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He’s got one job and one job only; to kill for the Bianco family. He doesn’t want to lose it. He’s a dangerous man, though he doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of the Cosa Nostra.
Nate’s foster dad wants him to go on a kill with my father. A sort of initiation. Nate will go, because he always does what he’s told. He’s got that coldness in his eyes and nothing in his heart.
My father ignores the fact that I didn’t answer his question. He doesn’t mind that I barely ever say a word. In fact, he likes it—often demands it.
My body is fully present while he and Nate keep talking, but my mind is with Rose. She must be upstairs in her room. She spent forty-five minutes with Bianco in his office, then he left and locked her in there for another hour. He just opened the door to let her out, and she sprinted upstairs.
She needs me and my body is buzzing to be close to her. We’ve known each other for four years, and in the last two, both our bodies have changed. We used to be able to hug without either of us feeling the electricity that courses through the other’s body. Now, she fits perfectly in my arms, skinny and small. My height is already taller than the average fifteen-year-old, and with my dad constantly forcing me to do physical exercise, it’s turned my muscles rock hard.
Now when we hug, we embrace fully. She disappears within my hold, protected by my huge body. I know she needs this right now. And she’ll have bruises that need tending. I want to do that for her, I want to soothe her and tell her that she’s done nothing wrong. That it’s allhim.
I stand up without thinking, heading for the hallway.
“Where are you going?” my father asks. I hate his American accent.
I preferred my mom’s; British, sharp in the softest ways. I was born in London, even though my dad quickly insisted that we move back to where he was from. By ten, I was an American citizen. But even in the US, she was the one always at home, taking care of me while her husband was in bars or burying dead bodies. So I kept my accent, thanks to her. Now that she’s gone, I never want to lose it. It’s a part of her, forever within me.
“Bathroom,” I give him as an answer.
I walk past the downstairs bathroom and up to the hallway that leads to Rose’s bedroom. I stand outside her door for a minute, creepily trying to catch any sound she could be making. Her heavy breathing tells me she’s still trying to get over her latest session with Bianco.
I knock.
“Who’s there?” Her voice is hoarse, tight.
“It’s me.” I push the door open at the same time as I answer. I know I don’t need to wait for her to invite me in.
She’s in a sports bra, her back to the mirror, trying to reach the bright red welts with her fingers. They’re white from all the cold cream she’s put on them.
Bianco usually hurts her back and her arms. Her stomach is not as often because it’s harder to keep her from twisting away if she’s lying on her back. That’s what she told me, anyway.
“Lovebug,” I sigh. “Let me help.”
My feet hurry toward her. Grabbing her hand, I run my fingers against hers, rubbing the cream off them. My skin heats up when it touches hers.
She doesn’t say anything, just offers me her back. Standing behind her, our gazes lock through the mirror. Her eyes drop right away, tears stuck in her eyelashes.
“It’s okay, you can cry. You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
She shakes her head. As I apply cream to the welts just below her shoulders, she winces.
“Why does he find me so beautiful when I cry?”
“Don’t try to find a reason to his madness. There’s none.”
“Like your dad? Is there no reason for the way he is?” she murmurs.
Instead of answering, I focus on making sure every single red mark on her back is covered. That every single ache is soothed as much as possible.
It seems to take forever, but I could touch her skin for years and not get tired of it. She’s so smooth. Her golden tan makes my hand pale in comparison. She smells of lilac, violet, and geranium—my favorite smell.
Sometimes, at night, I toss and turn trying to bring up the memory of her perfume in my mind. Every time I close my eyes, she’s there. Her night blue eyes, her inky hair. The tightness of her jaw, the almond shape of her eyes. The length of her eyelashes and the red of her lips. It all stays with me, day and night. No matter what I do, no matter where I am, Rose is with me.
Last year, I gave her a sweater of mine to wear. When she gave it back, it smelled of her. So much so, I wore it to bed that night. That was the first time I touched myself to images of her. I wanked so many times I couldn’t meet her gaze the next day.
I felt like I was betraying her, our friendship, that protection I cast over her. Then, one day, she looked at me differently. Her behavior changed around me. The way she touched her hair and twisted her hands. The way her fingers started to linger against my skin every time we’d touch. And I knew then that she felt the same. The guilt left me at that moment.
“I’m sorry about what your dad did to your mom,” she adds after what feels like an hour of my silence. “Are you sad? Still?”
