Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
With that, I lowered down.
Her movements were tentative, but a half-surprised, half-delighted squeal escaped her as I jumped to my feet the way I always did with my niece, making her cling more tightly and let out a laugh.
I was just disappointed that I couldn’t see her smile.
I paused in the living room to awkwardly leash the dog before we moved out onto the steps as a unit.
And I tried to ignore the way her arms and legs tightened around me, how her face turned into my neck.
And how right it felt.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Alara
I didn’t cry.
Almost as a rule.
I was stubborn about it, even when I knew there would be a catharsis to just let it out, I fought back the tears.
It had to come from my childhood. From watching my parents get extorted. And when they couldn’t pay, no matter how empty our fridge was, how many luxuries and essentials we went without, seeing my father bloodied and bruised.
Then, worse, when he was gone, and the threats turned to my mother. Until my sister sacrificed herself in marriage to one of the monsters, believing his word that he would leave us alone to run the stupid laundromat in peace.
Only to go behind her back and continue the threats, the violence.
I don’t think my mother or I ever told Ezmeray the depths of hell those in-laws of hers put us through. Not just the constant financial squeeze. But the threats. The violence—a sharp slap across my face, a bruise to my mother’s eye. And, because I wasn’t a little girl anymore, the lingering gazes, the roaming hands, the whispered propositions in my ear when my mother was out of the room.
“If you meet me back at my place, I can shave off a couple hundred.” All the while his breath was hot on my seventeen-year-old neck, his hand was closing over my boob or slipping between my thighs.
What good were tears in that world?
All the sadness would do was weaken me.
So I balled it up inside, molded it, shaped it into something more useful: anger.
Because I could use rage.
I could harness it.
I could wear it like a shield.
And maybe that was why this attack hit me so hard.
Because all the years I’d spent hardening myself couldn’t protect me. My associations with the mob didn’t stop someone from putting his hands on me.
Suddenly, I felt like that little girl all over again. Hiding in the bathroom, fighting back the tears, promising myself that if he touched me again, I’d cut off his hands.
So it was shocking how quickly the tears came out of me when I found myself in Christopher’s arms.
Some part of me wanted to say it was just the hug itself. Because I wasn’t someone who allowed that kind of intimacy. Sure, there were hugs with my sister, with my niblings, with some of the extended family. But they were quick things. Just an expression of affection. Not for comfort.
Everything about Christopher, though, felt like comfort to me. Like a place I could feel safe.
Sure, I tried to rationalize it. He was the one who found me, who took care of me, who’d been gentle with me.
I knew it was more than that, though.
Whether he was willing to admit it or not, there was just some sort of flame between us. Not a spark. That wasn’t right. It was deeper than that. More like… like the slow, crackling fire of a hearth at home. That was what it felt like to be close to him. Like home.
But that was ridiculous.
So I let myself believe I was just in pain and overwrought feelings, nothing personal.
By the time he lowered me down from the piggyback ride, though, it was easy to pretend nothing at all had happened in that bathroom.
It was a short ride to Salvatore’s clinic. I’d gotten detailed descriptions of it from Brio and Ezmeray, but I was bouncing in my seat at the idea of getting to see it myself.
A mob doctor?
Who wouldn’t be excited?
Okay, a lot of people, probably. But for this woman who’d been orbiting the mafia since I was a teenager, it felt like Christmas morning.
“Can you take the dog?” Christopher asked when Brio opened my door.
He didn’t get a chance to agree. Tuna lunged over me and out the door, making Brio take off at a run to grab his leash. Thankfully, Tuna was short-legged. And lazy. He sat down before he got to the corner.
Before I could even try to slide out, I felt Christopher snag me around the waist and drag me across the seat.
“I feel like a child who was throwing a tantrum in the store,” I said as my legs flailed in the air when he got to his feet on the sidewalk.
“I forgot to get you shoes,” he said, walking awkwardly toward the doorstep, where he dropped me on the railing so he could scoop me up.