Page 47 of Love and Lies

Jessiah seemed to be thinking the same thing. “I know people who can make sure he leaves town and doesn’t come back,” he said darkly.

“Sounds good.” I nodded shakily.

“I’ll get on it.” Then he put his arm around me and we stepped into the corridor, and he locked the door behind us. I was only just able to stop myself from leaning on his shoulder. I’d never felt so helpless and weak in my life. Even after Valerie had died.

“I’ll get your stuff,” he said softly, letting me go. “Wait here for me.”

I simply nodded, sank down the wall to the cold floor, and closed my eyes. My brain hadn’t caught up yet with what had happened, but my body knew all too well that my life had been threatened, and it was reacting accordingly. I couldn’t stop shaking, no matter how hard I tried, and when the door to the club opened again, I flinched. But it was Jessiah, carrying my stuff along with his own jacket and a thin blanket that he wrapped around my shoulders while I dragged myself up.

“Let’s go—my friend Balthazar will keep an eye on Pratt until my contact arrives.” He looked at me with concern. “I don’t have my car, but it’s only two blocks to the restaurant. Will you make it, or should we call a taxi?”

“No, I’ll be okay,” I said, nodding. “Fresh air and exercise fixes everything, right?”

“That’s what they say.” He laughed softly. “Come on then, Fair Helen. Let’s take a little walk.”

22 Jessiah

I wasn’t lying when I told Helena the restaurant was just around the corner—but swooping in nonchalantly to play her savior had been a facade. I wasn’t chill at all. On the contrary, I was scared shitless when I noticed she wasn’t in the club anymore, even more so when I finally found her outside, pinned against the wall by Pratt with his hands around her neck. I’d had to seriously control myself to make sure I only knocked the guy out instead of sending him to the hospital. No, that wasn’t true. I’d had to control myself not to kill him.

I could have told myself that it had nothing to do with Helena. That I found violence against women abhorrent and would have done the same in any situation. And of course that was all true. But these feelings, this intense fear and anger that had turned into an almost uncontrollable fury… that was more than just moral courage. It was her. Luckily, Helena didn’t seem to notice the storm raging inside me as we made our way to Bella Ciao.

“Why did you call me that?” she asked softly. I’d wrapped my arm around her again when I saw that she was still in the grip of shock and cold—and she’d put her arm around my waist, too, for something to hold on to. It felt alarmingly intimate. Anyone watching would have thought we were a loved-up couple on our way home. If it wasn’t for the blood on her neck and my chest, and the fact that we were both soaked to the bone.

“Call you what?” I replied.

“ ‘Fair Helen.’ That’s what you called me, just now.”

I smiled. “Well… after Helen of Troy. They say she was so beautiful, her face launched a thousand ships.”

Helena gave a little snort. “I don’t think my face could ever manage that.”

If only you knew.

“It’s right up ahead.” Another fifty yards, and I steered us toward the plain-looking door that was Bella Ciao’s side entrance. It was eleven thirty by then, and there weren’t many customers left as we went in. Taddeo looked happy to see me at first, but then his gaze fell upon Helena and he stared in horror.

“Dio mio!” he cried. “What in the world happened?”

“It’s just a scratch,” Helena repeated my words from before. Then she seemed to remember her manners and added a polite, “Sir.”

Taddeo shook his head, but before he could say any more, I raised my hands in defense.

“I’ll explain later, okay? But first, could you bring us a change of clothes? Something that’ll fit her… and me too, if you have it.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll find something.” Taddeo nodded. “Go to the office. I’ll bring some clothes right away. Leonora! Get the oven on again, we need pizza!”

I led Helena into the back of the restaurant before Taddeo’s wife could catch a glimpse of our Halloween-costume look. Taddeo’s office was a small room crammed with an old sofa, a desk, and a ton of filing cabinets. I’d tried to educate him on the benefits of a paperless office many times—but no luck, apparently.

Before Helena and I could say a word to each other, Taddeo was back, pressing a pile of clothes into my hands. “Employee uniforms and a few things from the lost and found, all freshly washed. Most of it is probably too big, but still, it’s warm and dry.”

I thanked him, he left, and I took a quick look through the pile before choosing a sweatshirt and a long pair of pants in a soft material. I gave them to Helena and pointed to a narrow door next to the desk.

“That’s the bathroom. If I know Taddeo, there’ll be fresh towels in the little closet on the right-hand side in the back.”

She smiled gratefully, a little more color in her cheeks as she disappeared into the bathroom.

I swapped my jeans for a pair of the slacks worn by Taddeo’s waitstaff, then pulled my shirt carefully over my head and hung it over the heater. The place where Pratt had caught me with the knife burned, but it really was just a surface wound. I took the first-aid kit down from its spot next to the window, soaked a cotton ball in disinfectant, and rubbed it over the area, then covered it with a large dressing so as not to get my fresh clothes dirty right away.

The door opened and Helena came back in wearing the sweatshirt, which practically drowned her, her wet hair twisted into a knot on top of her head. Despite what she’d been through, I noticed she couldn’t help her gaze lingering for a moment as I searched half-naked through the staff shirts for one in my size. But then she realized I’d noticed, and her face went conspicuously blank before she sank onto the sofa and let out a sigh.