“Sure would!” Tommy puffed up his chest.
“Gosh,” she breathed, and a look over my shoulder showed the excitement in her eyes.
So young. So freaking young and stupid, mistaking their brutality for heroism. Disgust slid through me. But I’d done everything I could. Their lives were in their hands, and if my parents wouldn’t take measures to protect them, then I wasn’t the black sheep, I was the trendsetter for the Deluca girls.
***
It isn’t forever….
I tried to keep a cheerful appearance as I said a final goodnight to the cook and his grizzly pack of kitchen boys. They offered to take me out for a drink, and when I declined, they suggested we go to the bar and at least toast to my future. Even if they spat on the names of the Irish, they wanted to send me off in style, to bless my marriage even while cursing my husband. I put them off gently but firmly.
Hurrying into the dark, I finally let the emotions swirling in my chest free. The final shift at Mama Ana’s was harder than I expected. The whole night, I’d lied to myself that I’d be back. As a guest. This place had been my sanctuary since I was a fourteen-year-old with pimples, hostessing and bussing tables on weekends.
“I’m never actually going back,” I reminded myself firmly.
There was always going to be a goodbye in my future. One that I didn’t plan on announcing. If things had worked out, I would have slipped away. This was harder, telling the crew I’d worked with for eight years farewell without the brighter hope of a better future.
I hadn’t saved enough money to enact my plan. Hanging my head, I scurried down the street.
Something in the night brushed against my wet cheeks.
My head snapped up, and I sent a look around my surroundings. I didn’t see anyone. Didn’t hear a noise. But I couldn’t shake the strange sensation that crawled down my spine.
It had been the same every night when I walked home.
There was no logical reason to suspect mobsters lurked in the alleys or waited to kill one another in the empty lot. Still, I crossed myself as I passed it.
I hated the Made Men.
That much was firmly settled in my mind. Tonight had been the final straw. The group who had dinner at the restaurant earlier had given me side eyes. They were disgusting.
Replaying the events of the evening so that I didn’t jump at every shadow, I tried to think if I could have done something different. Dio mio, my sisters were so young! Without me working with them, who was going to protect them? Papa made it clear that as a mob wife, I wouldn’t be allowed to continue working.
Which meant no more money.
I fisted my hands at my side and crossed the open expanse near the train depot. Too focused on the roiling thoughts in my mind, my toe snagged on a curling iron track. I stumbled, arms flung wide for balance and barely saved myself from a nasty fall.
The wind picked up, sending that frightening sensation rushing through me.
I stopped and looked around.There’s no one here.
It didn’t matter that my senses couldn’t confirm another presence. It was there. It haunted me again. It….
It wanted me to run.
There was something here. Someone.No…a group.
Five men, walking boldly out of the shadows. Their drunken cackles reverberated off the chipped stones laid between the tracks.
“There’s the little bitch.”
“See if she threatens us again.”
“Yeah, we’ll teach her a lesson she’s never going to forget.”
Ice-cold fear washed through me. It was every woman’s worst fear. While guns were terrible, powerful tools, they also leveled the playing fields in situations like this. Men were always going to be physically larger than a woman. While there were exceptions, pound for pound, women were the weaker creation.
But not when we had a sweet little pistol in our hands.
