“Fucking millennials.” I’m wishing I had my glasses, but refusing to get them cause they’ll make me feel even older.
“I’m Gen Z, actually.” I almost drop the fucking needle.
“Same difference,” I mumble as I try to recall what years that covers and come up with nothing.
“How old?” I growl the question and watch her mouth form the number as my brain starts to trob.
“Twenty, soon.” What the fuck.
“He sent me a fuckng teenager. Sick bastard.” I stand and start to pace.
“I’ll be twenty in a week, so I’m hardly a teenager. What difference does my age make?” Ok, we’re going to circle back to that in a moment because of the fact she’s unfazed, but my confession is at the forefront of my mind.
“Rosario, I just told you I killed your parents. That doesn’t make you angry?” She sighs heavily and clutches her hands on her lap.
“Mr. Romano, I hardly knew the people you call my parents. I was dropped off at a nunnery where I was raised to become a nun until my seventeenth year, when a man I had never met came and got me. He proclaimed he was my grandfather and I was to rejoin the family.” She takes a deep breath and looks up at me with her hands.
“All I know of my parents is that my mother was a drug user, and my father would sell to his friends. He was a monster, and I will not shed any tears for them. As for you being a murderer, well, I’ve been surrounded by them all my life. This is but another day of the week. What I don’t understand is why.” Her words are such a contrast to her face and age.
“You didn’t read the note on your chest.” She frowns, and I want to slap myself.
Of course, she couldn’t. The angle was wrong, and she didn’t have a mirror. Besides, her tits are huge and…
STOP THAT.
“The blood was used to leave me a message.” She nods once and swallows hard.
“What did it say?” I hit back down and take one of her hands in mine.
“Marry, breed her. You have one year.” Her eyes buldge and she starts to hyperventilate.
“Marry? Breed? NO!” She claws at the blanket around her neck, trying to make her breathing easier, as I struggle to keep her covered from my greedy eyes.
“I’m sorry. Let me help. Take a deep breath in. Here like this.” I take her hand, I place it on my chest, and mimic what she needs to do.
“Good, in through your nose, out through your mouth. Nice and slow.” She follows my direction and stares at me while our breaths finally sync.
My heart rate jumps as the blanket falls from her shoulder, leaving the top of her breast in plain sight. I try not to glance down as they move with her breathing, but goddamn it, I’m only a man, and they stray for only a moment.
“Good, I should finish. How about you lie down on your side, and I’ll start the fire so you don’t get cold.” I drop my hands, but hers linger on my chest for a moment, and I close my eyes as her fingers flex before the touch drops away.
“Okay,” I watch her move slowly for a second before I remember my task and move to the first place.
I think over the conversation, and my mind keeps bringing up one word.
Nun.
Jose Battle sent me his nineteen-year-old virgin granddaughter with a note telling me to marry and fuck her until she’s carrying my child, all so he can claim family ties to the Romano legacy.
He planned this all along. He let her live so that one day this day would come. He told me all those years ago, when I vowed to end my family line, that he would make me eat my own words.
“You took my legacy, but you will give me yours.”
The words echo in my mind as if they were just spoken to me. I stoke the fire and turn back to the woman I can’t keep ignoring. She lies on her side watching me, and the look of innocence on her face disarms me, and I realize I’m not going to be able to do this.
I won’t steal her life away.
“Ready?” I ask as I move the blanket off her side, exposing half her lower body to me.
