We connected on a spiritual level where words weren’t needed. Just two bodies intertwined making beautiful music. Vibrations of the soul. I felt everything she was feeling just from the look in her amber eyes. Every ounce of pain, fear, and trepidation. But I also felt every bit of her heart opening back up again. Our bodies spoke for us, saying all the things that words couldn’t.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I knew one thing, if Gia would let me, I’d protect her forever.
“Shit,” I read Gia’s words.
“What?” I asked.
“Tyler.” She pointed to the door then made a knocking motion. I scrambled to get my boxers on and right as I pulled them around my waist the door opened.
Yeah, I should've locked it.
“Well, look what we have here,” my sister said, a buttery grin on her face. “That didn’t take long.”
G said something to her that I couldn’t make out, as she tightened the sheets around her chest. I opted for just flipping my sister the bird.
“Well, I hate to break up the party here, but we need to talk. Get dressed and meet me in the living room.” She turned and left the room.
Thankfully, I’d had the good sense to fetch Gia’s clothing from the other room. I tossed her the sweatshirt, panties, and sleep shorts and she got dressed.
I took her hand into mine and gave it a squeeze, showing her support, then hand in hand, we walked out to the living room and sat down across from my sister.
I didn’t like the look on Tyler’s face. I’d grown accustomed to this look over the years from her. It was the look she’d give me, Mom or Dad when she had to relay information to us that we were not gonna like. That was her lot in life, being a Coda. Like the time she was only ten and at the doc with my mom and she had to be the one to tell my mother they’d found a lump in her breast.
Tyler was the main reason I’d focused so hard and learned to lip read and speak the best I could, even though I hated it. No chance in hell I was gonna make my kid be the one to tell me that I may or may not have cancer.
“Gia’s husband has upped the ante,” my sister said. She picked up the remote and nodded to the paused TV.
She pressed play and I watched the screen as the captions rolled across. I saw Gia’s husband, speaking to the press. His name was underneath his image. Angelo Giordano.
The first thing I thought was, I could take this motherfucker. God, it would hurt though. He was a behemoth. Even his muscles had muscles. But I had age as my advantage. He was older, greying, with a hint of a belly. He may be strong, but my guess was that he was also kinda slow. He was a lineman whereas I was a wide receiver. Fast. Visual. Good with my hands. The man had to have a weak point somewhere, I’d just need to find it.
The captions rolled along the screen repeating his words and basically saying now he was offering a half-million-dollar reward for any information leading to where his wife may be.
Fucking hell. I made a good living, but there was no way I could offer a half-million-dollar reward to find someone. He really, really wanted to find his wife.
They flashed Gia’s photo again, and I must say, I preferred her as a brunette. It suited her much better than the bleach blonde. Finally, once the newscast finished, my sister flipped off the television.
“How many people did you come in contact with on your trip up here?” Tyler asked Gia.
“Not many.” Gia shook her head as my sister interpreted for her. “I stayed off the interstate, only took the backroads, which is actually what led me here. I’m off my original course that Hope set for me by at least a hundred miles due to road closures.”
“Good,” Tyler replied, nodding.
Gia frowned. “Wait, there was that old man at the mini-mart and the teenaged employee. He remembered me,” Gia said via my sister. “I stopped there on the way up here, and he saw me again yesterday and the old man recognized me. The kid gave me a brochure for your cabins, but I didn’t think I could afford them. I was actually heading for the inn further up the road when my car veered off. Kept chatting up a storm about Betty and how awesome she was. I’m pretty sure him and Betty are fuck buddies.” I looked back to Gia after my sister finished and she grimaced.
In spite of the circumstance, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“My point is, I think he may have told Betty about me as well,” my sister signed for Gia.
“Betty’s sweet. She likes me,” I said with a wink, hoping she got my meaning. Betty was a huge flirt. Her husband had passed years ago and the old lady, who wore far too much blue eye makeup, was always on the prowl. “If it comes down to it, I can talk to them. Betty won’t say a word. I trust her. Hal, I’m not so sure about.”
“Why?” Gia asked.
Um, because Hal fucking loved my wife and was still one of the townsfolk that was wary of me. But I didn’t say that. “He and I just haven’t always gotten along.”
My sister gave me an are-you-fucking-kidding-me expression after she repeated my words to Gia. “You do need to get real with her, eventually,” Tyler said to me.
Yeah, but now was not the time. “We have other pressing matters to deal with. Like how to convince good old Hal to pass up a half-million-dollar reward so a mobster doesn’t have us sleeping with the fishes,” I protested.
My sister frowned. “Fine, but you tell her soon, promise?” Tyler said.
I nodded.
G’s eyes darted from my sister to me as we argued, obviously confused as hell trying to figure out what the fuck we were bickering about.
“If we offered Hal money, would he take it for his silence?” Gia asked via my sister.
“We don’t have that kind of money, and I think we are better off throwing your husband off the trail somehow,” I said. “We need to convince him that you’re not up here, even if Hal spills the beans.”
“Well, I’ve got my wedding band; it’s worth quite a bit. It’s five carats,” Gia said. Thankfully, I was looking at her and read her lips because my sister had suddenly stopped signing, hands dropping to her lap.
I could see Tyler’s wheels turning.
“That’s it. That’s how we throw him off the trail,” she finally said. “She’s damn lucky she didn’t take that ring in anywhere, otherwise it would have led them right to her.” She grinned smugly. “You forget I’m married to a rock nerd.”
Oh shit. The ring. My mind floated back to years ago when I’d bought Alex’s engagement band, and how I’d gotten a certificate of authenticity and whatnot. Brock and Tyler actually spent days shopping with me along West 47th Street in NYC’s Diamond district for that damn ring. Brock had about bored me to death going on and on about geology shit. Thanks to him, I now knew that diamonds came to the surface of the earth through what he deemed, “One of the quickest and most dramatic geological events that we know of.” Which had something or other to do with magma rising to the surface rapidly that helped the diamonds keep their clarity. To this day, I still teased him for being a huge rock nerd.
Gia looked confused as hell, thankfully, my sister explained it to her.
“Ever since blood diamonds were a thing, they’ve started embedding serial numbers into rings, to show that they’ve been purchased ethically. A ring worth that much, he’s gonna have the certificate on and it will be traceable as to who the owner is. You can’t just walk in and pawn those things. Well, not at any reputable pawn shop, and even if you can pawn it, you’re not going to get a fraction of what it’s worth. That ring is gonna raise huge flags. They’re gonna run checks to make sure it’s not reported stolen.”