“You’re insane,” she said. “You don’t have that kind of money.”
“Ask your uncle if you’re not sure,” I said and turned my back on her. I wondered if she’d try to throw the bottle at me. I figured I’d find out as I walked toward the door.
“This is crazy, you know that, right?” she asked. “You’re a total stranger.”
“I’m aware,” I said, pausing with my hand on the knob. “But I need your father’s help and I like the way you kiss. Besides, it might be fun.”
I left the room and caught one final lingering image of her glaring murder at me, like a panther unleashed in a hen house.
Roy sat on the stairs at the end of the hallway. He struggled to his feet, smiling and dabbing at his forehead. “What’d you think?” he asked.
“That girl hates my fucking guts,” I said.
His face fell slightly. “I told her to be good.”
“She was,” I said. “But she still hates me. What were you thinking?”
“She’ll come around,” he said, his face going dark, and I grimaced. I didn’t like the way he glared down the hall, and I could only imagine what Roy’s idea of making her come around was.
“Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop it,” I said angrily. “I made her an offer. If she wants to accept it, then we can make this deal happen. Otherwise, I won’t force her.”
“She’s got no say,” Roy said. “She’s nobody.”
“She’s your fucking niece,” I said, walking past him. “Tell her the offer stands. Tell her I’m good for it. She’ll decide on her own.”
I left him alone there. I hoped he wouldn’t do something drastic to the girl.
She fascinated me. I never met someone with so much anger before and so willing to tell me straight to my face how she felt. That, combined with the kiss, made me want to tear her clothes off right then and there.
Fuck, she was gorgeous. I knew Roy would try to force her, but I figured my offer would sweeten the deal enough for her to come around on her own regardless. I didn’t know her at all, and our marriage would be for political reasons, but maybe I could learn to like being with her.
At the very least, I could make her learn to like it, nice and slow, starting with our wedding night.
I returned to my father’s office—now my office—and sat down behind the desk to plan.
2
Mags
Uncle Roy ripped clothes from my closet and threw them on my bed. “Pack, you ungrateful bitch,” he snapped. “Do you have any idea what you’ve been offered? Dean Valentino’s going to pay you to be his wife. There are women in this city that would die for a chance like that, and you’re going to take it.”
I stood on the other side of the room and clenched and unclenched my hands into fists, trying to keep myself calm. I breathed in deep and slowly let it out, focusing on the way my lungs slowly deflated.
Otherwise, I’d jump across the room and rip Uncle Roy’s face off. Having him in here was a violation.
I didn’t have a lot in my life, less than a lot of people my age, but at least I had my own bed in my own room. My father and I had an agreement: nothing else in this world was mine, but this space was my safe space.
Now Uncle Roy trampled all over that hard-won safety, and I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.
“I’m not a whore,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice level. “You do understand that, right?”
“Nobody said you have to fuck him,” Uncle Roy grunted. “Just marry him.”
“How is that different? He’s going to want things from me.”
They always wanted things from me.
“And you’ll give him whatever you can to keep him happy,” Uncle Roy said. “Ten years and you’ll walk with ten million. Get him to put it in writing, you stupid girl. Make sure he can’t screw you, or else you’ll be thirty-five and alone with no skills and that young body of yours will be soft and flabby, and nobody’s going to want to have you then.”
“Jesus,” I said, throwing my hands up. My breathing techniques were not cutting it right now. “I’m your niece. What the hell is wrong with you?”
He showed his teeth. “Pack your bags,” he said, and left the room.
I stood there seething, staring at the pile of clothes on my bed, and tried to picture what my life would be like if I actually went through with this.
The wife of the mafia Don. I’d be in danger every waking hour—but that wouldn’t be so different from the way things were now. My mother married a mafia bastard and she paid the ultimate price one day when I was ten years old. Caught in the crossfire, took bullets meant for my father, and died bleeding on the sidewalk in front of our house.
I never forgot the look on her face, pale and terrified and in so much pain.
After my mother’s murder, my dad turned to drinking. He wasn’t so bad before, but the alcohol turned him into a fucking asshole. I used to look forward to school just to get out of the house. As soon as I graduated, he put me to work in one of his strip clubs—his own fucking daughter, working at a strip club—but fortunately I was tending bar and not taking off my clothes. I learned a lot about life in that place though, and spent a lot of time talking to the girls that came and went, some of them strung out, some of them world-weary and dealing with so many issues they’d lost count.
I never wanted to be like that. Used up and broken.
Though some of those strippers had their shit together and were just smart enough to use whatever they had to get by in this unjust, fucked-up world.
Maybe I could be like them. Like Monique—she was going
