The Informant

Chapter Fourteen

It had been weeks, weeks of me trying to get ahold of Dantè. I felt clingy, but I couldn't stop myself from trying over and over. I hated myself for feeling so invested. I started this.. thing with the notion of only being friends with benefits. But then he called me the following day, after our heated conversation to let me know he was moving back to Italy. I wanted to know why, I kept having the feeling that not only was he lying but that he was in some sort of trouble. I shouldn't care, but I wanted to help. Needed to know he was okay. That's what friends did right? I kept convincing myself that friends, even with benefits cared this much.

There wasn't much I could do but keep calling, or texting. I still had my day job, and I still had Julian to take care of. I spent my days worrying, but that's all I could do.

I climbed out of the shower, sluggishly getting ready for work. Julian was already dressed and ready to go, playing with his toys on the floor of the bathroom. Lord knew it would be a disaster for my house to leave him alone long enough for me to shower. My sweet boy was entirely too curious. I smiled as I looked down at him, he was so beautiful and such a mamas boy. "Mommy, Vroom." His angelic high pitched voice melted my heart as he moved his toy cars about the tiled floor of my apartment bathroom.

"Yeah, baby. You're doing such a good job!" He beamed at me. Already knowing when he was being praised. He was definitely a quick learner.

I finished up my makeup and hair, threw on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and shoes. "Ready to go little man?" I asked Julian, excitedly. He gave a toothless grin and stood to me, reaching his arms up.

I ruffled his dark brown hair and picked him up. On the way to the front door of my apartment I stopped to grab my keys from their normal spot on the kitchen counter and headed out. Once out and on the way to the parking area I checked across the street like I had been doing for weeks, just hoping I'd see him again, even though I knew I wouldn't because he was thousands of miles away.

A sleek black SUV with black windows was parked out front of Dante's apartment complex, I normally wouldn't have thought much about it except for the fact that the windows were so dark and there wasn't a license plate. That definitely had to be illegal. I never understood why people purposely broke the law. But I could just be getting ahead of myself; it could have been a new car, maybe?

As I reached my car I couldn't help but think about how my little Ford Taurus was looking sluggish these days. It desperately needed a bath, and probably an oil change. The check engine light had been on for months now, but I was scared to take it in and figure out why, because lord knew I didn't have enough to fix the problem or problems anyways. I threw open the back door quickly, trying to get Julian in as soon as possible. We'd both freeze in this cold if I didn't hurry. Or at least it felt that way. I buckled him in his rear facing seat and handed him his little jukebox that I always kept in the backseat to keep him occupied on car rides, it was actually quite useless though, he always fell right to sleep anyways. I kissed him on his forehead and shut the door. The back of my neck tingled as if someone were watching me, scared I scurried to open my door, and get in. But I couldn't help to stop and do a quick survey of my surroundings, finding nothing out of the ordinary, I calmed and climbed in, shutting and locking the doors. I started the beat up car and pulled my seat belt around me. The feeling of being watched never going away I looked around again.

The black SUV's drivers side window was now down, and the burly man in the driver seat was looking directly at me. Had he been watching the whole time? My brows drew together in confusion, as I stared back at him. I couldn't get a clear picture of him, being as the window just reached his chin, but his eyes screamed volumes. They screamed menace, and an evil I don't think I've ever seen in a person before. He grinned wickedly at me, then blew a taunting kiss before rolling the window back up. I shuffled to put the car in drive and get out of there as fast as I could. My heart racing as I sped off. What the fuck was that? I didn't know that man, did I? No, I would definitely remember a face such as his. Or the fear he seemed like he'd put into everyone he laid eyes on.