The diamond on my finger catches the light, sparkling like a pretty star. I can’t walk out of this room wearing it. Somebody will notice. While both rings are worth a fucking fortune, the minute I try pawning them, Angelo or his minions would track me down. So instead, I slide them off and toss them into the toilet cistern.
Good luck to the person who finds them. I hope the cursed things bring them more luck than they brought me.
Hunching my shoulders and effecting a downtroddenI-work-for-a-minimum-wagelook, I quietly open the bedroom door and back out with the now empty room service trolley.
This is the bit where it gets tricky. If anyone looks too closely at me, they’ll realize who I am. I’m counting on the fact that the guards outside my room don’t know me very well.
Not one of them glances my way as I shuffle down the corridor pushing the empty trolley. In this uniform, I’m invisible.
I just need to stay invisible long enough to get the fuck out of the hotel before my new husband steals me away and locks me in an ivory tower for the rest of my life.
There’s a service elevator at the end of the corridor. I release a shaky exhale when the maid’s keycard works, pressing the button for the basement and praying there’s an exit somewhere.
The elevator reopens on sublevel three. We’re in the bowels of the hotel, where staff scurry around like busy little ants. Keeping my head down, I push the trolley down a long, endless corridor lit with harsh fluorescent striplights.
Hotel employees wearing different uniforms pass me, but nobody questions my presence. When I reach an empty storeroom, I find a long coat abandoned over the back of a chair, so I pull it on over my uniform. With the hood up, I look like some poor woman down on her luck.
I abandon the trolley and carry on walking. Finally, after what feels like forever, I reach a fire exit propped open with a box. A guy in a white chef’s coat stands outside smoking. He grunts at me when I slip past, but I ignore him.
The alley’s empty, but heavy downtown traffic rumbles past a few hundred feet away. Freedom is so close now. I can almost taste it.
The temptation to run is strong, but I don’t want to draw attention to myself. There are guards posted everywhere. If they see me running, they’ll wonder why.
My new husband can’t have discovered me missing yet or the hotel would be in an uproar, with men combing every inch of the place.
I leave the alley with my head down, pretending to look at the phone I found in my stolen coat pocket. A guard stationed nearby looks my way but soon loses interest when I turn toward the subway entrance.
Just as I reach the steps down to the station, a cab brakes to spit out a guy in a suit. Before he’s fully disembarked, I dive in. He throws me a filthy glare, but I ignore him.
“Drive!” I flash the driver a wad of cash.
His eyes light up, and he steps on the gas.
Not a moment too soon.
As we pull away, I look back. All hell has broken loose outside the hotel.
A small smile flits across my lips, but I don’t allow myself time to relax. Not completely.
This is only the first step. Chances are I’ll be running for the rest of my days.
If my stepmother doesn’t kill me, my husband probably will.
2
Chiara
One year later
For fuck’s sake.I huff with irritation as I check Mack’s books for the tenth time. The guy owns a popular bar, yet he is clueless about admin.
He can barely maintain his purchase ledger, let alone file his taxes correctly. He really ought to hand it all over to a CPA, but not only is he a cheap bastard who doesn’t want to pay a professional’s rates, he’s also cleaning dirty money through the bar’s takings.
So instead, he added it to my job description when he hired me.
Luckily for him, tidying up his books is well within my wheelhouse.
It’s pretty fucking easy most of the time. I have a head for numbers and enjoy spotting patterns and irregularities in columns of figures.
