Page 15

After Nikki got up, showered and dressed and made it downstairs, Teddy was seated on the sofa in his suit and tie, looking his usual stern self as his thumb and finger gently rubbed his chin. But he looked anguished to her too. As if he was still processing every single moment of the week they’d had. As if he was feeling everything and overthinking it. But she was almost numb. She didn’t know what to feel.

She stood momentarily on the bottom step of their staircase and continued to stare at him. How could he have said what he said to her last night? It was as if she had been blindsided by what he’d said. One minute they were doing all they could to make their marriage life and work life balance out better, and the next minute he was telling her if she remained in what was now her many years’ profession that he’d leave her? He gave her an ultimatum as if he could easily walk away from their marriage based on her decision alone, which would put the breakup of their marriage at her feet. Was that what he was doing to her?

Last night he didn’t explain himself, and she was too stunned to ask for an explanation. Because it was all so bizarre to her. She knew he was tired and she was tired and they might have said things they couldn’t come back from. Between what happened at the docks and that fight at Mick and Roz’s, it had been too much of an emotional whirlwind as it was. She wasn’t trying to add any more fuel to that fire.

Although Teddy already had.

She walked across the room toward him.

It was only when she began walking toward Teddy did he realize she had come downstairs. With her hair snatched perfectly, her makeup flawless, and as she wore one of her power pantsuits that had boss written all over it and that accentuated her curves in every right way, he suddenly felt a sense of dread. She looked as if she had made up her mind already and was going to stay with Pop, their marriage be damned. But it was the outcome he wanted, wasn’t it? To be free of all of that responsibility that he felt was cratering him?

But as soon as Nikki sat beside him, he knew the truth. How would he make it without Nikki in his life? What on earth was he thinking? He couldn’t lose her and Kimmie, freedom be damned!

“Kimmie still sleep?” he asked her. “I checked on her before I came down.”

Nikki nodded. “She’s still asleep.”

Teddy was staring at her now. “What about you? You okay?” He could tell she was still distressed by that wayward look in her dramatic eyes. On top of all that shit he pulled all week, his words last night had to have hurt her too, which that was never his intention. He put his arm around her waist and leaned her against him. She put her head on his shoulders, which, he felt ironically, comforted him .

“It was a tough night,” he said to her. “I knew Pop was going to be angry and would go hard. Hell I was angry at myself. But the way he called me a fuck up as if I didn’t give every ounce I have to give in service to his ass just did something to me. It broke something inside of me and I had to lash out at him. I wanted to . . . I wanted him to feel my pain. But his ass didn’t feel anything. Not a got damn thing. He’s the coldest motherfucker I’ve ever known.”

And you’re just like him , Nikki wanted to say, but didn’t. “Was he the one that called you before day this morning?” She was half-asleep at the time, but she remembered Teddy’s phone rang and how he grabbed it and went into the bathroom.

“Are you asking if Pop called me? That would have been too much like what a human being would have done for him to do it. Big Daddy called me. He’s still in town, which only highlights how bad things are in the family. He told me to make no decisions, regardless of what Pop said, until I had a chance to cool down.”

Sounded like good advice to Nikki. “Have you cooled down?”

Teddy sighed a hard sigh. “Yes I have.” Then his arm tightened around her waist. “I wasn’t myself last night, Nick. I wasn’t myself at all.”

“But what does that mean Teddy?” She leaned up and looked at him. “After what you said? You got to explain that to me.”

“I didn’t want to hold you back if you wanted to stay with Pop. And I won’t hold you back.”

“But at what cost? Our marriage? Because that’s what you said.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“But you didn’t mean it?”

“I meant it at that time. Like I said I wasn’t myself. Because there’s no way I’m giving you up for anything or anybody. If you stay with Pop or go with me, we’ll still be a team. We’ll still be together.”

But Nikki was a practical girl. Words mattered to her. And just like she heard what he said last night, she heard what he was saying this morning. “When you say go with you, does that mean you’re going? Does that mean you’ve decided to become the boss of the Bengino crime family?”

“Yes. And no . I haven’t decided anything. I go back and forth.” Then he looked at her. “But I don’t go back and forth about us. We’re partners, Nikki. We’re a team. But even if the team have different jobs, that will have no bearing on our marriage. I won’t let it.”

Nikki felt reassured. “I won’t either,” she said, and Teddy’s stern face smiled. It felt as if that burden had lifted from him. But he had about ninety-nine more.

But then his cell phone rang. Teddy looked at the Caller ID. “Who is it?” Nikki asked him.

“Renardo,” he said to her.

Although Nikki was Renardo’s direct supervisor and he should have been calling her instead of the boss, she let it slide. They weren’t in normal times. Nothing was normal anymore.

“What up, Nardo?” Teddy said on the phone. Then he frowned. And that burden that had lifted seemed to return on his face in a more pronounced form. “Damn,” he said and leaned his head down. “Damn, damn, damn.” Then he continued to listen. Then he ended the call.

Nikki’s heart was already pounding. “What happened now?”

“More bodies were found overnight,” Teddy said. “More got damn bodies, Nikki,” he said with pain in his voice, and then he jumped up from the sofa.

“Teddy wait,” Nikki employed, grabbing for him and getting up too, but he was already hurrying for the exit.

“Where are you going?” she yelled after him, but Teddy being Teddy, didn’t say a word. He hurried out and slammed the door behind him.

Nikki plopped back down on the sofa. That man ! she wanted to scream. Why was she still putting up with all his shit? Now she had to call Renardo to get the new body count when Teddy could have told her himself. Which was going to make it look as if the boss and underboss didn’t have their act together, which they didn’t.

But that was Teddy. And his ass was always on his old man’s case. Always downing his old man’s peculiar ways. As if he had no clue that he was his father’s son through and through.