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I need to get out of here before I do something I’ll regret. Before I read too far into that smile or those fucking dimples that I’m finally close enough to notice and appreciate fully.
“Do you happen to know anyone who would be interested in a volunteer position?” She points to a flyer by the door, and I turn and take one from the small entryway table. “A well-read man such as yourself must know some other book lovers.”
I scan the paper and immediately know what I’m going to do. There’s not a fucking chance I’m about to volunteer in her bookshop. Especially not for a program centered around children, which it is, if theChild Meets Bookname is anything to go by. But I’ll get her a volunteer, and in doing so, I’ll be spending much more time with Evelina Greco.
“I think I might have someone in mind for you.”
2
EVELINA GRECO
“Please tell me you’ve figured out a way to leave the needle dick prick.”
Leave it to Roxanne to tell it how it really is.
She shifts on the stool in front of the coffee bar counter of my shop, and I try to hold back my grin. Her black pixie cut is outgrown a little, and she’s messing with it as I try to avoid her question.
I never thought I’d have someone who I could call a best friend again. Not after everything went down in my former life. But Roxy, the manic goth Barbie who owns the tattoo parlor next door, has sunk her teeth into me.
“Fucking A, man. I’m about to witness protection you the fuck outta this city if you don’t get on leaving the worthless bastard.”
I slam my palm down on the table and laugh, thankful no other patrons are in here right now. “Damn, Rox. Leave it to you to remind me how fucked-up my life has become in the matter of three years,” I say with a roll of my eyes as she sips her bougie custom drink order.
Although, in the beginning, it wasn’t anything like it is now. I swear Enzo and I had one perfect year of bliss. Until the day he slid this ring on my finger and the priest announced us as husband and wife…it was perfect.
Too good to be true.
If only I’d known—
“Well, all I’m saying is I don’t want to see you onSnapped. You know, the TV show where the wife goes off the rails and murders her husband and then spends the rest of her life behind bars even though he totally fuckin’ deserved that bullet between his eyes.” She makes a dramatic show of pretending to shoot herself in the forehead.
A customer walks in, and I greet her. She looks effortlessly cool in a vintage band T-shirt and high-tops. Roxy knows a customer walking in is symbolic of shut the fuck up, so she immediately straightens her spine and closes her lips.
Roxy has no idea that my husband is in the mafia, but she does know that I’m in an unhappy marriage. I’ve told her the mostly true story of how he lured me in, and then his entire personality changed the moment I was legally attached to him. She just doesn’t understand why I can’t up and leave him. I don’t expect her to, especially without telling her the entire story.
You can’t just leave the mafia…short of faking your own death or truly being six feet under.
I’m doing my best to see my marriage and this life through rose-colored glasses because for now, until I can think of a way to get out, I really am stuck. I don’t want to be a naïve woman, and I’ve always been stronger than staying in a place where I feel like I’m not being treated in the way I deserve…but I don’t have any options in the current moment, and I need to play the game until I do.
“I’ve got a two o’clock, so I gotta get going,” Roxy says, sliding me the empty coffee mug and a twenty-dollar bill.
I shove it back at her, but she hops halfway over the counter and shoves it down my shirt.
“You fucking bitch!” I whisper-yell at her, and she just blows me an air kiss before heading out the door.
As much as the lunatic pisses me off, especially when she tips me obscene amounts and never asks for anything in return, I love her. We’ve become incredibly close over the past year or so since she first came in here.
I start putting away new donated books into their corresponding new homes on the shelves, and my mind drifts back to Enzo. Back to my reality that’s hard to swallow.
He’s never been physical with me, but he’s just… Well, like Roxy said, he’s a prick. He’s tried to get me to close down my shop multiple times because hewants a trophy on his arm, not a working wife who doesn’t have time to take care of his needs.
His words.
That first year was incredible. He was supportive and drew me in. He said he loved that I moved to Chicago on my own to start over and that I risked it all on opening this place. A day after the wedding, he told me to put it up for sale because it was time for me to have new dreams.
What dreams?
Growing a baby for him.
