"Pull forward."
I inch the car forward, checking my mirrors. The last thing I need is someone from my crew driving by. Or worse, someone from her family.
At the window, a teenager takes my card. Hands me the bag. Doesn't even look at my face.
Thank fuck.
I pull into the far corner of the parking lot, away from the lights. Kill the engine. Open the bag. The smell of grease and salt hits me, and I don't even care that this is the most undignified moment of my life. I'm too hungry.
I devour the first burger in maybe four bites. Start on the fries. They're hot and salty and absolutely perfect.
This is what I've been reduced to. Hiding in a parking lot, eating cheap burgers in my car, after spending a small fortune on a meal I didn't get to eat.
My phone buzzes.
A text from Liana.
Liana: Thank you again for tonight! Sweet dreams!
She ends with a kiss symbol.
I stare at the message. At the kiss symbol. At the cheerful gratitude for a dinner she ate. I look at the half-eaten burger in my hand. At the grease on my fingers. At my reflection in the rearview mirror, sunglasses still on in the dark parking lot like some kind of paranoid criminal.
This is my life now.
I take another bite of the burger.
Thirty-eight days.
I finish eating in silence, watching the occasional car pull through the drive-thru. Normal people. Living normal lives. Not hiding from their own crew while eating burgers after their fiancée stole their dinner.
When I'm done, I wipe my hands on the napkins, shove the trash in the bag, and start the car.
Tomorrow is dinner at my mother's house. With my entire family including my grandmother.
Surely that will go better.
It has to go better.
Doesn't it?
Chapter 5: Liana
Day Three arrives too quickly.
I'm standing in front of my closet at two in the afternoon, staring at my options for tonight's dinner with the Marcello family. Santino texted this morning with simple instructions: Be ready by five-thirty. Dress appropriately.
Appropriately.
I smile at my reflection. Time to redefine that word.
"You're enjoying this too much," Gia says from my doorway.
"I ate his entire dinner last night." I pull out a dress, hold it up, put it back. "He spent a fortune and left with his stomach growling from hunger. It was beautiful."
"You're terrible."
"I'm strategic." I pull out another dress. This one is almost right. "Tonight, I meet his whole family. His mother, his grandmother, probably aunts and uncles. I need to make an impression."
