“I have to go. Please text me.”
Ana rushes out of my sight while her last words replay in my head. I am not married to him; I can’t just go to his house.
Of all the ways I pictured my day going, having a dead man’s blood on my feet and being whisked off to a man’s house is not what I expected.
“Nina?” Giovanni’s voice crawls into my room.
He doesn’t knock; he just comes in.
“Oh. Please, help yourself!”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like that.”
“Just let me finish packing, please.”
“You don’t need all that.”
“How do you know what I need?”
“You trust me?”
I roll my eyes, a rough scoff following.
“Get in the car, Nina.”
“No.”
“For Christ’s sake.” He walks over to me, grabbing the bag out of my hands. “Just do as I say in this moment. You can fight me on it later.”
I walk away from him, down the stairs and into the car. I don’t bother saying goodbye to my family because hopefully I will be seeing them again.
Fifteen minutes pass by me as we sit in utter silence. Neither of us knows what to say to one another.
Before closing my eyes, I see on the GPS that we’re almost to his place.
My bags are in the trunk, but before he stormed into my room asking if I was ready, I slid the gun Ana gave me under my dress.
I have my back to Gio, but I can feel how a conversation with him would go if we were to have one.
The air in the car is tense and bottled up.
I wouldn’t know what to say right now even if I wanted to have a conversation with him.
How did my night take so many turns? It was going so well, and then it wasn’t.
Giovanni showed up. That’s the only logical reason I can come up with in this moment as my mind has turned to mush.
I slowly reach for the gun, just in case. It’s not that I don’t trust Giovanni. I think I do. But Ana is right: I can’t take any chances.
The car comes to a stop. I open one of my eyes and see that we are in a parking garage, on the top level.
“Nina.” His voice starts in a regular tone then falls to a whisper. “Wake up.”
I don’t want to let him know that I have been faking it this entire time just to avoid conversation with him.