Chapter Text
When your cheating asshole of a (newly ex-) boyfriend backhanded you across the face, you responded in a manner you thought reasonable and appropriate to the situation.
You punched him in the throat.
His eyes grew comically large, bulging as he coughed and hacked and clutched at his neck. There were deep scratches on his hands and face from your cat, and the swollen knuckles on his left thumb looked cartoonishly large when next to his uninjured hand. It was almost hilarious, but that might be from his slamming your head against the wall five minutes ago.
Maybe you should back up a few steps.
You mentally tried to run through the questions people were supposed to ask the recently concussed. You remembered your name. You knew your address and the date and who was president. (You felt sick, but that it was a toss-up on whether it came from the blow to the head or the mention of U.S. politics)
Dominic finally managed to gasp in a hoarse breath, and it occurred to you that you should take advantage of his lapse in violence with some aggression of your own. So you grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, his button-down shirt jerking up tight against his bruising throat, and started dragging him toward your front door.
You almost made it. Dominic surged up with a pathetically raspy attempt at a roar and you jerked away; he didn’t go for your neck again—you noted fuzzily that he was smarter than he looked—but his fist glanced off your jaw, the ring on his middle finger creating a sharp spiral of pain you felt to the bone.
You heard Zeus hiss viciously right before the Maine Coon threw all 20-pounds of himself back onto Dominic. You still had a grip on the back of his shirt, and you honestly weren’t quite sure if your bruised brain remembered how to let go, so when he twisted to fend off the pissed off cat you were tugged along with him. You tried to keep your feet under you, and you grabbed at his hand when he got a grip on Zeus.
Both of you were unbalanced, holding onto each other in an awkward, half-sprawled stance, and all you could think was that you’d always hated Twister. Zeus yowled, half angry and half pained because Dominic had a hold of him and damn it but you couldn’t make him let go. So you brought your foot up high, then back down on his knee, putting all your weight into it.
You felt something jerk under your heel, and Dominic let out a healthy wail of pain. Zeus fled deeper into the apartment in a blur of feline rage. You opened your front door and pulled, hefting Dominic out into the hallway. He stumbled and fell against the far wall, grasping at his injured leg, as you slammed and locked the door on the sight.
Taking a moment to breathe deeply, pushing past the pain in your own throat from when the bastard tried to strangle you against your own damn wall, you carefully walked to your kitchen table, grabbed your cell phone, and called Nico.
It took a few tries to unlock your phone, your head throbbing through a cottony veil of gray fog.
The phone rang, and rang. After a few seconds, the teen’s voicemail kicked in. At the beep, you sighed and started your message.
“Nico, hey.” You cleared your throat, trying to ease the achy roughness in your vocal chords. “I think I need your help.” You took another second to try and focus. Your brain felt vaguely mushy, something you distantly noted was probably a bad sign. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to call too much. But Dom’s—”
There was a slam against your door, the wood shaking in its frame. The idiot must have tossed himself at it. You heard him start to yell, vulgar threats that should have alarmed you but you were too busy swimming in that gray cloud of concussion-induced apathy.
“Dom’s kinda trying to kill me,” you said. “He was cheating, so I told him to fuck off, but then he hit me, and I hit him back, and now he’s pissy.”
The door shuddered again.
“So, yeah, help would be good,” you continued. “Please?”
The phone beeped, telling you the voicemail had stopped recording.
Dominic was still throwing himself at the door. Your neighbors wouldn’t do shit, you knew. This entire building was owned by your boss’s family, and its tenants religiously minded their own business. You didn’t work for the most reputable of people, but Don Fratelli was a good man by most standards—just not the legal ones.
You called Nico again. And again, the phone rang, rang, rang—voicemail.
“Nico, seriously,” you said, and you swallowed thickly to get your voice to stop shaking. It didn’t work. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty sure I’m concussed and I’m honestly pretty fucking scared right now.”
Dominic shouted again, and if the phone hadn’t picked up on it before, you were certain his morbid threats were now immortalized in Nico’s voicemail system. Poor kid.
“So answer your goddamn phone.”
The door made a cracking sound. You yelped and dropped your cell. Swearing, you leaned down to pick it up, but couldn’t keep your balance, the floor tilting oddly as you bent. You teetered and landed on your hands and knees, fighting down a wave of nausea and cursing again as you scrabbled for the cell just in time to hear it beep once more. That distant fuzziness was stubbornly not fading, nor was the sharp ache behind your temples.
So you sat down at the base of your kitchen counter, suddenly exhausted, and called Nico again.
It went straight to voicemail. No ringing, no passing Go, no $200.
“Did you just turn off your phone?” you blinked for a moment, hating that your voice was still unsteady and trying desperately to block out the filth Dominic kept screaming through your door. Could you even do that do a dead body? Probably. I mean, it’s dead.
“Nico, what the fuck?”
The door creaked ominously when Dominic hit it again. How was he even doing that with a busted knee?
“Please, I need you to help me.” Great, now you were begging. This was just humiliating. You tried to take a calming breath, but it shuddered in your lungs and your attempts to firm your voice only made it come out small and frightened. “You promised, Nico…”
You weren’t sure how long you sat there, trembling and whispering to yourself that he’d promised, goddamn it, phone held limply beside you. It couldn’t have been long, but you honestly could not get your brain to track it. Was this what going into shock was like? Or was this the concussion?
At some point Zeus crept partially into your lap. His fur was on end, and he was growling, muscles tense as he faced the clamor at your door.
Shit, the door.
You could make out a few cracks now, and Dominic was too vindictive to give up. It didn’t sound like he was getting his strength behind it though—he probably really was just tossing himself at it like an oversized bag of potatoes.
A giggle bubbled up your throat, small and high and more than a little hysterical, and Zeus shifted his weight, ear flicking back to you while he opened his mouth in full-bodied hiss.
Damn, but your head hurt so much. You wished Dominic would stop trying to break down your door—the slamming created a dull boom in your brain every time. You were supposed to call Nico if you got in trouble. He’d promised to help.
Blinking blearily and hating that stupid fogginess in your head, you raised your phone and fumbled with the electronic lock. You needed to call help, or Dominic would get inside. He’d get inside and make good on all those horrible threats he’d been making. You knew he could—you were pretty sure it was his job.
You stared at your phone, feeling a sob try to rip out of you. It was a bad idea. You knew it was. It would be a fuck up to end all fuck ups. But goddamn it what were you supposed to do? Nico wasn’t answering. He’d promised, and he wasn’t answering.
You closed your eyes and then hit the buttons, listening as the phone rang, and then a pleasant, calm voice answered. She asked you several questions, and you answered them as clearly as your sluggish brain allowed. Dominic was still yelling, and from the tension in the operator’s voice, you knew she could hear him.
Your heart was pounding, making the pain in your skull almost unbearable. It was only a few minutes. Faster than you’d expected, but you supposed they couldn’t resist a call to this apartment building, not when they were so rare.
The yelling at your door reached a sudden crescendo, and you whimpered and pressed your hands to your ears.
“Ma’am, are you all right?”
Your movements had pressed your cell flat against your ear, and the pleasantly calm voice was now a bit too loud, a bit too close.
“My head hurts.” Your voice was a little slurred, sounding pretty much how your thoughts felt as you dragged them to the forefront. “I hit it on the wall when he was choking me.”
“An ambulance is on its way, ma’am,” the operator said. “The officers are on the scene. Just stay on the line with me, all right?”
You murmured something—you weren’t even sure what it was—but the yelling at your door faded, growing distant. You sighed in relief, and while the throbbing in your head was still a constant rhythm between your ears, the suffocating feeling was easing. Dominic wasn’t at the door; he wasn’t getting inside. The slamming didn’t come back, but there was a firm knock.
“Someone’s at the door,” you mumbled, still high on the blessed silence.
“Just a moment, ma’am.”
You blinked into the pause, watching Zeus keep perfectly still at his post. He was still wound up tight, still half in your lap, half between you and the door. There was the sound of a voice talking outside, then the pleasant voice was back.
“Ma’am, the officer is at your door. Please open it for him.”
“What?” You frowned, a bit of alarm pricking through your fog of pain and syrupy thoughts. “No.”
You heard a series of hard raps as the officer knocked again before the door creaked and a small, wooden snap reached your ears. “Ma’am, I’m coming inside.”
Zeus spat angrily as a figure eased your door open, his hackles quivering. You felt that hint of alarm start to spike, because you were very certain the latch had not been so damaged as to break simply with someone knocking on the door. Right?
The man knelt, keeping a wary distance from Zeus’s considerable reach. “Ma’am, the EMTs will be up shortly. Did you know you’re bleeding?”
You just stared at him, renewed fear slowly sinking through the layers of cotton in your skull.
The officer shifted slowly, and then there was a bright light as he shined a penlight into your eyes. You winced, inhaling sharply in pain and trying to cover your eyes. The movement jostled Zeus, and with a final, angry growl he dashed for your bedroom.
“Your eyes are dilated,” the officer said.
You wondered for a moment if he actually knew what he was talking about or if he was just pulling it out of his ass. Were you supposed to feel better thinking he was first-aid certified or something? And what the fuck did he mean? Your eyes were dilated—so what? Apparently you were bleeding, but no, that wasn’t the real concern here ‘cause hold the presses your eyes were dilated.
“Ma’am, can you tell me what happened?”
You took a deep breath as the suffocating feeling started creeping back in. You had to think. You had to be careful. Because you were right—you had seriously fucked up.
You’d called the cops.
So you did what you felt was the only rational thing to do in your situation. You looked the man in the eyes and lied through your fucking teeth.
[The Next Morning]
Nico picked you up from the hospital, face scrunched with guilt whenever he could work up the courage to make eye contact.
The EMTs had insisted you go to the ER, and the ER doctor had taken one look at your bleeding jaw and the goose-egg behind your right ear and promptly decided you were staying overnight.
X-rays showed a hairline crack in your jaw, your trachea was bruised, you had a black eye, and yes, the doctor said, you were very concussed.
You were given strict orders—no electronic screens, no reading, no work or strain whatsoever to your brain; you were only supposed to rest, preferably in a dim, quiet place.
“What am I, a mushroom?” you groused.
Nico didn’t laugh. He was frowning intensely at the car in front of him, as though the driver of it were the sole cause of the traffic that morning.
“How am I supposed to get my work done without a screen?” you whined.
Nico shifted, flashing you a sheepish look before returning to staring dourly at the poor Pontiac.
You sighed. “Nico, what gives? You’ve said like three words to me all morning.” And all were variations of ‘I’m so sorry,’ but you didn’t think mentioning that would help right now.
Nico shifted again, clearly uncomfortable. He shot you another glance, his brow pinched, and while your brain still felt swaddled in three pounds of molasses, his obvious anxiety was making you uneasy.
“Just say it?” You said. “Please?”
There was a pause before the teen spoke. “Dad’s angry.”
His voice was quiet, tense, and a little small. You suddenly thought that this is how he must have been as a child, before his limbs had grown long and lanky and copious amounts of gel became his primary method of haircare.
“How angry?” you asked, taking a shot at frowning at the Pontiac. It didn’t seem to help. Maybe you weren’t doing it right?
“Really angry,” Nico mumbled, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. “Some…people are coming this summer. Important people. From Italy.” He glanced at you.
“Right,” you said, carefully massaging your temples. “And having a secretary of the…CEO’s talking to the authorities a few months beforehand looks really bad.” You took a deep breath, then let it out with a curse.
“Yeah,” Nico said. “Fuck.”
You didn’t chide him to watch his language. You weren’t his teacher anymore and you were certainly in no place to tell the Fratelli heir what to do. Especially not now. You’d called the cops on a member of the family, and whether or not you’d actually said a damn thing to them didn’t matter—you were a narc now.
“Am I blacklisted?”
Nico flinched. “What? No!” He met your eyes fully and held them, his face so full of…everything that you wanted to comfort him. “Dad would never do that--not to you.” His expression hardened, and he narrowed his eyes back at the Pontiac out front as it finally started to inch forward. “Theo and I wouldn’t let him.”
You took a careful breath, feeling like a temporal ping-pong ball at the sudden vision of the next Don Fratelli. Nico was surely a cute, earnest child, but he was certainly going to be a fierce Boss. And Theo, the devoted younger brother, would no doubt become an equally devoted right hand.
“Okay,” you said as you exhaled slowly. “Where does that leave us then?”
“Probation,” Nico said, quiet again but not mumbling anymore. “Dom’s been moved out of state,” he gave you a pointed look that you were sure was supposed to be comforting, but it looked too much like a young rooster trying to strut without his comb. “Theo and I have extra…training”—you knew better than to inquire more into that topic—“and you’re on probation.”
You spent the next few minutes eying the scratches on the Pontiac’s back bumper before it finally turned onto a side road. “Well,” you said. “That’s surprisingly lenient.”
“You’re welcome,” Nico said.
You sighed wearily, hands coming up to cover your aching face. “Thank you, Nico.” You reached over to give his shoulder a squeeze; the tension in them was finally starting to ease. “And Theo. Thank you both.”
Nico lifted his chin a fraction, scratching at his nose as he tried to pull off a nonchalant shrug. “No biggie. We owe you, don’t we?”
You didn’t want to get into that old argument, not with molasses-brain anyway, so you just smiled and said “And now I owe you,” and then let the matter drop.
“Do me a favor, then?” Nico asked suddenly. He sent you an apprehensive glance.
“Always.” You didn’t even hesitate. You never did, not for the Fratelli boys.
“When the Vongola get here in July, keep your head down.”