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“Call it what you want.”
“I saw that girl with her mouth stuffed full of my husband’s cock more than without it.”
She’s looking away like she’s reminiscing, like it’s a fond memory.
“He’d make me prepare her for him. Make me shave her pussy the way he liked. Wash her. Make me watch him fuck her. But in exchange, I disciplined her as I saw fit.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “Boredom.”
“Were you jealous of my aunt? Is that why you hate us?”
She studies me, calculating her cruelty, measuring the destruction of her words.
“Maybe. Maybe I was jealous of his affection for her. The tenderness he showed her after her sessions with me. But not jealous that he’d rather fuck her than me. I don’t need a man. I never have.”
“Yet you live with three of them, and from what I see, Sebastian rules.”
Any suggestion of a smile vanishes. She gets up, comes toward me, stands inches from me.
“Did you know he didn’t have to do this? Didn’t have to take a Willow Girl?”
I set my jaw, hold her gaze.
She’s a liar. I know that.
“He chose this. He can stop it at any time even. It’s his right. Yet he chooses not to. He chooses to keep you here under his thumb. Chooses to continue the tradition of passing you down from one brother to the next to the next. He chooses this for you.”
“I don’t believe you.” It’s not true. It’s not. He has no choice. If he didn’t do it, Ethan would get his turn.
“I don’t care what you believe. Truth is still truth. And it all just comes down to one thing. Money. He releases you from your obligation, and he forfeits his place as head of the Scafoni family. He loses everything. Sad little world we live in, isn’t it, when money is worth more than a human life?”
She sets her long fingernail under my chin and raises it a little. We’re eye to eye.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want, Willow Girl. I’m actually here to give you a letter that came earlier.” She gestures to the dresser where she’d dropped what she was reading when I came inside. “Got here two days after your arrival. Must have slipped Sebastian’s mind to deliver it.”
I see victory in her eyes, and I think about our notches, Sebastian and me. I think Lucinda would win this one. I know it before I even see what’s inside the letter.
I walk away from her, pick up the letter and envelope. It’s addressed to me, and I recognize the handwriting. It’s from my sister, Amy.
I check the postmark, and she’s right. It arrived when she said it did.
My heart races. I know it’s bad news. I know it before I turn it over to read it.
“Luckily, I found it in his trash can and fished it out. I thought you should have it.”
I open the sheet, see the few lines of Amy’s note. Watch the newspaper clipping fall to the floor.
“There’s a boat waiting for you. Remy will take you to the airport. Flight leaves in two hours. You get one chance to get out of here, Willow Girl. Don’t fuck it up, and don’t let anyone see you.” She digs into her pocket. A moment later, she sets a passport, I assume mine, on the table by the door.
“Why would you help me?”
“I’m not helping you. I’m helping myself.”
She then walks out, and her words trickle in slowly as I read Amy’s note. And as I bend to pick up the clipping, a tear blots the ink.20Sebastian“You need to watch your girl,” Gregory says as he takes a seat across from me in my office. “She’s going to get herself into trouble.”
“Saw the marks you left on her wrist.”
“She bruises easily. What’s the vitamin that’s missing if you bruise easily? Maybe it’s because she doesn’t eat meat.”
“Don’t be a dick, Greg.”
He scratches the back of his neck. “I want a piece, Sebastian.”
“No.”
“Why not? It won’t be the first time we shared a girl. Hell, you practically offered her the other night.”
“I said no.” I move my hands onto my lap, feel them fist. I can’t read what he’s thinking. My younger brother is too good at masking his thoughts. I know growing up he had to be, but it’s not how we are, he and I.
“What’s changed?” he asks.
“I’m keeping her, Gregory. That’s what’s changed.”
He studies me for a long time, then nods. Gets up. Without a word on what I just said, he walks out of my office. I watch him go, and I know it’s not going to be this easy. No fucking way, not with him.
I get up and head upstairs to Lucinda’s room. I knock. A moment later, I hear her call to enter. I do.
