“That’s my girl,” he said in a breathless whisper. “That’s my girl.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
After spending over two hours on scene talking with the Apple Valley Police and explaining how the attack went down, Oz and Gloria were free to go. Oz insisted to police that he had no idea why they would be randomly targeted that way, suspecting it might have been a robbery/kidnapping gone wrong, and he also told the cops that he was the one who fired the gun that Gloria had fired. In total self-defense, he made clear. And the police accepted every word he spoke. That was the kind of weight the Drakos name carried in that town. They wouldn’t hesitate to lock him up after a barroom brawl, but something major like a killing? They wouldn’t dare. The chief on scene made clear that no charges would be filed. They believed his story.
But Gloria, on the other hand, wasn’t buying it.
She looked at him as he drove them away from the scene. He still had on a hat, and he had an unlit cigar between his teeth. He was still that larger-than-life Oz. But he was subdued too. All of that talking he had done with the police had turned into total silence as he drove. But when her staring wouldn’t cease, he finally looked her way.
“Plan to tell me who they were?” she asked him when he looked at her.
“As I told the police,” Oz started saying, but Gloria cut him off.
“I’m not talking about the cover story,” she said. “Who were those guys, Oz?”
Oz continued to drive instead of looking her way. But he also cut the bullshit. “I’m not sure,” he said.
“But they were mob guys, right?”
“I’m not sure,” he said again. “But probably, yes.”
“So, you do know my father?” Gloria asked.
“I know of him. I’ve never met him, at least not that I can recall.”
“You know of him,” Gloria asked, “because you’re in the same line of work he’s in?”
Oz froze on that question. She was asking him far more than he was willing to reveal. But he also knew, after tonight, after what she did for him, she deserved the truth. At least the part he knew for sure himself. “Yes,” he said. “A part of my life is in that same line of work.”
“The biggest part of your life?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “No. Not even close. But that part sometimes has a way of overwhelming all else.”
“Like tonight.”
Oz nodded. “Like tonight,” he said.
To his shock and relief, Gloria didn’t ask more questions. It was as if she was trained to go just so far down that dark, despicable road.
But Gloria’s silence had more to do with what she saw in his eyes. His eyes, whenever he looked at her, were deeply troubled, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. It wasn’t terror like it should have been after what he’d been through that night. Nor was it fear. But it was something so powerful, and emotional, that it spooked Gloria too. “What’s wrong, Oz?”
Oz continued to stare at the road.
“Oz, what is it?” Gloria asked again.
He finally looked her way. “You saved my life,” he said to her, and his look lingered before he looked away from her.
When he said those words, Gloria realized why he looked so troubled. It was her. She was troubling him.
And Oz said it again, as if it was still registering with him. As if he still couldn’t believe her bravery. “You saved my life, Gloria.”
Gloria stared at him. “Yes, I know,” she said.
“But how? I don’t mean how! I know how. But I mean, you had that gun all along?”
“I carry a gun, yes.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? I’m Mick the Tick’s daughter, remember? I’m that girl. It’s a requirement in my family.”
Oz shook his head.
Gloria looked at him. “What?”
“Of all the dames in this little town,” Oz said, “I had to run into the one dame who understood that life.” Then he laughed in that big, boisterous Oz fashion. “I am one lucky bastard!” he proclaimed.
Gloria smiled and shook her head, too. “You stupid,” she said with a grin of her own.
But as their gaiety died out, and they both were looking at the dark road ahead of them, Oz was still in shock. Was it possible, he wondered? Did he just find that special lady that could truly understand, and maybe even accept, his other life? A good woman who wouldn’t condemn him outright, or abandon him when terrible times came? His big brother abandoned him once, when Alex decided to walk away from their family’s crime syndicate and head to America to make his fortune, leaving it up to Oz to be their sadistic father’s righthand man. And he and Alex were closer than brothers.
He’d never gotten that emotionally close to another human being since then. He was close to his nephew Jordan, but even with him he kept a safe distance too.
But Gloria was different, he thought. Most women kowtowed to him as if he was bread’s butter, and their reasons always had to do with his wealth or his power or how good he was in bed. But it never had to do with him.
But with Gloria, who didn’t take the least bullshit from him, it seemed to have everything to do with him. And she knew her way around a gun too? And she didn’t flinch when he was in danger, but took action to protect him? He’d been his family’s protector most all of his life. Now he just might have a partner that could protect him? That could love and care for the person he was, warts and all?
It wasn’t going to be a perfect affair. She was Mick Sinatra’s daughter, a man he just might be at war with. There was nothing going to be perfect about it! But he had a massive feeling that if he didn’t take charge of this woman while he had a chance, he might never be so fortunate again.
He looked at her. And took that chance. “I want you to stay with me tonight,” he said to her.
Gloria stared at him, too, and then she broke their stare and looked forward. She wasn’t going to lie to herself. She liked Oz. There was something about him that was so decent that it made her feel safe with him. But at the same time, she was scared of Oz too. She was scared that he’d do like all the men before him had done and break her heart. Her heart might not be safe with him.
She looked at him. It wasn’t his looks or his body or even his charm that was winning her over. It was something intangible about him that made her feel that if she walked away from him, she would live to regret it.
“I want that too,” she said to him.
Oz didn’t smile, although he was inwardly elated. Because he was inwardly horrified too. Was he insane? Who in their right mind would even think about falling for Mick the Tick’s daughter?
But then again, he thought with an inward chuckle, who ever said Oz was sane?
They rode to his apartment at The Drakos, to spend a night they both believed could forever bind them, in adject silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
He was on top of her, with his penis deep inside of her, as he made love to her in a way that made her feel as if she was dreaming. Oz paid attention to her as he did her. Just as he was on his plane, he was a patient lover in his home too. He was not a selfish lover the way, when she first met him, she was certain he would be. He didn’t toss her on his bed and hurry through it. He didn’t snatch off her clothes and give her a quick bang. He, instead, turned down the bedding, and they both removed clothing and got into his bed. And he kissed her, and held her face, staring at her, and then he moved down the length of her. He kissed her and sucked her and made her so wet that she thought she was going to cum from his oral alone.