Roses & Ruin

Chapter 97 (Lexi)

Moving is a pain in the ass. Anthony told me I could hire people to handle it for us, but that's absurd when I have the means to do it myself, and for far less money. I guess one good thing about Anthony having a lot of goddamn friends and family is that they helped us move the big furniture to the new apartment.

We could have settled on a much fancier place than we did, and that was under my recommendation. The place is still beautiful. It's just under a rent number I can afford, mostly afford.

Anthony made it known that money isn't an obstacle, but I made it known that I fully intend on taking care of myself.

Marriage didn't mean I took his money. He's well off, and I'm not, and we'll have to find a balance to that. I'm more well off than I was, since draining Vitaly's account, but I want to be smart with the money, I won't jump to spend it all.

Anyways, the apartment is an ideally located historic brownstone. The floor-through 1 bedroom features gorgeous details with thoughtful modest touches. When you enter, you see the impressive 10 foot ceilings, exposed bricks, custom woodwork, and a decorative fireplace. There is a bookshelf built into the wall, and that was my selling point for the place.

We said we'd get a two bedroom, and I fully intended on it, but one thing led to another and this place was great, and now we're sharing a bedroom...

        There are southern facing bay windows, which gives a lot of light to this front room. Connected to the living room is an updated kitchen featuring all the stainless steel shit you'd want in your kitchen, dishwasher included.

It's pretty damn hard to find apartments with dishwashers and washing machines in NYC, but we managed it with this place. Another great selling point.

As you make your way down the hall the washer is in a side room, and the bathroom apart from that, but it leads you to the king sized bedroom, which is wrapped in really cool exposed brick. The windows overlook these brownstones gardens.

        Another great selling point is the two extra large closets attached to the bedroom. No more storing my shit on racks, making everything messy. Now I can hide my mess with a proper door. Anthony is a clean freak, so this will be interesting.

For right now not everything was in its place. Things like the mattress was on the floor right now over an area rug since we ordered a new bed, which hasn't arrived yet. We'll call it phase one of moving in.

        Tonight we laid out on the mattress that was currently on the floor, and we just hung out for a bit to decompress from a hectic day. Anthony was on his elbow, body rolled to the side to hover over me. I saw the tattoo on his inner bicep and finally decided to ask what it all meant. I could see they were Roman numerals. I just didn't get what they were about.

I was surprised when I saw some form of hesitation after I asked this question.

Anthony kind of sat up and rubbed the back of his neck, which always makes his arm muscles flex heavenly. "You don't have to tell me" I back tracked. I mean I know before we said no personal questions, but that was before either of us knew the other had ties to the mob, and definitely before we were legally married.

"No, it's not...it's just something I've never actually told anyone before" he admitted, which got my full attention. I sat up in bed and watched him fidget with the thin sheet below us. I was in a tank and undies only, and he'd been enjoying that fact when his hands had been all over me.

Now he felt distant. I was about to let him off the hook for a second time before he started talking right over me.

        "Remember I told you about the day my father got arrested, and my mother too?" He asked me. How could I forget? The police raided his house and knocked him to the ground with guns pointed at his head. He was just a teenager.