I don’t like talking about this. I inhale deeply and try to stay calm and cool. “Angelo had two kids and a wife. She was like a mother to me.” My voice cracks. “The kids were everything to me.”
“Yeah?” she asks. Her tone is strange, like she doesn’t believe me.
“Yeah, the son was my best friend. We did everything together.” I clear my throat and drop my gaze from hers. “His kid sister, too.” My voice completely breaks over the words. They always do when I talk about Giana.
“Kid sister? His kid sister was important to you too?” she asks, her voice full of doubt and crass.
I glare at her. “She died in my arms. And she wasn’t just my best friend’s kid sister. She was the girl I was going to marry.”
That made her blink and shame her enough to look away.
“What happened to your family, huh?” she asks after a few moments of silence.
“My mother lived, my two baby sisters were killed in their strollers. They were twins. Almost three years old.”
“You ever feel strange about that? You, Tony, Franco and his boys, you’re the only ones that lived?”
"Baby, you’re asking questions that are going to get you killed."
She stares back at me without a trace of worry in her eyes. Does she think I can save her from whatever Tony wants to do to her? All I could do is buy her some time.
"Why are you working for Tony, stripping?" I ask.
She shakes her head and stares out the windshield, saying nothing.
"You don't do it just for the money."
She still doesn’t answer.
"Let me guess, you're stripping for revenge? Daddy issues. Step-Daddy issues."
Her head slowly turns back in my direction.
Oh, that must be it. Maybe she is like all the other girls at Tony’s. "You had a strict daddy?"
"Yeah."
"Getting even, huh?"
"Something like that, yeah. Or maybe I just like when complete strangers find me suitablyfuckable. Maybe I like knowing my pussy is worth a hundred bucks if I give it to someone in the backseat of their car."
All I see is red. "I don't want you dancing there anymore."
"I don't care want you want."
"What if I said I wantedyou? What if I say I’ll take care of you and you don’t have to—"
She opens the car door and steps out before I finish. I lower the window down on the passenger side to shout, but before she walks away she leans in the window, elbows on the door. "You don't even know me."
"Yeah? So who are you?"
"Maybe I'm one of the bad guys.Just. Like. You."
Chapter 7
Felony
My name isn’t Felony. Of course it isn’t. Who the hell would name their child Felony? The day I walked into the club and asked Tony for a job I told him my real name was Mallory Knox. That isn’t my name either. Of course it isn’t. Mallory Knox is who Juliette Lewis played in the 1994 blockbuster hitNatural Born Killers.
