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I lift my head and frown. She doesn’t sound normal, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s choked up with tears. “What’s wrong?”
“Lazzaro, something terrible has happened. Come quickly.”
6
Mia
“Iheard a rumor about you, Miss Mia Bianchi.”
The hackles stand up on my neck as I hear the sneering voice behind me. I don’t need to turn around to know that it’s Trent Scorsese, one of my ex’s friends. Before I started dating Connor, Trent made it obvious that he was interested in me, and when I picked his friend, he turned into a salty little bitch.
I keep walking, concentrating on heading home. School just finished, and I’m in a terrible mood after thinking about one thing and one thing only all day.
My stepfather.
I wish I could cringe over our terrible behavior. That, I could probably live with. Instead, I’m remembering the intense way he looked at me in the private room at the strip club, both hands clenched tight on the seat of his chair like he was holding on for dear life.
Bambi, I want to kiss you so much.
“I saidI heard a rumor about you, Mia,” Trent calls louder.
I waft a lazy hand over my shoulder, not bothering to turn around. “Yeah, yeah. You’re obsessed with me. Play another song, Trent.”
He jogs ahead of me, turns around and walks backward so I have to look at his face. He raises his eyebrows once, twice. “Something about you in a certain club.”
My steps falter on the sidewalk. He knows I’m a stripper? Or he knows about me and Laz? How? I mean, Laz was drawing enough attention to us in the club trying to pull me off stage and then hauling me out over his shoulder, but I didn’t think anyone from school was there at the time.
Trent has noticed my expression and his face lights up. “So, it’s true. I hear there’s even a picture going around, but I can’t seem to get a hold of it.”
That probably means it’s not going around, just the story that there was a photo. If the photo was in circulation, I would have seen it by now.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Trent grins, having the time of his life at my expense. “You sure? I heard Mia Bianchi knows how to work every pole in town.” He makes a fist next to his face and pushes his tongue into his cheek, miming a blow job, like his double meaning wasn’t obvious already.
A black car pulls up beside us and coasts along at walking pace. I can’t see the driver but a tattooed hand wearing silver rings is clenched on the gear shift.
Trent goes on mocking me. “C’mon, how much for a dance? Twenty? Ten? I hear that pussy is going cheap.”
The engine cuts out. A door slams. A huge, angry man dressed in black with blazing green eyes stalks straight over to Trent, grabs him by the throat, and slams him into the nearest brick wall.
In a voice burning with hellfire, Laz seethes, “What the fuck did you just say to her?”
Trent is too shocked to reply to the huge, angry man suddenly towering over him. That, or he can’t speak because Laz is gripping his throat so hard.
I grab Laz’s other hand before he can drive his fist into Trent’s face. “Laz, that’s enough. Let go of him.”
But Laz doesn’t hear me. Or won’t.
“Listen up, you sad little dribble of cum. Spread this around that school of yours. If anyone,anyone, so much as looks sideways at Mia, let alone spews the filth at her that just came out of your mouth, I will personally take them apart.”
Red-faced from the blood that Laz is squeezing into his skull and shaking with fear, Trent nods rapidly.
“Laz, please let go of him. He can’t breathe.” Laz is a head and shoulders taller than Trent and twice as broad. Maybe Trent deserves to suffer one consequence in his miserable life, but not like this.
He glances at me, then back at Trent. “You’re lucky Mia is here, or I would break your teeth. Saythank you, Mia.”
Trent wheezes something that sounds like, “Thank you, Mia,” but it’s hard to tell.
