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But it didn’t matter if he did or not because I hung up before he could get in another word.
That day, my plans changed.
Or, they morphed.
Originally, my plan was to use the debts I was sure my father still had with the Carluccios to get an in. An excuse to enter the muck without raising suspicions.
You can’t take down a family from the outside, can you?
My plan was revenge. For my sister. For my mother. For Arturo, the father who loved me beyond comparison but who I never truly met.
And once that revenge was gotten, I would head the Russo family, as my father always wanted. I’d come with the proof of my valor, of how far I would go for my family, and lead with integrity.
But now, I was adding another name to my plan of retribution.
Shane Turner.
I was going to take him down too, and I was going to make it fucking hurt.
My mind is lost in this world, in the place where my past and my present and my future meet, when I hear a thunk, feel the tire veer off, and then start clunking.
Just my fucking luck.
Nine
-Lilah-
Six weeks ago, I sold my beloved cherry red Audi and bought a 1992 Saturn.
Six weeks ago, I quit my job in an email, giving zero notice to the employers who hired me right out of college and nurtured my passion.
Six weeks ago, I left a hospital room in Ocean View, and my phone rang for the entire 76-minute drive north to my apartment. I packed up, subleased the apartment I loved, and used the balance from the sale of my car to pay for five months in my new, dingy apartment, plus a small cushion for living.
Six weeks ago, I put on my hottest red dress and my tallest black heels, curled my long blonde hair until it fell down my back in a perfect cascade, and walked into Jerzy Girls with a mission.
That mission being to finally take the chaos, burden, and stress of my father’s debt away from my sister, who sacrificed for too long, and make a deal with the Carluccio family.
That is because six weeks ago, I got a call from my sister, and a man answered.
“This Lilah?” he asked, his voice deep and gruff. “Lola Turner’s younger sister?”
I’d found the journals two years before and started to slowly put the pieces together, but not fast enough, it seemed.
“Yes?” I’d said, cold filling my stomach.
“This is Ben, your sister’s man. She got into some trouble. She’s hurt, but she’s going to be okay. She’s at the hospital in Ocean View.”
I don’t remember the rest of his words, just grabbing my keys and bag and running down the stairs, skipping the glass elevator I always loved riding in. I remember asking him to text me the room number and that I’d have my father handled.
I also remember the dull tone in my father’s voice when I called to tell him my sister was in the hospital. Something had happened. I didn’t have much information, but I was headed there.
I remember him telling me he’d wait for me to get down to Ocean View and we'd just go in together.
I found that odd, at the time.
I didn’t 90 minutes later when I left the hospital.
It’s funny how someone who once called you regularly to schedule meetings, to check in, to see if you could attend X gala or Y party with him can just . . . disappear from your life if you let him. How if you threaten a small, weak man who has used everyone in his life until the well runs dry, he’ll run the other way.
