Itchy
Itchy
can’t stop scratching,” Presley muttered as they loaded into the waiting SUV to go home. “I’ve never had lice, but I think maybe I have them now. Did your guys get the shampoo?”
“Stop saying lice,” Cruz hissed at her as he scratched the top of his head.
“It’s what they are!” She peered at him carefully, “I can’t help but think of how you hugged your assistant while she was crying.”
“You cannot be jealous.”
“No! I’m not jealous. I mean Ramona kept their heads pretty tight together. Then you hugged the poor girl while she came apart, and rightly so,” she glared at him, “but your heads were close and if one of those things crawled from Ramona to her and it crawled to you, you might have lice.” She paused. “I hope she is okay.”
“She is going to be fine. Her husband was meeting her at the clinic and I already arranged for a psychologist to meet her there and to do a debrief with her to make sure she gets some help for what she went through today. I also gave her paid leave and told her to take as much time as she needed.”
“She’s such a nice lady. Ramona really scared her today. You should make sure too though, she is set up with the shampoo and stuff to get rid of the lice. She probably has it.”
“You need to stop saying lice.” He rubbed his back against the upholstery of the vehicle like a bear scratching his back on a tree. “It’s so gross.”
“I want to know how she got so infested after only a few days.” Presley was looking at her phone. “Usually it takes much longer.” She held up a photo depicting the life cycle of the parasites to Cruz.
“Would you stop?”
“I kind of can’t. It’s funny to me how triggered this is making you.”
“When we were at the Olympics one of the houses where some of the women athletes were staying was infested with bedbugs. One of the guys was screwing one of the volleyball players and he spent the night in her tiny little bed and woke up with hundreds of bites on his ass and back. I brought all my stuff back in plastic bags and disinfected it before I even let it into my house. s**t like this makes my skin crawl.” He shuddered, “where were they taking her?”
“They took her to Belkin. I asked him to deal with her. Phoenix has resources for treating a variety of mental health issues in some of the best facilities in the world.”
“You’re going to get her help?” Cruz appeared dumbfounded by Presley’s words. “Why?”
“Well yes. I can’t kill her, Cruz. She’s genuinely mentally ill. Unlike Bartoli who was of sound mind but simply obsessed, she is mentally unwell which caused her to be obsessed.” She studied her phone, “do you know the facility where her parents left her still hasn’t reported her missing to them? They think she’s still there.”
“What?”
“Ooh,” she made a face, “Belkin is giving me updates on what he’s finding out and his team located the trucker who picked her up. She offered s*x in exchange for transport. Apparently when they opened up the cab of his truck, you can see the things hopping. She slept in his sleeper cab and had s*x with him in it a few
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times according to the driver. They were rolling around in a tiny cab full of lice: She snorted, there are nest tool Lice and fleas.”
“Jesus Ramona,” Cruz covered his face with disgust. “Why?”
“Belkin says the man smells really bad and its clear he doesn’t shower frequently.”
“She slept with him. Like she really f****d with him?” Cruz was appalled.
“According to the driver she told him she couldn’t pay him to take her because she didn’t have money, but she offered s*x and he’s a big, lonely guy.” She rounded her hand out in front of her belly to emphasize how big it was. She grimaced when the photo came through and she showed Cruz the image of the man to whom Ramona traded herself.
“Revolting. It’s the only word coming to mind.” Cruz commented sadly.
“She isn’t well, Cruz. I’m telling Belkin to get all the information he can on the facility where her parents dumped her. I’m wondering how many other women simply go missing from it and nobody knows until it’s too late. She could have been murdered. She’s not psychologically well and her decision–making skills are significantly impaired. Her own parents have a conservatorship over her because she’s not capable of making rational choices. Yet, they dumped her to this place where they don’t do a roll call or even check to see if someone is attending their program classes or taking their medications.”
“You feel sorry for her.” Cruz commented quietly.
“How can I not?”
“She wanted to kill you today?”
“Yes. She did. I can’t deny it. She would have too if the guys hadn’t gotten there and I didn’t distract her, but she’s so confused, Cruz. She doesn’t understand simple thoughts. Which is what is bringing me to how the f**k she managed to get the food order from the delivery driver, including the uniform. Who did this?”
“Do you think my father is behind it?”
“No. There’s no way. He’s still in his office panicking over the fact I am going to ruin him. I am going to ruin him too. Not the housekeeper though because I feel bad for her, but I asked Sloane to dig deep into his s**t and she found he changes out his housekeepers because when he gets tired of them, he swaps them out. He’s kept this one on because the last kid is likely his. Also, did you know he wants to run for prime minister?
”
“He’s always been politically motivated.”
“We’re going to make sure it never happens. Anyway, he’s trying to come to grips with the fact he’s not going to be able to force you to take over his company so he can enter the political arena. He doesn’t have time to convince a woman to try to kill me.”
“Who do you think then?”
“Rami has a theory and he’s running with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He thinks there might be some dissension in the ranks since Liborio left the family to someone who isn’t family. We faked the entire wedding thing. We told everyone how the captain on the ship married me to Liborio and I agreed to it. There were plenty of his men who were around when I said I’d have his children. The
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entire world now believes he married me on a ship in international waters by a captain who is able to do the ceremony. Liborio got a license and everything.” She snickered as she thought of the backdated license Atticus provided her. “The captain and everyone on the ship who was Russian has agreed this is the
narrative.”
“What about the Italians on the ship? Is this what Rami is thinking? The men on the ship are denying”
“None of them have been seen. Whatever Belkin did with those men is not my business. It happened before
my involvement as head of the Bartoli family. The only one who was permitted to return home was Estrella.”
They exchanged long glances and Cruz sighed, “you think she went back to Sicily and told the entire country how you weren’t really married, and you betrayed Liborio?”
“If this is the case and she convinced anyone, it’s possible they are here to try to stop me taking over the family. If they intervened and set Ramona up to take me out, then it would make sense.”
“Rami believes this is a possibility? What does Belkin say?”
“He’s been busy dealing with the trucker and the psychiatric facility as part of Phoenix. If the facility is losing women then we may need to make them a target at our next meeting. He loaned me Rami to deal with whatever might be happening internally with the Bartoli family.”
“Do you want me to bring Anderson in?” Cruz asked curiously. “He’s almost as good as Sloane and you have her working on things with Dad.”
“Sure, if he has time.”
“He has time. Halima went to his office today and told him he has six months to convince her he’s not still a playboy and only out to use or hurt her.”
Presley snickered, “she was protesting way too much for me and Sloane to believe she wasn’t into him. She said she’s told him they won’t be having s*x. She wants a medical report on her desk each month complete with blood tests outlining his s****I health because she knows he did more than one threesome in his life. She said she demands to be treated like the queen she is and if he can’t convince her in six months he means what he says, she will start going on blind dates her parents set up for her.”
“He told me.” Cruz was snickering. “He is spiraling thinking of all the ways he’s going to f**k it up because he tends to self–sabotage. Let’s give him this as a project and distract him.”
“Sounds good. Can you connect him with Rami? Maybe between the two of them they can figure out how to make the women in their lives happy.”
“I know how to make my woman happy,” Cruz smiled at her.
“Does it involve food because the crazy lady spoiled lunch, it’s nearly three o’clock and I’m starving.”
“We will go back to my place, and I’ll make you something to eat. First though, we need to shower and wash with the special shampoo I asked one of the security team to get for us. Just in case.” He smiled at her, ” however, in terms of your happiness, while we were in the office working, right before all the s**t went down, I got an email.” He opened his phone and showed her the contents of the email.
“Oh, my goodness, Cruz! You’re arranging my dress to be custom made for our wedding?” “Uh–huh. Isn’t this the designer you like so much? I remember you asking the lady in the shop if she bought anything from this designer and she only showed us the one dress, and it wasn’t your size. I’ll be flying you to
Itchy
meet her in New York. She’ll help you figure out exactly what you want, Money is no object”
She flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek loudly, “you are the best fiancé in the world!”
“I know it. Anderson and Rami need to take notes.”
“Yes they do.” She picked something off his chest and held it up. “Just fluff.”
He started scratching again, “not funny!”
“It kind of is.” She smiled as she leaned against his shoulder and began thinking of all the ways over the next sixty years she was going to tease him with the knowledge tiny creepy crawly things freak him out.
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