“They threw her body into a dumpster because they were afraid of getting caught.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“Took three days before someone found her behind one of the resorts. So yeah, I care about the people who work for me and the members, too. Sex work shouldn’t be scary. No one should worry about their safety. Many people do this for a living by choice, not because theyhaveto, and I’ve given some of them a safe place to do that. I don’t allow drugs here. Everyone is screened often for substances and STDs, and members are rigorously vetted. I do a lot of shitty things, Eloise. I kill people. Fuck, I killed two tonight alone. I print fake money, I run drugs and weapons, and aside from you, I don’t give a fuck about much. But no one gets hurt in my club without me making it right.”
I swallow and then walk over to him.
“She deserved someone like you looking out for her. I’m sorry there wasn’t anyone back then.” I place a gentle kiss on the ink on his chest that represents his mom.You raised an amazing man.His swift intake of breath is all the reaction I get, which is perfectly fine.
Heading back around the island, I pick up another block of cheese.
“What happened to you after your mom died? You were still a kid.”
He nods. “I discovered, or the authorities did, that I had an aunt. My mom’s sister. Luke’s mom.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “Luke’s your cousin?”
He nods again. “I moved in with them. Luke’s a couple of years younger than me. When I switched schools, I met Julian and Mateo, and we hung out prettymuch all the time. Julian’s dad was a crime boss, Greek, and the three of us went to work for him. Luke followed.”
“Thank you for telling me all of that,” I tell him. “And I’m sorry about your mom. I know how it feels to lose her.”
He shifts on his stool. “What happened to yours?”
“You don’t know?” I frown at him, surprised.
“Should I?”
I scoff at that and turn to wash my hands, gathering my thoughts. I check the pasta and see that it still has a few minutes to go.
“My father is a piece of shit,” I say as I wipe my hands on a towel. “That’s not news. I was about eight, and I heard him screaming at her. He did that a lot too. I think they’d gone to some wedding or party, and he was angry because he thought one of the capos was looking at her.”
I shrug and grab some butter and milk out of the fridge.
“Maybe the capowasstupid enough to do that, who knows? I doubt it just because most of them seem to be scared of my father, but I wasn’t there.”
“And you were a child,” Rome adds quietly. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he looks pissed as fuck.
“Was I ever really a child?” I wonder, tapping my finger on my lips. “Maybe, when I was a toddler. Anyway, whenever he’d go on one of these tirades, I’d usually hide in my room under the covers. But this time, my spidey senses were tingling, and Iknewsomething horrible was going to happen. So I crept down the hall tothe landing that overlooked the living room, and I knelt in the corner, making myself as small as I could.”
I clear my throat and take another drink of water.
“The thing is, my mom wasn’t like yours,” I tell him, meeting his eyes. “She wasn’t much better than my dad. I mean, she would hug me, and she never hit me or anything, but she wasn’t a good human. I caught her fucking the gardener a couple of times.”
He raises an eyebrow at that.
“She wasn’t discreet. Maybe she wanted to get caught. Perhaps she knew that if she got caught, Dad would kill them both, and she saw that as the only way out of her shitty life.”
“Maybe the capowaschecking her out,” he says.
“Probably.” I blow out a breath and look at something over his shoulder, seeing what happened in my mind’s eye. “But I’m quite sure she thought he’d put a bullet in her head and call it a day.”
“That’s not what he did.”
“No.” I shake my head and turn to drain the pasta. Not giving it time to cool, I pour it into a big bowl and start to fold the cheese in so it’ll melt. “He tortured her. It was gross and painful. Horrifying.”
“Please, Salvatore!” He laughs and hits her with the bat again, tearing open her scalp…
“And you sat there and watched.”
