Maid for the Mafia

**RUBY**

I feel like I'm walking through tar. I can literally see the shit all around me. My arms feel trapped, my legs... trapped. Even my eyelids refuse to cooperate with me.

*I command you to operate!*

*Open damn you!*

*Now!*

Still nothing.

A deep rooted ache has begun to throb in my bones. They thrum with the strangest dullness, as if my skeleton itself has been bruised. A profound pulse of acute pain to remind me that I'm alive, I suppose, which is good, yes. But where am I?

I can smell iodine and alcohol, the air is cool yet still. Whatever I am laying upon is stiff, yet comfortable. Like laying on a yoga mat or... a hospital bed.

Shit.

I'm in the hospital.

My lips move at the realization, my tongue apparently the only part of my body that still works, "Antonio?"

*Seriously, Ruby?*

The pinch of my ears wiggle, almost as if straining for a response. Wanting to hear him. His deep, dark, seductive tenor. Just the memory of him fires my blood. Sounds crash through. Memories that are mine, but aren't at the same time. There are no pictures. I can't see what happened. But I distinctly remember his words. I remember the things that he said. Not only to me. But to someone else. Someone that tried to hurt me.

"Antonio?" I rasp again, and a panic begins to bubble in my chest.

If he were here, he would answer. If he were nearby, he would be watching and he would answer.

He's not here.

He's not nearby.

And somebody please tell me why that hurts so much.

*Shake it off, bitch! You don't need him!*

*What you need is some goddamned water!*

Because my throat is so parched, I'm surprised I'm not sputtering dust when I speak. The soft click of a door startles me, but still I don't move. Someone is humming. Warm fingers prod across my wrist searching for a pulse. I smell cinnamon horchata and spearmint gum. Long, rounded nails grip my forearm and a sphygmomanometer slides up my arm. The balloon sounds in time with the nurse's humming and I almost want to smile because, *that,* I can relate to. I once took out twenty-five men while playing the song *Gangnam Style* in my head. Then I sashayed away tossing my hair like the man in the video.

*I had totally planned to kill this chick.*

*But now I think I'll let her live.*

"Ohhhh, you are awake now, I see," a woman's voice, thick with a spanish accent. "That

is good. I am going to get you some ice chips. It will help you."

*Please!*

If my tongue had saliva, I would be drooling.

As the sphygmomanometer slides off my arm, I feel it. The twitch. My fingers are

moving.

*Finally!*

I open my eyes just enough to let a little light in and almost giggle when it happens so easily.

*Well praise the holy ghost!*

The soft click of the door closing again has me springing into action. In an instant I'm sitting up, my body dragging forward and my chest working for a full breath. *Jesus Christ* this is harder than I thought it was going to be.

Swinging my legs and arms for a moment to get my blood flowing, I scan the room for a camera.

There! In the corner of the room near the door.

Stumbling toward the medical supply cabinets I pull out drawers and open doors until I find what I need. A pack of needles and foam soap. Perfect.

Taking the foam soap, I coat the camera's lens, praying that the nurse went straight for the ice chips and not back to her station. Then I push the tips of the needles out through front of their plastic caps, using the cap itself as a handhold that I lodge between my fingers like Freddy fucking Krueger. Now, I wait behind the door.

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I don't wait long.

The nurse reenters the room and gasps upon sight of the empty bed. That quickly I'm on her, wrapping one of her arms behind her back and then shifting so that my opposite hand flashes right in front of her eyes. She's tiny, kind of like Romany, so it's easy to do.

She drops the cup of ice chips.

*Damn.*

"You're a spider," I whisper, knowing full well I speak the truth. "Where is he?"

Her dark brown curls are shaking as she trembles in my grip, her body heating as adrenaline rushes in her blood. She's perspiring already and I've only just begun.

"I do not know where he is. I only know how to make contact. I send him your picture and call your Alex, that is all."

*Alex?*

"Mister Alex is supposed to come for you. But I call him long ago. Still, he's not here."

"And I don't want him here," I tell her. "So if by some small miracle he shows up before

I leave, you will tell him that I am gone."

"But you can't leave. Not without Alex," she demands ridiculously.

I laugh, "Oh, but I can and I am."

"You are not dressed. I don't have clothes for you. He is to bring them."

I step back, releasing her and pressing my back to the door. "Take off your scrubs. I'll

use yours."

**SANTOS**

My phone rings with Miss Herrerra's number and I know right away that it's her. Ruby.

it has to be. Because Miss Herrera has been instructed *never* to call me and she *never* has. Not in five whole years.

It's not part of my plan to answer the call, but the man inside of me wants to.

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I glance over at Romany - she's asleep. Good. Perfect.

I answer the phone.

"Hello darling,” I say, surprising myself when I smile like a fool.

I can hear cars on a highway, she is either in a cab or she is driving. Maybe she robbednoveldrama

my poor Spanish nurse of more than just her phone. If she did, I will gladly reimburse

my nurse for anything she was set back.

"Coward," Ruby's voice is like wine and I am parched for a sip.

"I wasn't going to answer this."

"Where are you?"

Not what I was expecting her to ask, but my chest warms just the same. "Far."

"I hate you."

I feel anything but hate at her tone and for a moment I wonder if I had to take Romany

at all. Fuck. I hope I haven't truly misjudged things. My eyebrows draw together in frustration. "I don't *hate* you."

The line falls silent, yet neither of us hangs up the phone. *Tell me you want me. Tell me you miss me and this all ends right here. I'll flip this fucking plane around and head straight back.* But she doesn't. So I ask, "Why do you hate me? I set you free, didn't I? That's what you wanted."

"What I wanted? Was to kill you," she lies, her voice choking and filling me with perverse pleasure. "You didn't set me free," she spits. "I am *NOT* free!"*

*Then tell me to come back for you!*

"Neither am I, Mi Reina." More silence. "Why do you hate me?"

A sob. Albeit a small one, but it sends blades of longing into my heart. "Because. I can remember."

"What do you remember?" I whisper, thinking of all the things I confessed to her in the car. All my feelings, my wants, the changes she brought out in me. I even told her what

I was going to do. That I was going to take her cousin. She was so doped up - there's

no way.

She hisses, "I remember everything."

The line goes dead.