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My marriage was not up for debate, but Pina was coming from a good place.
“After I walked in on Ariana half naked, I asked my father to kick her out and he told me they weren’t done, so I left instead.” I cleared my throat. “I went to the only person that I knew would make me feel safe. We got married the next day.”
“You knew he would take you in? With all that history?”
“Pina you’re not stupid and I know people talk.”
“Grazia Caputo, you fooled us all.”
“Fiori.” I was getting tired of correcting people.
“Grazia Fiori. If it’s any consolation, when Ariana heard about your wedding, she had a nervous breakdown.”
“Why?”
“Who do you think she’d rather sleep with? Your hot, rich, mafia respected young husband, orDonFabiano? I think she realized that even now, when she was sleeping with the most important man in the Caputofamiglia, she still had to compete with you.”
She was competing against herself because it wasn’t a race I ever wanted to be part of.
“She can sleep with my father if that’s what she wants but if she ever thinks about looking at Salvatore, I will kill her myself and it won’t be a clean kill. You talk to her often?”
“With Ariana? God, no! I’m scared that if I’m alone with her for too long, I’ll snap and take her eyes out with a fork.”
“That’s a lot of anger, Pina.”
“I have a lot of things to be angry about. She ruined our parents, she made sure I’ll have no future in this city because who wants to hang around the sister of the dirtiest whore in Italy? And she hurt my only friend.” She grabbed my hand while maneuvering the car through traffic. “I was the one who told her about you and Salvatore because we were fighting when I met her so I could drop off some of her clothes. I also had to inform her that my parents have only one daughter now. Lucky me.” Oh, poor Pina. Her parents were nice people, but extremely overbearing, especially her mother who loved everything glamorous while Pina was the exact opposite.
“Oh, look!” I pointed to a street in front of us. “Right there on the left. That’s the club.”
7th Heavengot its name because when Guido opened this place, he gathered seven of the best strippers in Europe and brought them to dance here. They were known as the naked angels. The name was now shining in neon lights day and night and it was full around the clock. It became Guido’s most profitable business, and not only because of the stripping. He had many things going on under the roof of that club and that was exactly why he was about to become a target.
“Pina, I have to go. I don’t have much time.”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“Are we still friends?”
“You and I? Of course we are.”
Her face relaxed for the first time since I saw her. “When you didn’t call, I thought…”
“I tried once, but you didn’t answer and after that, I didn’t call because Salvatore doesn’t think it’s safe for me to keep in touch with anyone yet and you didn’t need the extra trouble.”
“Maybe you can call me late at night when you lay awake.”
“I will.”
“I’ll wait here in case you need me when you get out.”
I checked my phone to see that Salvatore has called me four times already. “I think my husband will find me by then, but thank you.”
“Go.”
I crossed the street, circling the building until I found the staff door, and stopped to turn off my phone before walking in. The building was most probably jammed, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
As soon as I stepped in, I saw a familiar face.
