TAINTED LOVE ▸ BILLY RUSSO

chapter five - mother

I feel a burning pain on the side of my body. Almost unbearable. My eyes shot open and I can't help but scream.

"You're okay. You're okay!" Eve grabs me and I look at her, seeing her covered in blood and forceps in her hand. Medical tweezers.

"Oh fuck off." I try to wigle away from her but she grabs me.

"I took the bullet from your arm, you still have one in. Unless you want to die, I have to take it out." Eve tells me. "Stay still or I'll hit you in the head with that." She points t the baseball bat on the corner.

"I did that once." I tell her. "Not on me of cours-Ah!" I scream in pain as she sticks that god-forsaken thing in my body. "Jesus Christ! Worry up!" I groan in pain.

"Here! I got it! Stay still!" She tells me as I keep screaming and she pushes the metal piece off my body. "Out."

Before I have time to protest, she grabs the whisky on my bed stand and pours it into the wound.

"Fuck! Shit! What the fuck, Eve?!" I cry out and I grab the bottle, taking it from her hands and bringing it to my lips, struggling to sit up.

"Looks like Rawlins found you." She tells me, taking the whiskey from me and to her mouth. "If he knows so does your boyfriend. Next time you get there, you're dead."

"He doesn't know. He was with me before I got to you. If he did he would have killed me then." I look at her. "They found out we would be there, but they don't know our faces."

"How the hell did they know?!" She yells not to anyone in particular.
I grab the phone that was on the table next to me, and throw it against the wall, breaking it into little pieces.

"Problem solved." I tell her, "I'm sure they only heard our last conversation or we would all be dead by now. Juliet included." I say getting up. "How long will this take to heal?"

"With the number of times you got shot, I'm surprised you still don't know." She teases and I roll my eyes at her. "Give it a week, you should be presentable by then."

"I have to work, Eve!" I start getting stressed.

"Tell the pretty boy you gonna be out of the city, I'm sure he won't fire you." Eve shrugs and I groan in annoyance at her lack of empathy for my job. Not on ANVIL, the killing part.

"You should go. Juliet might need a helping hand outside of that shit hole." I tell her ans she nods.

"I would tell you to call if you needed something but..." She looks at the broken phone.

"Yeah." I say and she walks away.

"Be safe." she looks back at me and I nod.

As the girl leaves the building I groan in pain, trying my best to get up. I go to the files, studing them all over again, deciding that this was a major update on what I knew.

A day later and I was living on pills. My arm and side hurt like a bitch and all I could do was take it. I couldn't tell Billy I was sick or come up with an excuse since my phone was a bunch of broken pieces, and if I died in here, no one would know. Amazing.

The days passed and when I notice it was Friday. I hadn't gone to work the whole week. Eve was right, he didn't fire me, he did something worst.

In the morning, Eve came bursting in, telling me that my mother had called her saying that a man had gone to her house asking for me, that we were both there some time ago.

"You can't go back. Stacy." Eve tells me, this time meaning it.

I lick my lips nervously and paced around as best as I could, trying to come up with something.

"Stacy. Stacy stop! You're stressing me out!"

"I'm stressing you out?! We're gonna die!" I yell at her and she doesn't reply. "You need to buy me a phone."

She did as I told her. When she got back, I had a new phone. She told me I could keep my only number and that it had nothing to do with how they could listen to my calls. I didn't ask why. I didn't care really.

Two minutes after I get it two work, Billy calls me. I look at Eve and she looks at me not really knowing what to do either.

"Hi, my phone died. I'm sorry, I've been sick-" I try to sound as authentic as I can but fail miserably.

"Cut the shit, Scarlet." Billy interrupts me in an angry tone.

For the first time, I'm happy with the name he called me. Less bad.

"What the hell is going on?" He asks in the same tone.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Billy!"

"I was worried about you, so I went to check if you were okay, imagine my surprise when your mother said you died!" He argues and I look at Eve who's looking back at me.

"Yeah, look, it's... complicated."

"Yeah, it sure fucking looks like it." He scoffs.

"I never said I lived there." I try my best to fix this.

"She said you were dead-"

"Well, I'm not!" I keep trying.

"Look, I don't have time for this. You coming to work next week or..?" Billy asks and I uhm in response.

"We good?"

"Sure." He says unconvinced.

"Hey," I say before he hangs up. "I really like you."

"Yeah, me too. Bye." He hangs up and I feel as guilty as I ever felt.

I didn't lie. Why I said it was the problem.

"Stacy-"

"Get out." I say steadily and she nods, walking away, not saying anything as she closes the door behind her.

As soon as she does, I lean against the wall and sit on the floor, hugging my legs. I really liked him.