“Discrimination?” Mamma repeated, the soft clink of her silverware pausing.
“I’m sure Santino has it under control, Corinna,” Nonno said. His words were quiet, as near to neutral as the man tended to get.
“It’s already dealt with,” Santino said, keeping his tone calm. He kept his visible focus on filling his plate with the food that was passed to him. The words were true. The problem was handled. It was only that the greater subject was a scarce heartbeat removed from the one that had dominated his thoughts for most of the previous two days. And he wasn’t ready to share even the topic of her.
“Still,” Danilo said, echoing his words from their last argument, “you let it happen.”
Santino slammed the salad bowl onto the table, his knuckles flexing against the well-used pottery. “Yes,” he snapped, “it happened under my nose.” He turned his head enough to meet his cousin’s scowl. “Is that what you want to hear, Danilo? That I failed to predict one of my managers couldn’t at leasthidehis prejudice?”
Danilo snorted. “Someone in management costing a minority female her job could be bad news for business these days, cousin. It doesn’t matter if you saw it coming or not.” He sliced into his perfectly crusted chicken. “Now not only do you have theugly problem of the manager to deal with, but the more delicate issue of the woman—”
“As I said,” Santino interrupted, his voice hardening, “I’ve handled it.” More importantly, if Danilo made one more veiled threat toward Reiko, the no-business-at-the-table rule was going to go flying out the fucking window. In fact, if Danilo didn’t shut up, Danilo himself would go flying out the fucking window.
Nonno hummed, the sound carrying a rattle it never used to but nevertheless capturing their attention. “You’re sure, Santino? Danilo’s not wrong about the risk. We can’t afford that sort of scrutiny.”
Santino rolled his jaw and exhaled his irritation before shifting his gaze to his treasured elder. “I’m sure, Nonno.”
Nonno dipped his chin almost imperceptibly, accepting Santino’s answer without further question.
“That’s enough work talk,” Mamma said loudly. She pushed to her feet and grabbed the bread basket, then held it out toward Danilo’s boy. “Here, take another, sweetie.”
Santino accepted the change in conversational direction, as well as the opportunity to actually eat his dinner. And he told himself not to question how Danilo, who was family but who technically ran a wholly separate business, knew quite so much about such a new situation. Someone had talked.
Or someone was spying.
Santino was not a fan of either option.
Chapter three
Small Step Forward
It was the screamthat tore Reiko from the nightmare. The scream, and the searing agony that triggered it.
The world was still dark outside, because she could never wake from any nightmare to the bright, comforting light of morning sunshine.
Reiko sucked in ragged breaths as she settled her feet flatly on the floor, comforter tossed aside, and folded an arm around her middle. No matter how many times she had that nightmare, it never failed to leave her trembling. It didn’t matter how old it was. It didn’t matter whose fault it was. It didn’t matter how quickly the remembered pain faded back to the depths of her memory once she awoke. Her mind had been torturing her that way for over half her life.
She twisted her fingers into the fabric of her cotton nightshirt. Of course, she felt no tell-tale hot, wet stickiness. The shirt was dry and intact, as it should have been. As it always was.
Because that happened years ago.
Reiko tried to steady her breathing as she looked over at the LED display on her phone’s screen to verify the time. Familiar disappointment churned in her stomach at the readout that mocked her. It was approaching four in the morning.
Far too early to be up. Far too late for her to hope to get any more sleep.
That meant it was time to do what she always did on the nights her old nightmares interrupted her rest.
She changed into yoga pants and a lightweight top, grabbed her phone, and meandered across the hall into what had probably been envisioned as a secondary bedroom. She never had guests, though, nor any need for an in-home office. For those reasons, Reiko had indulged and purchased herself an exercise bike. It wasn’t a brand-name, top-of-the-line model by any means, but it did the job.
Meditation had never done much for her, and she’d rejected religion mostly out of spite as soon as she’d had the freedom. She didn’t regret that choice, but it was also true that her time with her bike had become something akin to sacred to her. When she was peddling, she was almost proud of herself. She could think about what she was working toward—shrinking those seeminglypermanent areas of flab around her gut and thighs—rather thaneverything else.
The bike didn’t make snide comments if she missed a day. The bike didn’t give her judgmental looks if she hopped on at ungodly hours. The bike had no opinion whatsoever of the scar that marred her lower abdomen. And absolutely best of all, the bike never asked probing questions—about her life as it was, or as it had once been. It simply existed, and allowed her to exist alongside it.
Reiko didn’t even bother queuing up a playlist or popping in her earbuds. She just set the phone close enough to keep an eye on and started peddling. She pumped her legs, quickly building up steam, until she was forced to focus on keeping her breathing somewhat steady.
It was a great way to clear her mind.
She didn’t need the echoes of her younger self’s wailing sobs haunting her for another moment of her life.
