Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry.” My limbs turn to Jell-O as the footage moves away from my son. “I haven’t slept, and my mind slipped. I won’t do it again. I promise. Just another minute. Please, Edoardo.”
“No.” His voice is flat and final.
“Please—”
“No!” His bark is so loud that it startles Gabriele.
My heart breaks when his wail sounds through my phone speaker, but instead of his father consoling him, he walks away, leaving the task to a nanny too old to understand the needs of a child his age.
“I’m sorry.” My words are only audible to me, but I project them at Gabriele.
I feel lost watching my son cry in a room he doesn’t know I help pay for. I should be there, wiping his tears and teaching him how to blow his nose. Being made to sit on the sidelines after one mistake, despite twenty-five years of perfection, is cruel.
I’m his mother, goddamn it!
I have rights.
Well, I would have if he weren’t born in the Cosa Nostra.
There, my feelings mean nothing. Rights? Ha! They’re reserved solely for the men.
Sparks of hope filter through the blackness when Edoardo’s abhorrent face fills my phone screen. He isn’t ugly. His chiseled cheekbones, panty-destroying smile, and dark, turbulent locks drew me to him long before his suave and prestigious nature.
I just can no longer see past his rotten insides to admire his finer points. He’s so heinous that bile burns my throat when interest flares in his eyes as he takes in the blush no amount of anger could remove from my cheeks.
I’m disgusted when he says, “Looking good, Cici. How have you—”
“I’ll call at the right time next deposit,” I interrupt, uninterested in a conversation.
Words won’t fix the mistakes he’s made, and I’ll never be desperate enough to see if there are other ways to make amends.
My thumbs suspend halfway to the end call button when Edoardo says, “If you make early payments like the one you deposited this morning, I may be willing to consider biweekly video chats.”
“Really?” The word bursts out of me, too bright and too desperate.
He jerks up his chin, his smirk predatory. “Though I might need to request a change in scenery.”
I peer behind me, assuming he’s referencing the dumps I usually call him from.
I have it all wrong.
“Hoodies are below you, Cici.” I swallow the vomit racing up my throat when he sneers, “Find something strapless, and then we’ll talk.”
He doesn’t want me strapless.
He wants me topless.
It’s a fight, but I manage a reply. Just. “I’ll see what I can find.”
His smile makes me ill. Then the call ends.
The silence afterward is deafening. I slowly lower the phone before flopping back on the mattress. My dramatic flop slips more than the tips I made tonight from the pocket of my backpack. A credit card falls along with them.
Frowning, I pick it up and flip it over, seeking the name of its owner. I’ve never had a bank account in my name, so there’s no way I’d own a black AMEX.
Dante Caruso, I read off the card.
Caruso? Fuck.
Their name is well known in the Cosa Nostra. It’s expected considering they’re at the top rung of the ladder in Cosa Nostra rankings.
I must have taken Dante’s card by accident with the money he paid me for extras. For a brief second, I consider being as corrupt as Edoardo, but then I remember Dante is an innocent in this. He doesn’t deserve to be used any more than I do.
So instead, I slide his card under my pillow, hopeful keeping it close will weaken the hurt surging through me, and then I slip beneath the sheets. Sunlight spills through the only window of my apartment, but I snuggle in anyway. My eyes are burning, and I won’t land a job with dark circles around them, so I might as well get a few hours of sleep.
As I close my eyes, the buzz of the past hectic twenty-four hours finally fades, and my dreams feature more than one dimple-blemished grin.
Chapter 9
Lucia
Aweek passes in a blur of exhaustion, cheap instant noodles, and the constant disappointment of “thanks, but no thanks” for every position I apply for. I’ve barely slept. Each night, I lie awake, counting the cracks in the paint of my studio while waiting for the failure weighing down my limbs to shift.
It never does.
The past week has been a constant stream of disappointments.
There was only one positive.
When a strip club called with an interview offer, I almost dropped my phone. The club is an hour’s commute from Carlisle, but if the wages on the website are right, the pay per set will more than make up for the inconvenience.
All strip clubs look different in daylight. There are less neon and shadows. The sign outside sputters weakly, as tired of pretending to be glamorous as I am. When I push through the unguarded door, the metallic tang of the stage lights warming up wafts into my nose.