I will finally get a sip of alcohol.Vodka.Neat.And keep them coming.That’s what I’ll have.
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Yeah, so you keep saying,” he says.“But you’re getting everything anyway.”
I have no idea what he really means by that, but it sure feels good hearing it.Makes my chest all fuzzy and warm, which his gaze on my face was already doing.Warming me like the sun even in the dead of night.
But I’ll run anyway.
As soon as I can.
I never should’ve gone out that night when we met.
We never should’ve met.I know that now.
And I won’t betray my family again.
Chapter20
MATTEO
It’s been so longsince I partied in Atlantic City that I’d forgotten what it looks like.Or maybe it’s just changed so much in the last decade since I’ve led the kind of life where coming to places like this as anything other than hired muscle, an underling, was possible.Not that Dante ever came out east.
I aimed for the brightest building I could see—not easy since everything is very bright here—and pulled into the underground garage of one of the hotel casinos.
I’d prefer to be in Vegas.That’s all I know.But that’ll come too.Right now, it’s just good to be anywhere other than Ferro’s house.With Goldie.
Our first stop was the large boutique in the lobby, where I told the sales lady to bring Goldie all the dresses to try on.Especially the gold ones.
Goldie didn’t protest and the big smile on the sales lady’s face told me she won’t be letting her go anywhere until she lets me buy her something.Good.I still have Nico’s credit card, the one he gave me when he grew tired of me borrowing his clothes to wear to work every day.I’ll pay him back as soon as I can get my hands on my family’s money back in LA.Won’t be long now.I hope.
I drove here so fast that the floor under the sofa I’m sitting in still feels like it’s moving.Especially after I check my phone and find about twenty missed calls, voice mails and texts.Some from Nico.Most from Ferro.
Nico’s are just warnings and questions of why the fuck I had to take his car if I was gonna run.
So I call Ferro first.
“Am I gonna have to kill you, Rovina?”he asks as he picks up.
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
But someone’s probably gonna.And soon.My curse will take care of that.And I can think of worse reasons for dying than giving Goldie a little taste of her old life and the freedom she never had.Or whatever the fuck I’m doing here.
“Where did you go?”
“Atlantic City,” I say.“I figured it was far enough away from the city that no one would know me here.And I wanted to give her some freedom.Best case scenario she tells me where her family might be.Worst case, she runs and I follow her to them.That’s the plan, anyway.”
Sort of the plan.I’m actually not thinking much farther than the cool sheets of one of the suites in this hotel and Goldie moaning beneath me.
Ferro inhales sharply.
“That’s fucking genius,” he says.“Want me to send you some guys?”
Goldie comes out of the dressing room wearing a short, skin-tight black dress.The fabric is actually woven from gold and black strands and the gold shimmers in the overhead lights.As does her beautiful hair.
“It’s this one or nothing at all,” she tells me.
I wouldn’t mind either.
