Trapped by the Mafia

9. Scali's Surprise

In the past, corsets cinched the waist and had grommets and ties that would be pulled tight, squeezing the midsection.

***

The hair stands on my arms, because my home has been violated in my absence. The place isn't trashed, Scali wouldn't stoop so low, but the spicy scent touches my nostrils. Carnations, of course, it's bloody carnations!

I turn around the kitchenette, because my condo is laid out in a straightforward progression of kitchenette-bed-window. Probably so that the tenant could unlock the door, despair and toss themselves out of the window in under ten steps. So long as they are careful not to smack into the blind wall of the adjacent building...

Today, I suppress this impulse because on my bed...oh my God! My mouth stands ajar, my door is ajar, and my keys are squeezed tightly in my fist. My heart does somersaults in my chest worthy of the Olympic gymnast Simone Biles.

Scali! Or Matteo Scali, or Matty the Trigger, call him what you want, but he noticed my existence. He cared enough to break into my apartment and cover my modest double bed with carnations. A thousand white petals spell the same message: Matteo always gets what he wants.

As an urban explorer, I'm a serial trespasser. O the irony of someone letting themselves into my place! The queasiness it gives me and the chills! It's poetic justice, duh.

On the professional level, I'm impressed by Scali's mastery. The locks on the doors and the windows are intact. Scali straightened the blanket I left kicked to the foot of the bed when I woke up this morning, but he didn't tuck it in, lazy butt. My pillow rests in the dead-center of the bed, of the entire apartment, or maybe even the universe, surrounded by flowers. It's like a grave marker... No.

No! I can't let my squirrelly mind go there, or we never climb out of that rabbit hole. I'll focus on my cell phone—I have it back!—and a package wrapped in gift paper.

And the carnations, omigod, those pure white carnations! Not a single one that has as much as a speck of color. There must be dozens of them, hundreds! A million! There are tiny spray carnations, like lace; the dwarf ones that have dozens of buds on one stem; finally, the giant ones—the kind I used to send him my 'Screw you, Scali!' message.

Matteo must have taken some poor florist for all they were worth in carnations for his reply.

I didn't know men could do things like that in 2017, but I grab a handful of flowers and press them to my chest, inhaling the one-of-a-kind scent. How could anyone clandestinely bring this bounty into my eighth-floor apartment... and, God, I hope he didn't use the stinky elevator to do it.

Matteo probably did. He has seen how I live in squalor... Matteo who dresses at Brioni, drives a Lamborghini and worships expensive stuff.

Flowers spill from my arms, as they hang by my sides. Oh, God.

That's when I realize that a few carnations were already on the floor. Was it Scali's attempt at art, or did my mafia elf drop them in a hurry to get out, because he heard the elevator?

Did he get out?

"Scali?"

The perfumed air of my apartment stays mum.

What do you expect, Bryn? Scali to jump out of your closet in the buff?

The image makes my next call sound like I'm cow in heat. "Matteooo?"

Silence is thick. He's not here, and I'm alone. Who's going to wait in my depression-inciting headquarters?

Shivering and sniffling, I collect the flowers into every cooking pot I own, because I never bring work home, so I don't own a vase.