out of the commons and my identity had been ripped free of my person and then tossed upon the shell that remained. Simply left to hang like a flag of disgrace around my humiliated form as I whimpered and moaned at *nothing* and *no one.* Bawling and begging for Matthew to explain why he was doing me that way - why he was *ending* us.

It was hands down *the most pathetic* moment of my entire existence and at the time I thought that just the memory of it would be more than enough to keep me humble for the rest of my days.

But I was wrong.

Because just the thought that Mickey may have been out there somewhere *watching* me crumble and fall into a million little rejected pieces is enough to cure me of the guilt I felt only moments ago and replace it with inviolable rage. Suddenly my heart is thundering in my head and my eyes are hot with anger. "You could have stopped it," I hiss, my head jerking up as I inhale a sharp and painful breath, and Mickey jerks as if he's been slapped. "You could have stopped *him!* You could have changed *everything for me*... you *could have saved me from..."* I bite back the accusation, flinching as I'm suddenly on the verge of hyperventilation. I school my breaths so that I can get ahead of what's happening and prevent my little meltdown from becoming what might very well be an irreparable break in my sanity. My head is shaking back and forth like a broken marionette that has just discovered her strings and I am ever so slowly backing away from him on the suddenly cold seat of the SUV.

Immediately Mickey's eyes darken, his eyebrows creasing as his pupils widen to diagnose my sudden hysteria. It only takes a moment before his head tips upward in understanding and his gaze alights with something like enlightened comprehension. But the moment he senses my retreat, the very second he notices my intention to blame, his left hand snaps out and clamps around my right bicep, his gaze stuttering over me as his mouth falls open in shock. "Whoa... now you just wait a minute, doll," he grumbles, his eyes searching mine for whatever theories or presumptions he believes I may have conjured for myself. With an incredulous shake of his head he chuckles "Let me make one thing *absolutely fucking clear," he spits between clenched teeth, his voice frosting itself with the chill of a back alley predator. "There is no world in any fucked up universe that would have had me standing by and fucking *spectating* while that little four fingered fuck was allowed to abuse you the way that he did!"

*Four fingered what? Huh?*

Mickey snarls, his jaw going tight as his knee begins to bounce again. His hand on my arm turns painful for a moment before he adds in a voice bleeding with regret, "Do you have any fucking clue how many times I had to talk myself out of planting cameras in your place?" Shaking my head just barely, I start to respond, but he doesn't let me. "At least twice a week!" he snaps, growling as he flexes his hands, releasing my bicep. With an angry huff he cracks his neck, rolling his shoulders as if to ease the wind of his suddenly rusted muscles. I'm *sorely* tempted to reach around and knead the kinks out myself when he snaps out, "I told myself doing so would be taking things too far. Following you around just to get to know you was one thing, but..." he pauses, shaking his head at himself before he continues, "Spying on you that way would have been like feeding the beast you awoke in me that first day I saw you. I would have transgressed into someone much worse than I am now. It would have been like *robbing* you of your free will.That... and if anyone ever found out, I'd be finished. Toast. The bosses? They would have fucking killed me and treated it like a favor! But that wasn't the worst thing that could've happened," Mickey chuckles humorlessly, his perfectly styled hair suddenly spiking with tension as he snakes a hand through it. Mickey, grins at the floorboard, straightening in his seat and laughing toward the ground as if he and the Under King are sharing a little inside jokes with one another. Suddenly, Mickey tips his head to the side, his chocolate brown hair falling boyishly over his forehead as he meets my eyes. "The bosses probably would have decided to teach me a lesson and give me something to watch. They would have sent men after you. Men that would have made your death both too quick and too painful. Men that might have torn you apart limb from limb and left you to bleed before the camera so that I could watch you drain away."

"Mickey-" I whisper, starting to reach for him, but stopping abruptly when he throws me a cold glare and pushes himself far enough away from me so that we are no longer touching. I try to play it off... the hurt... the disappointment... but as I close my arms around my chest, pretending that's all I had truly been aiming to do, he snorts at me in disgust.

"Save all that charming ambivalence for Alex," he snipes, simultaneously wounding me and walking the pair of us ten paces back from where I'd mistakenly hoped that we were headed. Mickey clamps his eyes shut for a moment, shrugging his shoulders in defeat, "I-I'm sorry, doll... I really didn't mean that. I didn't... I just..." His next breath falls sharp and disappointed, then he leans back for a moment, his eyes on the roof of the SUV before seeming to come to a decision and readjusting himself.

Rolling his shoulders and popping his joints yet again, as if working overtime to expel the tension that *I unwillingly created* for him, he begins to unbutton his coat. My appreciative gaze draws over his movements, languidly tracing upon each and every ripple of strength that precedes the other. Every intricately carved limb... every bulging of stone... the shift and pull of his mostly unconscious muscles - which I just so happen to know, feel like marble beneath my fingertips when I stroke them and like silken fire when *they stroke me -* dance symmetrically with only the barest provocation. All that he owns and all that he does - I can see flex in harmony beneath his painted clothes. The precision of him... the finely tuned *balance* he presents... it was mine only hours ago... ***mine!*** And damn it... I want it back!

Just before he tugs off his matte black jacket, he says, "When I heard from Bruno that there was a rumor going around campus claiming that the professor had taken a less than respectable interest in you, I was out of town closing the deal for your-" he flinches so slightly that the twitching it's almost unnoticeable "-for my restaurant and couldn't leave until I had every last signature that I needed. So, it took me a couple of days before I headed back. But the moment I arrived I sought you out..." Again, he chuckles, this time almost sadly, "Bruno had overheard the prick getting onto you about wearing skirts and form fitting tops - and basically just dressing like a female - so I geared myself up to kidnap the whiny bastard and headed out to his place in the Commons."

Now, he looks at me, swirling his jacket up and around my back, before catching the lapels beneath my chin and tugging me forward until I can peer directly into the abysmal melancholy of his eyes.

Mickey whispers, "What I saw when I got there-" he swallows, his lips curling downward in a frown "-it um... it did something to me, doll." His jaw clenches and he releases his jacket to look away from my face. "I'm not gonna lie... it broke me a little bit."

*Oh no...* "What was it?" I ask, growing slightly uncomfortable. "What do you mean, it broke you? What did he do?"

Mickey shakes his head, laughing coldly before he begins to roll up the sleeves of his perfectly fitted black cotton shirt. "It wasn't really what *he did*, so much as *who* he was with."

*Who he was with? What?*

"What happened?" I press, lowering my head until my face disappears into the front of his coat and I inhale the scent of him. *Jesus Christ he smells delicious.*

"He was kissing his new girlfriend," he informs me, his gaze cutting toward me, mournful. "And she was kissing him right back."