He kissed the top of herhead, and like so many other breakfasts, without a word, he was gone. Winnielooked down at her own food and whatever appetite she had was long gone. Shedidn’t have the stomach to eat. Elias was angry and she had caused that.
He had tried to help her,and in doing so, it might have made him look weak. She made her way toward thekitchen and started to clean off the plates. She didn’t bother loading up thedishwasher. All she wanted was the distraction of using her hands, and notthinking about everything else. It had been a long time since she saw him thatangry. In all the years they had been married, he never stormed out.
After she cleaned thedishes, she didn’t want to be under the guard’s watchful eye. Whenever Eliasleft the house or the apartment, which is where they were now, one of hisguards stepped in to keep an eye.
She escaped to her beautyroom, where she sat down at the vanity mirror and just … breathed. Tears filledher eyes as she thought about Elias. He was angry at her. There was nomistaking the way he felt. Running fingers through her hair, she wasn’t temptedto distract herself from the pain, which as the hours ticked by, began toincrease. The makeup that surrounded her didn’t even feel good.
Elias had treated her likea queen. He’d given her a home, comfort, everything she could have hoped for. Whathad she done? Made him angry and potentially look weak. All because he caredwhat she felt.
The hours ticked by.
She didn’t leave herbeauty room to have lunch. She stayed inside, and instead used it as an excuseto clean up. The pain in her shoulder intensified, and she slowed down.
It had already gotten darkby the time she heard a commotion outside. By commotion, it was simply Eliastalking to the guard that had stepped in to take over for him.
She looked at her room, whichwas already clean. It had been clean when she started, and it was exactly thesame now. Just things put in different places, and she would probably changethem around in a short time. Waving her hand at them all, she quickly made herway out to find Elias at the dining room table. He had bags filled with Chinesefood. She recognized the symbol on the bag, and the scents were amazing. Shestill didn’t feel hungry, but she hadn’t eaten since the little she had atbreakfast.
“Hey,” she said.
“I got dinner.”
He wasn’t smiling at her.There was no laughter in his eyes. The man she had known the last couple ofmonths seemed to have disappeared, and she hated it. Regardless of what shethought, Elias had a way of doing things.
“Don’t think about me,”Winnie said.
Elias looked up at her.
She took a deep breath.“When you’re doing business. Don’t think about me or what I think. You havebeen doing this a long time, and you don’t need to worry about what I think.”She moved closer to him. “I don’t want you to think you’re weak or a horribleman. You do what needs to be done, and I can’t stand the thought of someone …hurting you because they think they can.”
For several seconds hejust looked at her and then he nodded.
“I took care of it,” hesaid.
And he started to hand outthe Chinese tubs. Winnie expected to feel something—guilt, remorse, anger—butshe felt none of that.
Elias knew what he wasdoing, and she was never going to allow herself to interfere again.
****
Elias had weighed hisoptions and decided he couldn’t allow the shooter to live. Not only had heattempted to kill him, the son of a bitch had gotten his wife. She had to havesurgery. Only minor surgery to retrieve the bullet, but it was still surgery, nonetheless,and that pissed him off.
If anyone heard that heallowed himself to be shot at and let the shooter go free, his streets would bechaos. He wouldn’t allow that to happen.
He also didn’t like whatMansell had said. Winnie was a weakness to him, and he couldn’t allow thatweakness to spread. He loved her. That scared the shit out of him, because hehad not loved anyone before. Love had never entered the equation.
The moment he first sawWinnie four years ago, he had known she was different. The clothes she had onhad been well-worn and oversized. Like her size was an afterthought to whoeverpurchased them. He figured she had them for years, and imagined they hadn’t fither when she first had them. Those clothes had been the first to go.
He purchased her a wholenew wardrobe, and in a way a whole new life. Little by little, he found himselfenjoying her. In the beginning, it was because he didn’t want to kill her. Shehad been a fighter and forced into a situation not of her making, and he wantedto make it right.
Those early days had beentough, as he had been tempted to just send her away. Each time he did,something held him back.
She watched him kill, andnot once did she ask if she could go to the police. She did exactly as he toldher, and didn’t put up a single fight. There wasn’t even any sign that she was afraidof him.
Now, she asked him to notthink of her, to just do his job the best way he knew how. He’d already takencare of business and made everyone aware that if they came after his wife, theywere going to die.
The man’s wife and sonwere gone, not dead, just out of the way. He wasn’t going to kill them whenthey had nothing to do with the man’s actions. He wasn’t a total monster.
Mansell’s suggestion keptringing in his head. He was not going to use his wife to get to Bozo. Thatfucker was going to get what was coming to him.
