Sniping Her Mafia King

Sunday morning Arwen walked up her driveway after her rideshare dropped her off with a feeling of dread. She still had not turned her cell phone back on and her watch was in her bag. She had left HQ just a short time ago and anyone who might have needed her there knew where she was. Deidre was still at Portia's and was safe and sound. It made it easy to avoid dealing with her feelings for Addy. She had taught a six-a.m. boot camp fitness class and had gotten a lot of her aggression out. The familiar black SUV of the man assigned to protect her was in the driveway and he got out of the vehicle and smiled cautiously.

"Good morning, Ms. Beddoe. The boss asked me to let him know when you arrived and to pass along the message, he would like you to answer your phone."

"I don't care what you tell him though you can let him know you passed along the message." See sidestepped past him and entered her house. It was weirdly quiet without Deidre home. She made her way to the back yard and fed her chickens and spent time with them quietly. She found her yoga mat and rolled it out and stretched her muscles and then did a peaceful meditation wishing it would give her the clarity of mind she needed to sort out the residual anger she was feeling from the night before. After her meditation she felt relaxed, and she pulled her yoga mat off to the side of the porch into a shady spot and pulled a pillow off her swing. She curled up on the porch on her mat and breathed in the morning air. It took no time for her to doze off with the light breeze blowing over her skin. The chattering of the hens, the birds overhead in the trees and insects buzzing a perfect soundscape for her sleep.

She wasn't certain how long she slept but when she woke, she felt rested and calmer. She was curled in the fetal position her hands tucked under her cheek and she was breathing easy. She kept her eyes closed as she let her mind surface from her nap. The gentle creaking of the porch swing told her she wasn't alone, and the smell of Addy's body wash told her he'd showered since getting home.

She rolled to her back and stretched her arms over her head.

"You're awake," The warm tone of his voice was quiet as it floated over her.

"Mm," she nodded but kept her eyes closed as she rolled back to her side and pulled her pillow closer to her face.

"You've been sleeping for two hours at least." Again, his voice was low and calm as if trying to gauge her mood.

"I was up all night," she blinked several times as she let the light filter in.

"You didn't come home until this morning. I was worried since I knew you were driving angry."

"I was fine."

"Did you go out with the girls? I called Jesse but she said you were indisposed so I assume you were with her?"

"No." she didn't elaborate as she sat up on her mat her stretched her legs out.

"There was no sign of you leaving the hotel. I presume Draxton covered your escape. I remembered a little while ago she called in the favor this week."

"I couldn't tell you what she did. I walked right out the front door."

"I wish you had stayed and talked to me."

"I wish you would have let Santino handle your stalker and not let her ruin our night but yet you left with her." She stood up and rolled her mat up. "Neither of us got our wishes."

"I didn't leave with her, Arwen. I escorted her off my premises. There is a difference."

"And if the roles were reversed?" she flicked him a sideways glance. "If I escorted an ex-lover off the premises? How would this conversation be going?" He had the grace to look away at her question and she frowned, "that's what I thought." "I'm trying here, Arwen."

"Yes, the effort I'm witnessing appears infinite." She drawled with a twist of her lips.

"Did I not give in to your demand to be able to walk around freely last night?"

She tilted her head, "Enrique was at my shoulder, and we stayed in the room with all the cameras. I know you always had your very own eyes on me. Did you think I didn't know you were watching each time I crossed my legs or leaned forward?" "I admit I watched you."

"How big of you to admit it."

"Arwen," he finally snapped her name. "Can we talk without the sarcasm and eye rolls?"

"We could but what's the fun in that?" she stood with her hands on her hips looking at him leaning casually on the swing, his laptop pushed aside now she was awake. "I mean I can't argue, be rude or stand up for myself when anyone else is around but it's just us and the chickens. I'm going to take it where I can."

"Jesus Christ you're antagonistic this morning."

"I wonder why?" she walked past him towards the door, but he grabbed her hand and stopped her.

"Please stay and talk with me."

"Addy, I haven't eaten since we had lunch with Dee yesterday other than a chocolate bar I scarfed down in the car. I need to eat." She yanked her hand away from his, "catering to your needs and wants isn't a priority for me in this minute."

She stomped past him and headed into the kitchen. She pulled her refrigerator opened and then grimaced. It was just coming on noon. Certainly not too early for something full of carbs and cheese. She went back to the porch to see him rising from the swing as if ready to follow her into the house and he appeared surprised when she went down the stairs and moved around to the side patio of the house beyond the garden shed. She wasn't sure if he'd even noticed it back here, but it was her outdoor kitchen and dining area. She had her smoker, her barbeque, and her brick pizza oven along with an outdoor sink and prep area. She built up the fire in the pizza oven and felt him watching her.

"How did I miss all this area?" he was surprised.

She didn't answer him and checked her oven to make sure the smokestack was running efficiently and then turned and went back into the house. She felt him following her and mentally cursed his persistence. She preferred to have space in the moment, but he evidently felt she'd had enough since he'd left her the night before.

She pulled her Greek yoghurt and flour from the fridge and made a quick flatbread dough with it. She tried to pretend he wasn't watching her every move from where he had pulled a seat at the kitchen table, but it was difficult. His presence was big even in her farmhouse kitchen. She diced up Roma tomatoes, onions and garlic and mixed them together with salt and let it set while she stretched her dough out on a well seasoned pizza stone. Once her dough was how she wanted it, she put the tomato mixture, and basil leaves on the top and then added little balls of mozzarella on it.

She grabbed a balsamic vinegar from her pantry and then a premade salad dressing with a bowl and prepared to carry all of it, along with plates and silverware and the pizza stone back to the outdoor kitchen.

"Would you like help carrying things?" his quiet tone was back.

"Sure, grab the flatbread if you don't mind." She decided if anything he was good for manual labour.

When they reached the oven, she checked the temperature and nodded when he asked if he should throw it in. She moved to her garden and harvested a handful of lettuces and tiny little tomatoes no bigger than grapes and took them to the outdoor sink and rinsed them out before throwing them in the bowl she'd carried and tossing them in her premade dressing.

She set it on a small bistro table in the corner and then moved to check her flatbread. She waited until it was just starting to char and then pulled it out and drizzled it with the balsamic vinegar and carried it to the table. She waved at him, "help yourself." She used a pizza cutter and sliced the flatbread into manageable slices and slid one along with the greens onto her plate. She didn't wait for him and bit into the hot crust and blew around it as it burned the inside of her mouth.

"I didn't know you could make dough with yoghurt."

"Its not perfect but it does in a pinch when I don't want to wait for the dough I have frozen to thaw. It fills a hole."

"Are we going to talk?" he asked slipping the salad to his plate.

"What is there to talk about?" she spoke with her hand over her mouth as she huffed over the hot food. "I'm not made for your world Addy. I came to this realization last night. I can't be the girl who sits and waits two hours for the bathroom just because you can't be disturbed in your business with an ex."

"I made an error in judgement Arwen. I underestimated how long it would take to deal with her. She was off her damn rocker."

"Again, I asked you if I could go elsewhere and you refused. I politely asked my guard three times, and he made a call, and my request was denied. Do you deny this was ludicrous?"

"I agree the situation was out of the ordinary."

"Why couldn't I come with you?"

His fork paused mid-air at her question, "it was not appropriate."

"A woman is insulting my fiancé and it wasn't appropriate to allow me to have a say or to be part of the discussion?" She waved her fork in the air, "if a man I had slept with was shooting their mouth off would I be permitted to deal with it on my own or would you be jumping in?" she didn't let him answer, "you would be all over him like it was nobody's business. I am more than capable of dealing with a situation like the one which came up last night and instead of recognizing my abilities and strengths you immediately relegated me to a liability who needed to be kept away and protected and it was bullshit."

She could see the words she spoke spinning in his mind, and she continued eating her lunch while he contemplated what she had said. She pushed away from the table and stood up. She disappeared into the house and came back out with a bottle of red wine they had started the day before and two glasses. She sat them on the table and sat back down.

He silently uncorked the bottle and poured them each a deep glass and leaned back in his seat.

"What do you need from me Arwen? How can I make you understand I had not intended to cause you to feel a burden?"

"I don't know." She admitted as she sipped her glass. "I only know I won't let you do it to me again. I won't be going to your casino or resorts or any of your places of work again knowing the way I will be treated."

"This is not what I want," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Mia cara, I want you with me. I am proud to have you on my arm. I want the world to see you there."

"Unless I'm not dressed the way you want or unless you need to deal with an ex." She grabbed another slice of flatbread and tore into it with her teeth angrily. "I think based on your reaction to my clients and the way you behave when I'm at your workplace we should keep our professional lives separate from personal."

"Arwen, this is not acceptable to me."

"I'm sorry Addy but I don't trust you not to pull this again. Your work is always going to come up especially if you're on site. I will never let myself be put in this situation again. I made a promise to be respectful and it stole my dignity. I won't do it again." "Arwen, we need to reach a compromise." He gave a sad smile, "what happened last night was ugly and unfortunate, but I didn't want you to be part of the mess. It was not anything I wanted you to be part of or to witness. We have tried to deal with Bea with kid gloves. I had to get a bit more ruthless more recently but last night I knew it was going to get ugly and I didn't want you part of it."

"I was already part of it. The minute you put a ring on my finger and brought me there you made me part of it and then you rescinded the partnership at your whim without consulting me or considering how it would make me feel."

"What the hell would you have had me do?" he was exasperated and dropped his fork to his plate with a clang.

"Trust me." She said simply. "All you needed to do was trust in me. To trust I would know what to do and to follow your lead when dealing with such things. I'm not some squeamish little girl who can't handle a bit of your world Addy. It doesn't matter what we've been through or what you have been told I'm capable of, you didn't trust me. Instead, you chose to leave me out of it and leave me alone." She made a face, "Isabella told me Cam had a hard time trusting her skills until her saw her in action and yet you've seen me fight and you've seen me shoot, and you still don't trust my abilities to be anything other than your arm candy."

She looked sadly at her empty plate. "I need to clean up."

"Can I say something before you run off again?" he spoke quietly reaching for her left hand across the table and rubbing his thumb over her ring finger. "Yes. Of course."

"I love you. I love you so much and romantic love is not an emotion I'm familiar with. I am learning and I'm going to screw this up badly from time to time, but Arwen I need you. I cannot do better; I cannot be better without you trusting me to be able to learn from my mistakes. I agree I f****d up last night." He rubbed his forehead as if it ached, "in retrospect I should have brought you with us and let you give me guidance on what to do with her Bea. I had called her manager and family in the past and she was relegated to a psych clinic for rehabilitation, but she discharged herself and didn't finish her program. She thinks I ruined her life. I had a few dinner dates and one shitty night with her. Less than two weeks with her and she has started a war with the Cavallaro family over it." "She is mentally ill."

"According to two psychologists and a psychiatrist she is not. She is hyper fixated on revenge because she feels I did her wrong, but she knows exactly what she is doing. It's not drugs or steroids or some diagnosed illness. She's just really pissed off." He gave a self- mocking smile, "she simply hates my guts, Arwen."

"Where is she now?"

"Police station in Atlantic City in their jail hold until one of her family or managers comes to claim her or she makes bail. Its what took so long last night. She's a public figure Arwen. I can't just throw her in one of my cells. We had her arrested outside the casino but the officer in charge wanted me to go with them to press charges and give my statement. I'd rather throw her off the Brooklyn bridge with an anvil around her neck for the pain in the a*s she is but since she has been publicly fouling my name to whoever listens I'm the first person they will finger."

"Not if it's an accident." Arwen considered all the possible ways she could make it look accidental.

"Arwen, one FBI agent shot another, and they still think I had a hand in it." He made a face. "No matter what I am Don Adrianu Cavallaro of la Famiglia Cavallaro. I am always the first and only suspect until I can prove my innocence. There is no innocent until proven guilty in my case. When my hands get dirty, and they do, it's well controlled, well organized and on my terms. I do not take needless risks. Bea is a stupid risk. It is the equivalent of me killing off an FBI agent. It is publicity I don't need. I let my lawyers handle it. She was charged with harassment, stalking, trespassing, and violating a court order since she was ordered in Vegas to keep her distance and she deliberately flew here to interfere in my life."

He stroked her hand again, "Arwen. I am truly from the depths of my soul sorry for leaving you last night. I hadn't considered I would be asked to go to the precinct and once there I couldn't use my phone. I should have left you in a room as you asked or had you come with me. I am not used to having someone other than Santino or Enrique advises me. I should have included you."

She stared at his hand which had captured hers. "It hurt Addy." She admitted quietly, hating how vulnerable she felt. "It hurt so bad for you to follow her out of the room and leave me sitting there like I was some stranger you didn't trust to let in. It wasn't I thought you were going to do something romantic with her, but it hurt you dropped everything to follow her and left me alone. Yet I spoke to a client, a bloody client, and I got hauled away by Enrique like I committed a felony."

"You are right," he said with a squeeze to her hand. "I was wrong Arwen. I promise you; I will do better moving forward but, amore, telling me you don't know if you can do this scares me. I cannot lose you."

"Addy," she looked into his dark eyes, so serious and suspiciously watery, "you made it clear I can't argue with you or tell you how I feel in front of others. Yet you put me in a situation where you stole my voice and took away my freedom to protect my dignity. How do I handle this moving forward? You disrespected me and because I gave my word, I wouldn't do the same to you, we are in this mess. If I can't speak my mind and a situation like this happens again, I," she looked away in frustration. "I can't be half of who I am. You either accept all of me, including the woman who might question your actions when I don't like how I'm being treated regardless of who is around, or I simply cannot be with you anywhere in the public eye." She stood up from the table. "It seems we are back at the beginning of our relationship discussing your rules. I cannot ever disrespect you in public but where does this leave me? I cannot abide by your rule Addy. I don't know what this means for us, but at the very least, I know, I won't publicly be with you again without changes. We are back to the beginning or at the end, I'm not sure which is it but either way, all I know, is it hurts."

She left him sitting there as she collected the dishes and walked away, her spine straight, her head held high and her eyes dry.