Sniping Her Mafia King

Easy A

Arwen let herself into her house and sighed deeply, the pain of exhaustion stretching across her shoulders as she flung her rucksack onto a table.

“Deidre?” she called out into the silence of the house.

She tilted her head to one side waiting for an answer and heard nothing. It was late on Thursday evening and her cousin should have been home. She climbed the stairs and called out again, “Dee?” She pushed open the girl’s bedroom door and found her laying face down on the bed, her legs kicking behind her as she bopped her head to whatever music she was listening to through her headphones, reading a book. She grinned at the oblivious girl. She leaned against the door frame and fought a chuckle as the young woman started singing along loudly with a ton of enthusiasm.

As if suddenly realizing she was being watched she looked over her shoulder and jumped, “God damn Arwen, you scared the s**t out of me.”

“You didn’t hear the bike?” she laughed at her and plunked down on the edge of the bed.

“Not with these on? Best thing ever are these noise cancelling things.”

“How was school?”

“The only thing worse than the egotistical professor of my literature class is the airhead in the front row of the class who keeps asking stupid questions. It’s clear she wants him. Like girl, go offer him a blowjob in his office. Stop disrupting the damn class.”

Arwen pushed a tendril of hair off Deidre’s shoulder. “Tell me what you really think.”

“I might not be the smartest kid in the class but at least I’m working through it and not trying to f**k my way to a pass.” She held up her book, “also, I’m convinced if I had been born in the time of Dickens, I would have died. Gruel sounds nasty.”

Arwen laughed, “did you eat?”

“I was waiting for you,” Deidre shrugged and rolled off the bed.

“Come on then, I’ll make you some spaghetti Bolognese. I think I still have a container of Jesse’s mom’s sauce in the freezer.”

“Speaking of Jesse,” Deidre followed her down the hall, dragging her foot behind her. “She sent me an early birthday present.”

“Did she?” Arwen smiled. Of all the things being introduced to her two closest friends, Jesse and Cat had given her, support to take care of her young charge was the most precious gift. “What did she send over?”

Deidre was all smiles and Arwen hid her grin as she dug in the refrigerator. Deidre was nineteen, introverted and shy and Jesse and Cat constantly pushed her to embrace herself instead of comparing herself to skinny extraverted model types.

“She paid for me to do a meet and greet with Pima Lauzon.”

“Your favorite author?” Arwen dumped the frozen sauce into a saucepan. Fabiana Chavez would kill her if she microwaved it and she was certain the woman would feel the damage to the sauce in her soul wherever she was. By the time she had the pasta ready, the sauce should be warmed through. She turned up the gas on the stove higher just in case.

“Yes. I guess she does private meet and greets in a tea shop, and I get to meet her.”

“Very cool,” Arwen looked over her shoulder, “did you say thanks?”

“I did. I messaged her. She said she even arranged for me to be picked up from campus, driven to the tea and taken back to campus or home after. Its in a couple of weeks. I’m feeling very fancy.” Deidre sat at the kitchen table and then got quiet.

“What are you thinking about?” Arwen questioned as she added salt to the water. When Jesse’s mom had learned twelve years ago, she was raising her cousin all on her own, the woman had come over every weekend for a month and taught her how to cook quick simple meals that would keep her cousin fed. Arwen wasn’t good with accepting help, but the woman had been relentless and now when she wasn’t sending food over, she was showing up at Deidre’s college with lunch packs.

“What if it’s one of those never meet your hero things?” Deidre asked quietly. “What if Pima turns out to be a b***h?”

“It’s possible but she’s all about empowering women, body positivity and creating a global community of women who lift each other up. I don’t think it’s going to be one of those situations.” Arwen smiled gently knowing her cousin was fearing the worst the way she always did.

“I think you’re right and it’s why I’m really excited. I’m going to go even though I’m nervous.” She looked up from where she had been studying her fingernails intently. “How did you make out with your client?”

Arwen gave a shrug, “it was fine. The old guy didn’t want to do the exercises I gave him. Thinks physiotherapy is for schmucks. I gave his carer a home exercise program to work through with him but he’s rich and entitled.” She cast a side glance, “speaking of exercise program, did you do yours today?”

“Yes.” Deidre made a face. “I know better than to skip it. You’d kick my ass or make my next workout ten times worse.”

“Damn right I would,” Arwen laughed as she dropped some dry noodles into the boiling water.

“Arwen, do you ever regret all of this?” Deidre asked suddenly

Arwen was stunned into silence by the off-brand question. “What? Where is this coming from?” She turned to face her cousin and folded her arms over her chest.

“You’re thirty-one years old. You’ve been raising me since you were nineteen.”

“Pretty sure you’re raised now.”

“Taking care of me then. You’re smart and beautiful and being a sports injury physiotherapist to the rich and famous athletes of the world could have you traveling anywhere you want and living the fast life tending to the elite of the elite and partying on yachts instead of being stuck home with a kid at your hip.”

“Dee, there are things in this life you get to do because you love them. Taking care of you is something I have never regretted and never ever contemplated not doing. I love you more than the world. I got into physio because of you and if it weren’t for you showing me my passion for helping someone, I wouldn’t be where I am. I have enough private patients who demand their anonymity via stupidly high paycheques that it makes it worth my while. I get to do what I love and get paid well for it and still be able to take care of the person I love most in the world. I have no regrets, Dee. If I had to go back in time, I would do it all over again.”

“I can’t believe athletes pay you so much money to treat them and keep your mouth shut.”

“Nobody wants to pay or sponsor an injured athlete.”

“True,” Deidre shrugged, “us lame folk aren’t worth much dollar-wise.”

Arwen tossed a wad of paper towel off the counter at her and growled. “Save the self-deprecating s**t for someone else. Its wasted humor on me.”

“I want to go to the gun range,” Deidre threw out unexpectedly and Arwen made a face as she stirred the sauce.

“What the hell is going on with you tonight?” Arwen gave her a sideways glance.

Deidre was quiet and staring at her fingernails again.

“Spill it, Dee.” Arwen took a commanding tone, glaring at the blue-eyed blonde seated at the table.

“When you called me Monday to say you had to fly to Toronto to work with that retired hockey player, I was at your clinic.”

“So?”

“Your receptionist hadn’t gone to lunch yet, so I offered to sit in while she grabbed a sandwich.”

“Uh-huh,” none of this was out of the ordinary. Deidre had been hanging around Arwen’s physio clinic since she’d been a child. She knew it better than most of the trained admin staff.

“This giant of a man came in and asked where you were. He wanted to deliver flowers to you personally on behalf of someone. I looked up the guy online and he was scary.”

“He scared you?” Arwen bristled furiously, her mind immediately going to Trace, the man she’d broken up with a few weeks past. “What did he say?”

“He didn’t scare me,” she put her hands up defensively. “He was just some beefy flower delivery guy. No, the guy who sent them.” She looked away. “Like I said, I did an internet search. How do you know Adrianu Cavallaro?”

“f**k!” Arwen screamed and kicked a cupboard door and then cursed when it bounced back and smacked her on the shin. “Asshole.”

“Do I need to learn how to shoot a gun to keep safe from a mob guy? Or are you into him? Do you want to be with him? Is having me living with you keeping you from having a relationship and being with someone?”

“No.” Arwen turned back making sure her face was the antithesis of the spiraling rage and fire in her gut. “Okay, I’ll tell you a couple of things, but you have to promise to never say anything.”

“Of course,” Deidre’s eyes widened with excitement.

“You know Jesse’s dad Hector isn’t her real dad, right?”

“Yeah, she mentioned it and I know Fabiana said once she had been married before to someone who wasn’t a good man.”

“Well, Jesse’s bio dad was Fredo Cavallaro, the son of a man who was a mob boss. She doesn’t talk about her birth dad very often and I forget a lot of the time he even existed. I always think of Hector as her dad.”

“Okay,” Deidre obviously didn’t know where this was going.

“I told you I went to Vegas last weekend with Jesse to celebrate her thirtieth and when we were there her cousin,” she waved at the woman with her mouth hanging open, “was also there. When she said cousin, I thought like from Fabiana’s family or Hector’s family. Nope. I foolishly flirted with Adrianu Cavallaro, who apparently is Jesse’s cousin on her biological father’s side and a man who owns half the strip in Vegas, most of Atlantic City and buries people in the desert for fun. I immediately tucked tail and ran because I’m not stupid,” she tapped her temple and pursed her lips at Deidre who was now howling with laughter. “Laugh it up. Jesse told him to leave me alone and he said challenge accepted. Once he realizes how boring and dull my life really is with our little chicken coop, helping football and hockey players with their gimpy knees and my strange timetables, he’ll piss off. For now, he thinks because I was drunk and flirty, I’m interested. I am not.”

“You and Jesse are close. How did you not know who he was?”

“Like I said, I always forget the Cavallaro connection. Her name is Chavez after all. Also, I don’t usually go with them to Vegas. I have other obligations which keep me home,” she gave the girl a pointed look. “He lives and works out of Vegas, and I’ve never met him. I mean, in all honesty, had I not been drunk, I likely would have realized right away. He looks more like Dylan than Jesse does, and Jesse has said more than once how much her brother and her cousin look alike. She said cousin and I didn’t do the math right.”

“How drunk were you?” Deidre laughed.

“Drunk.” Arwen laughed too. “Drunk enough I sang karaoke with Cat.”

“Jesus,” Deidre pulled a face. “I can’t believe Jesse is related to the mob,” she looked at her cousin, “or that you flirted with a mobster.”

“s**t happens. He’ll piss off.”

“So, I don’t need to practice firing my gun?”

“Nah, I go to the range enough for both of us.”

“You can pick a target from a different city.”

“The gift of having a father who loved hunting and wanted a hunting partner,” Arwen made a face. “Dad was the best at everything and wanted me to be even better.”

“He was a marine.”

“He sure was. He was the best of the best.” Arwen smiled as she thought of her dad. “And he taught me everything he ever knew and told me someday I’d be a marine sharpshooter just like him. Too bad sexism still runs rampant, and women are never snipers.”

“You could be one of the first.”

“I’m too old now. Besides, I like being a physiotherapist. Killing people doesn’t seem as fun as helping someone walk again,” she winked playfully as she moved to drain the pasta. “Set the table.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“What did you do with them?”

“With what?” Deidre asked puzzledly.

“The flowers?”

“They’re probably still sitting in the vase at reception, unless Norah tossed them.”

She chuckled. “Good. If I know anything about him, and I don’t really but Jesse told me he’s a control freak, he’s probably had one of his goons check to make certain I saw them.”

“We have Dylan’s wedding on Saturday. Do you think he’ll be there?”

“No.” Arwen shook her head, “his grandfather and father both died this week. Mister Cavallaro just became the Mafia King of the Cavallaro family.”

“Does this mean Jesse and Dylan are in the mob?”

“No!” Arwen almost screamed at her and then checked herself. “And never bring it up to either of them. Jesse’s bio dad was an abusive horrible man and because of what he put the three of them through, the family leaves them alone. You never ask about the mob, especially to someone with mob connections.”

“I don’t watch enough mobster movies to know the etiquette.”

“Me either,” Arwen smirked, “though according to Jesse, when Addy told me I wasn’t allowed to walk through his city wearing bicycle shorts and a sports bra he was staking a claim and I was disrespectful in my response to him.”

“How do you respectfully tell someone to go f**k themselves and you can wear what you want?” Deidre questioned with a grunt.

Arwen set a plate of pasta in front of her and passed her a chunk of parmesan and a grater proud she’d raised the child right. “My thoughts exactly. Jesse suggested I lay low for a bit and let him find someone else to chase. She said my antagonistic response might fuel his fire and the best way to make him f**k off is to be complacent.”

“She wants you to go out with him? That doesn’t sound like Jesse.”

“Jesse wants whatever I want.” Arwen grated her own cheese and sat down. “If I wanted to be with someone like Addy Cavallaro, she would support me. She knows he’s not what I want or need and so I asked her how to make him back off. She said she’d talk to him but he’s very much like a spoiled child who was just told he can’t get the newest toy on the market. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and doesn’t like the word no. She said the best thing for me to do is to not antagonize or engage with him and he’ll get bored sooner rather than later.”

“He sounds like a wanker,” Deidre commented while twirling pasta around a fork.

“A very rich, powerful, gorgeous wanker I stupidly flirted with.” Arwen moaned as she put her fork into her mouth. “Speaking of men, any further updates on the cute guy in the library?”

“Ugh,” Deidre made a face, holding her hand in front of her mouth as she spoke over a mouthful of food. “He’s been reading a lot of books from the archaeology section, so I think he’s a student in that field. He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

“Tell him.”

“How? Should I just walk up to him and introduce myself?”

“Why not?”

“Because I have a limp, a huge burn scar on my face which makes small children run screaming and I spend my life so engrossed in literature I barely have the ability to make conversation with real people let alone with a gorgeous, brown-eyed man who has spent the last three weeks reading up on ancient curses.” She groaned and pushed her bangs off her forehead, “he probably is trying to find out if there is a way to get me to stop staring at him the entire time he’s there during my shift.”

“I love that you know what he’s been reading.”

“He’s checked out three books almost every day and I might have been the one to take care of him.”

“You’re almost nineteen. Live a little.”

“You’re thirty-one, take your own advice.”

Arwen grunted at her. “Funny.”

“I’m serious. You work all the time. When you’re not working, you’re in our vegetable plot, talking to the chickens or making me dinner.” She slurped up a spaghetti noodle. “You’re like the Farmgirl of Flushing.”

“Shut up,” Arwen glowered at her cousin across the table, but her eyes were laughing at the teasing.

“Just saying, all we need is a couple of goats and pigs to go with your chickens out back and you will have officially made it to the category of crazy country lady.”

“Eat your noodles,” Arwen frowned at her and shook her head.

They were both quiet for several minutes before Deidre spoke again.

“Can I bail on the wedding Saturday? There’s going to be too many people.”

“Nope.” Arwen shook her head. “If I have to go, you have to go. The Chavez family have been good to us Dee and the invite is clear. They want us there.”

“His wife-to-be is too perfect.” Deidre stared at her chewed fingernails. “She probably rolls out of bed looking like a million bucks.”

“Yup.” Arwen nodded, “but don’t judge her on her looks. You don’t like it when someone does it to you. Don’t do it to her.”

“She’s probably never had a hard day in her life.”

“She’s had plenty of hard days.” Arwen folded her arms on the tabletop.

“Yeah right,” Dee grimaced

Arwen spoke sharply, “She’s only a year or two older than you. For the first fifteen years of her life, she had been told her father was dead. Then when she found out her mother lied and she kicked off about it, her mother tossed her out and told her to go live with him if he was so great. She had to leave her home in Europe, her family and friends and move to a country where she knew nobody. Her father is a workaholic, and she spent more time with bodyguards than him. She’s pretty so people automatically assume she’s dumb. She was dating a guy in college who was sleeping with her best friend, and they were both using her for the money and free trips. Her next boyfriend was a psychopath who used her to try to make Isabella Ruiz jealous.”

“Holy s**t,” Deidre sat back in her chair. “I didn’t know any of that.”

“No, you didn’t but you formed an opinion without any of the facts based on her looks. You were raised better than that.” Arwen chided softly.

“You’re right, I was.” Deidre acknowledged Arwen’s words. “I guess I’m a bit jealous.”

“Are you crushing on Dylan?” Arwen asked incredulously.

“No!” Deidre pulled her lips back in disgust. “I think my spaghettis is going to come back up. Not my type at all. I’m into nerds not jocks and he definitely was the pretty boy in school and he’s old. He’s as old as you are!” She moved her noodles on her plate ignoring Arwen’s grunt of protest, “I just meant like you said, we’re the same age almost and she seems to have it all together. Baby, married, career as a fashion vlogger and I’m taking college courses to become a writer when I know how tough the market is.”

“Are you second guessing your career choice?”

“No. I just wish I was there already. You know? I feel like I’ve gone through so much in my life and just for once, I would love to have something simply handed to me.”

Arwen tilted her head and came to a conclusion as she studied the woman across the table, “you didn’t get an A on your paper, did you?” Deidre had worked for days on it.

“B minus,” she sighed. “But blondie got an A and a pair of bruised knees with it.”

“Are you sure about the second part?”

“Yeah.” She made a face, “I went to question him about why I got the grade he gave me and opened the door to his office, and she was blowing him.”

Arwen’s eyes rounded in surprise. “What did you say?”

“They didn’t even know I was there. I just snuck off. It just makes me angry. I tried so hard to get the grade and he ripped it apart, but she sucks his d**k and gets the A.” She sighed, “I think it’s why I was judging Portia too. The pretty girls always seem to have it easier.”

“Do they?” Arwen asked curiously. “Because the girl with the bruised knees had a geriatric d**k in her mouth because she’s too stupid to do the work. Personally, I’d take the B minus before taking rancid old dick.” Arwen in the moment decided she would be asking her team to investigate the professor. As far as she was concerned having girls blow him for grades was s****l assault. He needed a lesson of his own.

Deidre giggled hard at Arwen’s comment. “Thank you, Arwen. You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

“Geriatric d**k jokes are always funny,” Arwen grinned back. “Tell me more about your upcoming tea with Pima.”

As her cousin began to gush about the gift Jesse got her, Arwen sat smiling and watching the changing expressions on the younger woman’s face. All she had ever wanted was to witness this. To see her cousin growing up in front of her into an amazing vibrant woman. Everything she had done in the last twelve years were worth it to see her come alive. She had no regrets.

Now, all she had to do was make Adrianu Cavallaro back off and leave her alone to live her life with her cousin and their chickens.