Maid for the Mafia

**ROMANY**

Mickey gazes back at me warily, shoulders bunched and forearms flexing rapidfire in time with the tick of his jaw. It's almost as if he's stuttered there, frozen in place and torn between the *want* to reach for me and the *need* to let me go. He isn't convinced that I'm being sincere and I have no way to prove it to him.

I'm not stupid enough to believe that a simple *I love you* will fix this, in fact, I'm pretty sure that *those* are the words that would ultimately send him spiraling away. At least, they would if I said them *now.*

A glint of light slivers through the sunroof and slices across his face for a moment and suddenly, I see him like he was that afternoon behind the waterfall. Naked, perfect, and with eyes like emerald fire.

That vision flashes before me and I can almost hear the sounds of the crashing water behind us and feel the pull of his hands on my skin... *God... he could have been mine then too.* His words from that day ring between my ears, and I find myself so close to tears that I can't even try to fight them, but neither do they fall.

*

"You have to know... There is very little that I wouldn't do, just to have you. I'd give you anything. All you have to do is name it."..........*

*Then I name you, Mickey. I want you.*

*But of course... it's way too late.*

Whatever it was that Mickey thought he saw in me back then, must not have been enough for him to truly want me, or he would have tried to find a way. I mean sure, stalking is a crime, and some might argue that I got lucky, but after getting to know Mickey, I know better. Had he just made an effort to befriend me, he might have been able to fill the void back then. I wouldn't have felt so desperate for intimacy if I'd had him. Shit, he definitely could have helped me carry my two ton backpack a time or two.

Suddenly, I am faced with an entire forum of alternate possibilities and as I try to recall what I felt like to be me when I was eighteen, all I can feel is the giant hole in my heart that was created with the loss of my mother.

I push into my emotional memory bank, searching for any little moment that I might have felt followed... or watched. When I come up empty I am disappointed. Not just because it would've been cool to mentally place Mickey somewhere in my past, but because, now I must face the reality of how absolutely frivolous said life had been.

Clueless. That's my one word and it was all me.

So, I can't really blame just Mickey. I'm the fool who had no idea I was being stalked.

I was the ignorant bitch who had no real idea of what went on around her. Going from class to class just like anybody else, completely out of tune with the world around me. A lost little fool. That was me.

Well God-fucking-damn it. That just really sucks.

It would be one thing if I was one of those girls who had been so immersed in her studies that she didn't really see anything beyond her text books, but that's not how I was. Nope. I was a happy go lucky don't know her left from her right fucking airhead with about as much depth as a pan of fried rice.

At least, I had been. Until Matthew burrowed into my life.

Mickey's gaze flutters over me so slowly that it feels like an eternity has passed by the time he speaks again. "Doll, you didn't even know me. You never even knew I was there..." Mickey tosses the words so carelessly that I almost believe he's unaffected, but then he squints down at the floorboard, his hands fisting at his sides before he looks back at me with a frown on his brow. "What did you mean? You needed me? Why?"

"I needed you," I repeat softy. *And something tells me, I am always going to.* Winding the silver locks of my stripe around two fingers, I bring them to my lips and try not to think about the day he wanted to take me to the Maldives. *Why didn't I go? Why didn't I say yes? Oh yeah... Ruby.* Well, he and I will never see it together now. And he's made it pretty clear already that all this is my fault.

*He blames me and I blame Alex...*

*Fuck you, Alex... I can't wait until he wakes up in the morning and finds me gone.* "Romany," Mickey prompts me. "I really do have somewhere

be."

*Ouch...* "Okay," I sigh. "I won't keep you any longer." I try for a quick look in his direction, but when I do, I see the irritation in his eyes. He's looking at me as if he wants to shove me out onto the driveway and speed away.

"It's just that... now that I *do* know you," I whisper, my shoulders slumping. "I know had you stuck around that night and watched a little more intently, you would have seen I wasn't happy being there. You would have known I wasn't having any fun and you would have stopped it... You would have saved me from... from them."

Mickey's back tenses, locking upright like a bow string as I scoot toward the door.

Mickey snarls, "Them?"

Averting my eyes when I hear the front door to the SUV unlock, I focus on the movement at the front of the SUV. I know I should go. That much was made clear already... but I can't seem to move another inch in either direction. The car dips as Mickey's driver slides into the front seat, his cold blue eyes in the rear view mirror snagging on mine for the briefest second before the door on my left pops open with a soft click. My eyes go straight for the handle. *Well alrighty then...*

"A message for you Mister Scavo," The thick as a tree, mountain man dressed in black bellows out confidently, without waiting for me to leave. "Miss Ana Romano is ready and waiting at the airport as requested."

Suddenly, my ears are ringing... pain stutters through my chest and rushes through my bloodstream like the venom of a snake as I take in the meddlesome driver's words.

*Ready and waiting at the airport?*

*As requested?*

*Mickey was leaving even before he heard me and Alex in that room. And then I raced down here after him... like a fool...*