AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The smile drops from his face and his eyes turn black. “What are you talking about?”
They all seem so obsessed with my virginity. It makes me wish I’d lost it years ago.
“Let’s get one thing straight. This,” he says, grasping my throat with one hand and pushing the satin of my dress between my legs and cupping my pussy with the other, “is mine, and don’t you fucking forget it. Now, do as you’re told.”
He releases me with a push and I go out into the hall where my father is waiting. He has a nasty, expectant expression and I want nothing more than to scream and try to hit him again.
“I’m sorry I asked Salvatore to harm you,” I say, forcing the hateful words over my lips. Dad doesn’t react. He just goes on staring at me.
I glance at Salvatore and he makes ago ongesture.
My mouth fills with an acrid taste. “I respect your authority in this house. I’ll be an obedient daughter from now on.”
Dad glances at Salvatore and drawls, “Nice work, Fiore. You pulled my daughter right back into line.”
“It’s what I do,” Salvatore replies, and his smirk prickles up my spine. They’re talking about me like I’m a naughty child.
Anger surges through me so strong that I can feel my ankles trembling in my high heels. Before I can fall apart in front of these two hateful men, I turn and walk up the stairs and into the solitude of my bedroom.
I grab a pillow off my bed and scream into it until I can’t breathe. I want him dead. I want himdead. It’s obscene that he gets to walk around smiling and living while Mom lays butchered in a cold grave. No one cares that her killer roams free. Not the police, not the people of Coldlake who professed to love their mayoress so much, and not Salvatore Fiore, who gets exactly what he wants now that Mom’s not standing in his way.
Salvatore’s not going to get what he wants if I have anything to say about it, and neither is Dad.
I take off my makeup with a cotton pad and give my teeth a swift brush before crawling into bed and hauling the covers up over my head. I want to give into a long bout of angry sobbing. I can feel the tears crowding at the back of my throat, ready to burst forth in a great storm of pain. For Mom. For myself.
But tears don’t solve anything. I can’t expect anyone to fix my life for me. I swallow them down, and use their pain to hone my focus.
I can’t reason with people who are power-hungry and ruthless, and I can’t offer something that they could easily take for themselves. Salvatore has power, and knows how to leverage it. I just have to discover my own power, and then use it to get what I want.
* * *
One monthlater
“So I told Mr. Spears, if he doesn’t let me do extraextracredit, then my father will come down to this school. That changed his mind.”
With a glossy acrylic nail, Rosaline cracks open a can of diet soda and takes a sip.
The other two girls nod approvingly and tell Rosaline that she’s absolutely right to fight for her grades when it’s her future on the line.
As I take a bite out of my tuna sandwich, I notice someone staring at me from across the cafeteria.
Nicole. Her expression is a mix of longing and apprehension. We haven’t talked since she dumped me as a friend. She glances at the girls I’m sitting with, and her lips press together with disapproval.
I chew with difficulty and swallow the bite of sandwich. I didn’t set out to make new friends. Rosaline, Sophia and Candace gravitated toward me. Welcomed me. Took away my crushing loneliness. I always thought of them as smart girls, but too edgy for me. They talk back to teachers and will shred anyone in the halls who bumps into them or dares to catcall them in the street.
They’re tough. These days, I respect that.
Rosaline is the daughter of the head croupier at Salvatore’s biggest casino. Sophia’s mom is head of PR for his restaurants, and Candace’s father is a financial manager at one of Salvatore’s companies.
“I should see Mr. Spears about extra credit as well,” I mutter, putting my sandwich down. Thinking about my grades and why they’re so awful this year has made me lose my appetite.
The three of them tell me that’s a good idea and start brainstorming how to persuade all my teachers to give me extra work to bump up my grades, which makes me smile. They’re all beautiful, and they’re whip-smart and competitive about grades and colleges. I think I would have let my brain turn to mush and given up at school if it weren’t for them.
Lunch ends, and we all hurry off to our different classes. I sit beside Sophia in Italian class as we fill out verb worksheets. My pen writes automatically but my mind is drifting. For a member of the mafia, Salvatore has a strong corporate presence. So does Cassius. Vinicius and Lorenzo, who knows what the hell those two get up to. I suppose that’s what makes Salvatore so successful. He has a veneer of legitimacy, which makes him untouchable. There are many people in this city who are afraid of him, but many more who respect and admire him.
After school, the four of us grab our bags and head out the school gates. As we walk through the parking lot, I notice a boy leaning against a black Cadillac Escalade in a leather jacket with his arms folded, watching us.
No, watching me. And smiling.
