Alejandro
Fuck.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
My world outside and the space of fantasy I share with her were not supposed to collide.
I stare at Lucia knowing she can’t un-see what she just saw.
She just watched me kill. I never wanted that. I never wanted her to see the darkness in me, or see me for who and what I truly am.
Lucia doesn’t belong in my world. I know that, so I should never have dragged her into it even for dinner.
She’s my daughter’s nanny. A sweet woman who sings Disney songs and likes baking cookies and working with children.
Her delicate nature makes her look like she was plucked from a fairy tale. A woman like that has no business witnessing a mobster like me kill a man.
I killed him to protect myself; she saw that. She knows that part, but it’s what I did after and how I look that’s making her look at me like I’m a fucking monster. My fault for allowing the beast to rear its ugly head.
She’s shaking, tears are streaming down her cheeks, and she’s terrified as fuck of me. I can see it, and I hate myself for it.
I chance walking up to her and she shudders.
“Lucia, are you okay?” I ask.
“Um…I… Who is he?” she stutters in a raspy voice.
“Someone who was following me.”
“He had a gun. He’s dead.” She looks at the body. I reach out to her.
I feel like shit when she flinches.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I … know. I know.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you. I promise you that. You hear me?”
Although a tear slides down her cheek, she nods.
“I’m going to make a call, then I’m going to take you home.”
She nods again.
I call the cleanup crew then contact Cristiano and Eric. I want the crew to take the body to my associates at the police department so they can ID the motherfucker, so I ask Eric to head down there and Cristiano to come see me as soon as he can.
The cleanup crew arrives less than ten minutes later. I have them trained to get to me as quickly as possible. I keep the cops happy enough to turn a blind eye, and people around here know when they see me or hear anything when I’m here, they’re to do the same and look the other way.
The cleanup crew takes the fucker’s body away, and I get cleaned off as best as I can before I usher Lucia away so I can get her back to the place we should be.
We get in my car, and she grips the edge of the seat until her knuckles turn white.
On the way home, I glance at her every chance I get, but she stares ahead, never looking at me.
I get the feeling that if she could, she’d run far away from me. Obviously, I feel like that because it’s true. She would.
If not for whatever situation with her father, we would never even have met.