Even if they have to sell their bodies to survive, you treat them with respect.
Sometimes, that made what I’d created with Red harder to handle.
Yet, I found satisfaction inherpetrifiedwhimper.
It was so easy to remember the fate she’d intended to pass onto her daughter. Deep in debt, Diana would have sold Jen to the gangbangers she owed like she was a bag of oranges at a market.
If Luc hadn’t insisted on going with Jen to visit her mother that day, I didn’t even want to think about what’d have happened to her.
Fury stoked, I twisted the verbal knife.
“Do you think my brother enjoys wasting his breath, Dante?”
“No, boss. None of you Valentinis say shit without meaning it.”
“What do you think, Chad? If you were ordered by the Don to stay away from Manhattan for the rest of your life…”
“I’d stay away and be damn grateful he let me go. I sure as fuck wouldn’t come back and whore myself out on his turf.”
“Hear that, Diana? Where’s the gratitude for the Don letting you skip town and keep breathing for the past couple years?”
“This is my home,” she whined then hiccuped. “I-I-I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m telling you my name is Mary Gillespie!”
“No. Itwasyour home. Now, it’ll be your final resting place. Leave the stall before I drag you out.”
“Please! I’m not who you think I am!”
“And I’m not in the mood for your brand of bullshit. Any bitch who thinks they can sell their flesh and blood out is a bitch who needs burying in a grave.” I kicked my foot against the door. The shitty fiber board splintered under the force and she screamed. “Open the fucking door.”
Two kicks in, she was screeching, “All right, all right!”
As it opened, I ducked aside—just in time too. A gust of pepper spray wafted out, but I continued pushing the door inward and shoved her against the wall.
She tumbled into the toilet, but she was so thin half her ass fell through the seatless hole.
When water splashed, I snorted while I grabbed her arm with one hand, threw the pepper spray out with the other, then tossed her purse to Dante before I hauled her into the main restroom.
“What’s in there?”
At my command, Dante pilfered her purse. “ID under the name of Mary Gillespie. Couple packs of condoms, smokes, a baggy of blow, and a phone,” he recounted swiftly.
“Hand me the cell.”
That earned me a shriek, but I grabbed her ponytail and dragged her head back. “You will shut the fuck up, you sellout cunt. You think you can hurtmyfamily and I’ll let you get away with it? Wrong.
“You should have listened to my brother. He was kinder than I am. I’d have sliced your fucking throat and not your cheek. But now, I’ll get what I wanted because today’s the day you die. It’s down to you how painful the main event is.”
As she burst into terrified tears, Dante handed me the cell when I stuck out my hand for it.
“Get Luigi ‘round front with the SUV, Dante.”
“Yes, Capo.”
Whimpering, Diana shot him a pleading look that he ignored.
“He’s not your salvation,” I mocked, tapping her phone. “We’re all sinners here.”
Her crocodile tears gave way to desperation. She tried to elbow me in the face so I used my hold on her hair to press hers into the sink.
