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She paused with my dress and said, “Don’t you hate that I’m worth less than a dog pumping out puppies?” Again, she wasn’t yelling, she didn’t even sound mad, just curious. “Don’t you hate being abused, raped, and tortured? You can do something about it. You’re in the position. People think you’re the Pavoni Princess.” She gripped my dress, pulling me closer with her excitement. Her face glowed with the eagerness of a child learning of Santa.
My brows caved. Abused. Raped. Tortured. That had been Gabby’s life but it wasn’t really mine. Things were dark and twisted and fucked up between the Beast and me, but it wasn’t what Gabby thought.
“Gabby…” I opened my mouth to try to clarify, but I realized I wouldn’t even know where to start. She looked at me expectantly and I remembered the night she’d come to see me, the night she’d cried about Levi. “Gabby how are you? How is Levi?” I tried to turn around and see her but she had already returned to steadfastly going at my dress.
“There’s nothing to say. Levi and I are finished.” Her voice sounded cold and foreign, as if even she didn’t recognize the words coming out of her mouth.
“Are you certain that’s what you want?” In the short time I’d known Gabby, the only happiness I’d seen from her was when she’d been with Levi.
“If he keeps seeing me he’ll die. He won’t run away from this life, not ever.” I tried to turn around and see her, to comfort her, but she went back to doing my dress. Growing frustrated, I slapped her hand away.
“I don’t want to be naked in his fucking bed.”
She dropped her hand. “If he thinks you guys had sex he won’t be suspicious about what happened.” There wasn’t any anger in her tone, not even confidence. She spoke the words as if repeating a mantra.
I grasped the dress to my chest as it fell. “No.” Tears came to my eyes. “We haven’t had sex. It’s fine. He won’t be suspicious.” I mean, we’d had sex, but not since the night. He hadn’t entered me with his cock since the very first night. There was a part inside of me, like a butterfly with holes in its wings trying to fly, that thought maybe he was waiting, thought maybe he wished he hadn’t taken me that way.
And maybe he was waiting for me to give him the okay.
But if I did this, all of that would be shattered, because he would think I had given him the okay, and if that happened, I don’t think I could hold myself back.
Gabby scooted so she was next to me. “Look at the photo. Really look at it.” She handed it to me. It was in black and white, an old Polaroid, but it was clearly my mother. I recognized her from the one photo my dad had given me.
“That’s my mother. So what?” Without responding, she handed me the second photo. I saw my mother and the same older-looking man with a hard, square face, but I also saw me. I recognized little me very clearly from old school photos.
“That’s you right?” I nodded wordlessly. “Both photographs were found in Lucio Pavoni’s home, the Boss of the Pavoni family.” My eyes widened. I gave her the photos back. I knew what she wanted me to say. She wanted me to say I was the Pavoni Princess. I couldn’t.
I had to leave.
I had a bag half packed in the other room.
I couldn’t be a princess.
But as I handed her the photos back, I knew I wasn’t going to leave now. I had already felt tethered before, but now Gabby had just revealed something invaluable. I had always felt like there were pieces of me missing. I’d just chalked that up to life, because I thought most people had pieces of them missing.
But Gabby was showing me how to get those pieces back. I couldn’t just leave.
“It could be nothing…” The way she trailed off indicated she didn’t believe it was nothing. “But there’s a growing faction in the Pavonis that really believe in you. They do. Nikolai is one of them.” I narrowed my eyes. Nikolai was a slave like me, had been a slave for almost ten years if my math was correct, and he owed no allegiance to the Pavonis. I doubted he believed I was some long lost savior—but he was making this happen.
I just wasn’t sure why.
“If you’re wrong about me….” I shook my head.
“I’m not.” She stood up and walked to the door, but paused and turned back. I lifted my head, waiting for her. “Look,” she said, hand on the knob. “Girl to girl, prisoner to slave, I understand if you want to run away. I’m not going to be upset, I get it, but I thought you needed to know that you could be a princess.” I held the dress tighter to my body, watching her leave.
I stopped her just before she left, though, and asked her a question—a question that had been bugging me like a sore tooth. The moment she answered, I wished I hadn’t. I couldn’t sleep the entire night. I stared out the window, watching the way the snow glistened, even in the dark.
The sun rose high over the skyscrapers. I hadn’t seen my birth certificate but my mother (or was it “mother”?) had a memory box where she kept things like baby shoes and paintings, pictures and the like. When she died, so did the memory box. I’d been three at the time.
But what if it was possible what they were saying was true?
What if Mom was some fake and there was another woman out there, some biological one? Would I love her more than the one that made a box for my baby shoes? How could I? She had abandoned m
e to this life, the life of a semi-motherless mafia princess.
Francesca Notte didn’t exist… I glanced over to my right where Beast was moving more. He was groaning slightly, moving his arms above his head. He opened his eyes and stared right at me. At first he looked surprised, then a slow smile crept over his lips. He grabbed me, pulling me to him, and slid on top of me. His erection was hard at my thigh.
I don’t want to sing this song to you.
