“Yeah, I think so,” he says. “Why does she always curl up like that?”
“Did you read the file I gave you on her?” Mario asks.
“Not yet,” he sighs. “After finding out that it was Dad that murdered her parents it… just hit a little too close to home.”
“Well, she went into foster care at ten years old until she was emancipated at sixteen when she went to college,” Mario says. “She had nineteen emergency room visits from ten to sixteen and twenty-three different homes. Her injuries were everything from broken ribs and concussions to rape.”
“Jesus,” Angelo says.
“Mhmm, so I’d say she probably does this as a way to protect herself. She’s guarding her face and abdomen and basically making herself look as small as possible,” he continues.
“The fact that she accomplished what she did is honestly amazing,” Angelo says.
“All for you to try and murder me. Some good all that schooling did me,” I say.
“Can we talk?” Angelo says. He sits beside me and places his hand on my hip. When I flinch at his touch, he doesn’t move his hand. “Please?”
“Go fuck yourself,” I say.
“Laura,” he says gently squeezing my hip. I ignore him and he does it again. “Talk to me.”
“Leave me alone,” I say loudly. “Can’t I just be miserable in fucking peace?”
“I won’t be patient with you forever,” he says impatiently.
“Fuck you,” I snap. He roughly rolls me to my back to look at me. I can tell he’s frustrated. “Get sick of feeling bad about almost murdering me, so now you have returned to being a dickhead?”
“You need to watch your mouth, Dolcezza,” he says with a warning in his tone.
“Or what?” I laugh dryly. “Are you going to poison me again? What about skinning me alive like you did Roberto? Either kill me or leave me the fuck alone. I don’t want to talk to you so I’m not going to and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.”
“Fine,” he says as he stands up from the bed. “Enjoy being alone then.”
“I learned how to enjoy the silence a long time ago,” I say as I roll back to my side and curl myself back up. “Shut the door on the way out.”
Angelo stands there for a moment, no doubt seething, but ends up walking out. “He’s not as bad as he seems,” Mario says.
“I’d say poisoning my lemonade with cyanide makes him just as bad as I thought he was,” I say flatly. “I obviously don’t have a job anymore since my boss is a corrupt little fucker. I have no friends or family, so it doesn’t matter if I live or die. One day he will get sick of having me around and he will put me out of my misery.”
“How did you know Phillip was dirty?” he asks.
“Because every time I would find evidence or a witness, only Phillip would know about it. Every single time it would disappear from evidence, or the person would disappear before making an official statement,” I say. “The fact that you all were so prepared for me says that he called you because he knew I was coming to the house. He was the only one I talked to about it. His mistake was assuming that I was just some kind of stupid woman. My mistake was taking a drink from someone I knew was bad.”
“Really? That was your mistake?” Mario asks. “Not coming to the house in general? Phillip was trying to get you to leave this shit alone for weeks, but you refused.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault for doing my goddamn job? Everyone wants to talk about how corrupt the police are, but whenever someone tries to actually make a fucking difference, no one gives a shit,” I say.
“It’s your fault for…”
“No,” I raise my voice. “It’s not my fault that you two are fucking psychotic. Instead of fucking poisoning me if you had just had a fucking conversation and told me why it was done, I would’ve walked away. Anybody would’ve walked away because he deserved it. He’s acting like a fucking child because, God forbid, I’m mad that he tried to kill me. Also, the only reason that you guys saved me was because I mentioned his father and now, he wants answers. But fucking newsflash, I’m not saying shit. He gets nothing out of me. He doesn’t get to know what his last words were or even how he pissed himself before he died just the same way my parents did.”
“Wait a minute,” Mario says.
“Go away,” I say. “Run back to your little boss and tell him what I said, because that’s all you’re getting.”
“I understand but once he loses his patience, things are going to be far different than you think they will,” he says simply.
“There’s nothing he can do that hasn’t already been done to me at least once,” I say.