I nearly drop it as my dinner comes all the way up to my throat. Somehow, I manage to fight the urge long enough to tuck the finger back inside the straw bed. Then I rush to my bathroom and throw up my guts into the toilet.
Once my stomach is empty and the shaking has stopped, I work up the courage to go back into the kitchen. How is it possible to go from such a high—to this?
Violently, I grab the box that’s still sitting on the kitchen counter. I’m gonna call that fucking company and give them a piece of my—
Oh, God. That’s when I spot the name on the front of the box. Not Alyssa Walsh.
But Uri Bugrov.
In my fear of being caught, I must have grabbed the wrong package. Which means I’ve not only trespassed on Uri’s private property, I’ve also stolen Uri’s private property.
Apparently, all those rumors circulating about Uri are well-deserved because I know one thing for sure: normal people don’t receive fingers in the mail.
I draw in a sharp breath when I realize something else—I just had sex with the kind of man who gets severed fingers in the mail.
I am so screwed.
“What do I do?” I ask myself out loud as I pace up and down the narrow galley kitchen. “What do I do?” I look down at the rose gold Z that dangles from my bracelet. “What would you do?”
Ziva would have been proactive about this. She wouldn’t have just waited around for stuff to happen to her. She would have acted. Which is what I need to do.
I stare at my freezer. First things first, I need to get rid of that damn finger.
The only thing I can think to do is put it back in its box and throw it over the fence, back onto Uri’s property. That way, I can wash my hands clean of this whole situation and pretend like it never happened… right?
I have a feeling it’s not gonna be nearly that easy.
Of course, the other option is calling the police. But I have no idea who Uri Bugrov really is. Clearly. And I have no idea what he’s capable of. Although seeing that finger has made it a little clearer.
Come on, Alyssa. Think.
While I’m thinking, I shove the box inside my freezer, because a nanosecond more of smelling that rotting flesh scent will make me combust.
When it’s hidden out of sight, I can finally breathe again. For a split second, I consider calling Elle. But I nix that idea almost immediately. She’s planning a wedding. She doesn’t need to have me ruin her premarital bliss with talk of severed body parts and hot neighbors who might very well have mob affiliations that could come back to bite me in the ass.
This is why you don’t go outside your comfort zone, Alyssa. You could end up touching body parts. And not in the good way. Well, not only in the good way…
“Think,” I snap at myself, staring at the box on the counter. “Just—”
Knock-knock-knock.
I let out a mousy squeal. It looks like Lady Consequence has arrived to take her pound of flesh. There’s no way that’s not Uri. And there’s no way he’s showing up at my doorstep, minutes after we’ve said goodbye, simply because he can’t get enough of my company.
This is something else.
This is about the finger in my freezer.
I drop the tongs in the trash with my heartbeat thudding in my throat and then make a slow, slow, agonizingly slow turn towards the front door. Should I go answer it or should I just ignore it?
Knock-knock-knock. Whoever it is that’s here does not have patience as one of their virtues.
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath.
I take another deep breath and head towards my front door, all the while hoping that, no matter what happens, I get to keep all my fingers where they are.
7
URI
She practically ran out of my house.
The plan was not to stand there and watch her go. But it was harder than I expected not to watch for peeks of Alyssa’s skin amidst the torn flaps of her leggings.
I didn’t know women like her still existed. That innocent? That feisty? A dying breed, for sure.
But she’s just a few hundred yards away.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen her, of course. It’s just that she barely registered until tonight. Up until a few hours ago, Alyssa Walsh was nothing but a faceless neighbor with a boring life.
I wonder if she’d be better off if I still thought of her that way. The cat is out of the bag now—the orange cat, specifically—but there’s almost no denying that her life, now that she’s caught my eye, is about to get a hell of a lot more complicated.
When my phone rings, I pick it up without checking to see who’s calling. I’ve still got the sounds of Alyssa’s moans echoing through my head. “Yes?”