We Come Out At Night 3

Chapter 22

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Shadows
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It’s now 11am and Izzy’s finally sleeping soundly. I’d brought her up to the penthouse last night and she was inconsolable. She cried and cried on my shoulder, never telling me what happened while she was at The Maker’s Marc. When I did get her to sleep, she would wake up screaming and cling to me until she fell back to sleep.

Now, she’s been sleeping for a little over 4 hours and I haven’t been able to leave her alone. I don’t know if I should call a doctor, a shrink or just leave her be until she’s ready to talk to me.

One thing I knew for sure was that we were going to have to get Marco before he made good on his word to make us pay. With all the time that I sat awake watching Izzy, I’d managed to come up with an ideal plan. Not only would we get even with that fuck for hurting Izzy, but Sammy would finally be able to rest in peace and Jimmy would get his revenge on London.

I had spoken to Jimmy about my idea and at first he laughed and thought I had lost my mind, but once to showed him how it would work in his favor, he was all for it. I had yet to let the others know, but I did know that a few wouldn’t be happy about it.

As much as I want to set the plan in motion right away, I need to focus on Izzy for a few days. When she was well enough to handle it, then and only then would I take my own personal revenge on Marco Montes.

“Matt?” Izzy sat up in our bed looking around. I got up off the chair that sat in the corner and walked over to the bed and sat down in front of her.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“It’s London, she…she…”

“I know.” I said cutting her off. “She’s already being dealt with.”

She crawled up onto my lap and put her arms around my neck and rested her head on my shoulder.

“Izzy, I have to go talk to Gates. Do you want me to get someone to stay with you?”

“Yes.” She whispered.

“Who do you want me to call?”

It was no surprise when she said “Jimmy.” This was the second time he had gotten her out of The Maker’s Marc. The second time he had saved her. The first time he saved her, it was my fault. I was the one that handed her right over to Marco and he put her in the brothel. Now, this time again it was my fault. Instead of making sure she was safe, I was busy getting laid. Something about this time was very different from the last. When I took Izzy out of his arms after he brought her back to me, his face was white as a sheet. I was too afraid to ask why or what he had seen when he got her out of there.

I dialed Jimmy’s number on my phone and he came up to the penthouse right away.
He didn’t hesitate to say yes when I asked him to come and stay with Izzy for a little while; which was surprising compared to how he usually treated her. That only made me wonder more about what happened to Izzy.

I left him alone with Izzy and knew I didn’t have to give her safety a second thought.

I went down to the floor that Gates occupied and walked into his living room.

He didn’t seem very happy, in fact he seemed to be rather upset about something.

“What’s up with you?” I asked and he looked at me with a scowl, but instead of answering, he just turned his gaze to the office and looked over at Kristina.

She was sitting behind the desk doing whatever task Gates had given her and she looked completely exhausted. My guess was that she hadn’t slept at all since last night. Without a single thought to her care or well being, we put her in front of the man who shot her. We made her stand there for two hours and face him all the while knowing she was terrified. It’s not like we would have let anything happen to her, but it did bother me that she was sobbing at the table.

“I gather you’re upset about last night?”

“What the fuck do you think?” He snapped at me and on any other day under any other circumstance, I would have snapped back.

“She’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, sure she will.” He replied with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Just fucking dandy.”

Well, I would like to be able to put this right with him and Kristina, but once again, I needed her as part of my new plan. I needed Ruby to come out and play whether she wanted to or not. Sure, we bitched her out and took all her rights away for acting like Ruby would and yet here we sit forcing her to be the person that we told her not to be.

For now, I could at least see where her mind was at and give her a break. She was going to fucking hate me soon enough. “Come with me.” I told him as I stood up.
He breathed out heavily and stood with me. “I want you to stay outside the door where she can’t see you and listen.”

“Why?” He asked.

“Because I want you to hear what she says, idiot.”

I walked a head of him through the door of the office and he waited outside. When I sat down in the chair she looked up at me. Her eyes were blood shot and she looked like she could fall asleep at any minute.

“Can I interrupt for a minute?” I asked.

“It’s not like I have a choice.” I knew the hidden meaning behind her comment, but I let it slide.

“I guess you’re a little confused right about now.” She didn’t say anything; she just nodded and lowered her eyes back to her paperwork. “What you did last night was a big help to me in getting Izzy back. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
Her bloodshot eyes started to fill up with water. “Kristina, you were never in any danger, I swear.”

She put her hands over her face and started to cry. This was going to be tougher than I thought it would be. “Don’t cry, sweetheart.” I said as I got up from my chair, walked over to her and knelt down in front of her. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“No” She shook her head. “How could I? Gates called me Ruby.”

“He didn’t mean it. He had to do it to make you deal.” She didn’t seem satisfied with my answer. “You miss him, don’t you?”

She sniffled before making eye contact with me. “Why would I miss him? He hates me!”
“What would make you say that?” I asked. Dumb question, since I already knew the answer. At least I thought I knew the answer. The look she gave me, told me otherwise.

“The way he treated me the other day. The way he’s been treating me all along.”

Ok. Im curious. “I know what happened the other day, but I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say the way he has been treating you all along. From my point of view, he’s been very good to you.”

“You would see it that way, he’s your friend.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her up off the chair. When she was standing, I sat down and pulled her onto my lap.

“Tell me what it is that I don’t see.”

I waited as she caught her breath before she started to tell me. “When we first met, I was working down in the brothel. He liked me when I was Ruby, he liked me a lot and would come and see me almost every night.” She sniffled again and I rubbed her back encouraging her to go on. I still wasn’t sure where she was going with this.

“I liked him a lot too, but then you fired me and when I came back he was real mean to me. For some strange reason, he started to be nice to me again except he didn’t want me to be Ruby any more and I didn’t and still don’t understand.”

I put my arms around her waist and rested my chin on her shoulders. “Maybe because he wants a better life for you.”

“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “I’m grateful to him for not making me work in the brothel anymore and at first we were friends. That was my biggest mistake. I trusted him.”

“I don’t understand”

“He told me he didn’t want Ruby and that he wanted Kristina. I changed for him and he hasn’t changed at all. Dropping Ruby was the biggest mistake I ever made because he liked me then. When we got together and he started calling me Kristina, he started to treat me different.”

“For the better or the worse?”

“Both.” She nodded and turned her head to look at me. “He’s nice enough, but there are times when I don’t understand him at all. On Olivia’s birthday, he didn’t say two words to me. I needed him so badly on that day, but he completely ignored me.” That was pretty fucked up even for Gates. “Then there’s Izzy. He treats her like she’s a goddess. I don’t understand. I like Izzy and all, but he was mine.” She was sobbing now and I rubbed her back again to calm her. ” I saw how he was around her and how he fell all over her and I know about their so-called arrangement. That’s what hurts the most. I wanted the attention he was giving her and the fucked up part is that I really think it’s because of the fact that I wasn’t Ruby anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s true”

She looked at me with the saddest frown on her face. “Why is it ok for him to be with Izzy and not care how much it hurts me? I only started acting like Ruby again because I thought that was what he wanted. I thought it was all about sex and it hurt like hell that he was going to someone else and not me. Yet, when I was Ruby, he couldn’t get enough, so when I go back to acting like Ruby, I get punished for it and pushed away. I’m so fucking confused as to who I’m supposed to be and I’m at the point where I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

Well, that was a mouthful, but she did have a point. “Kristina…”

“No.” She shook her head not letting me speak. Obviously, she wasn’t finished. “Why couldn’t he talk to me? Why didn’t he just sit down with me and ask what was going on or how I felt? I would have told him and I would have listened to what he had to say. I’m so mad at him and honestly, I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

If she leaves, my plan is fucked. “Not cut out for what?”

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this casino. There are too many things here that I don’t understand and no one is going to explain it to me. You all treat me like I’m a bimbo who has no common sense. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

She was crying again. My weakness was always tears. “Don’t say that. I promise things will get better.”

“They’ve only gotten worse.” She sobbed. “He promises me the world and the first time I make a mistake he takes it all way. He lied to me and told me he loved me, but he apparently loves Izzy more. All I was trying to do was be the girl I was when he first met me, so he would love me like he loves Izzy, but it backfired.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, but I knew I had to think fast and come up with a way to keep her here just a little while longer or my plan for Marco wouldn’t work. Honestly, when I came in here to talk to her, I had no intention of getting this in depth with her. I had expected her to cry to me that she missed Gates and that she loved him, but I got the complete opposite. She hates him.

“Hey, why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

She shook her head no. “Gates gave me a ton of things to do.”

“I’m the boss here and I want you to get some sleep.” When I thought about the lumpy bed she was sleeping on in that shitty room we gave her, I came up with an idea to get her to trust me so she would stay. “Go up to the penthouse and go take a nap in the spare room.”

“What about London?”

“London is gone. The room is yours and no one will bother you. Ok?”I wasn’t going to tell her the story on London, that was a surprise for another day.

“Ok” She nodded and hugged me before getting up and walking out of the office.

When she walked out to go up to the penthouse, Gates walked in not even a minute later.

“So, was it your intention to make me feel like even more of a fucking scumbag?”

I stood and held up my hands in protest. “Dude, I honestly thought she was going to tell me that she was sorry and she wanted to be with you, I had no idea she was going to spill like the way she did.”

“Well, thanks for the fucking reality check.” He walked away even more pissed off then he already was when I got here. Everything I did whether he believed it or not, was for his own benefit. I guess, however that this wasn’t such a great time to tell him about my plan and how it involved Kristina, because there was no doubt in my mind he would punch me after I told him.

I left his office and went back up to the penthouse. The Rev was lying on the couch and Izzy was sound asleep laying across him. For an instant, I knew exactly how Kristina felt. Why couldn’t Izzy feel that safe with me? Yet, the person who hated her was the one who seemed to give her the most comfort. I was going to have to find out what happened between the two of them while she was at The Maker’s Marc. Tomorrow, I would talk with her and no matter how much it hurt her, she was going to have to tell me.

It was just a matter of time before Montes checked the wedding registries at all the chappels and figured out that we tricked him. I would be ready and so would everyone else. It may cost a few hearts and and may damage a few friendships, but all would be repaird in time. I would see to that, but I wanted revenge for Izzy and right now I don't give a fuck who gets hurt in the process as long as it isn't her.

As for Gates, he was going to have to do his best to get over Kristina, because the longer I manage to keep them apart, the better it will be for everyone in the end. Kristina belongs to me now.
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Sorry for the wait. All moved in now, just some stuff to organize and updates should be back on track. BIG BIG BIG event coming soon....... :)