Page 16 of Satin Empire

Fuck. That was the wrong thing to say. Her face shuts down and she stands, moving away from the bench to put distance between us.

Mom knows what she’s doing. It’s not exactly subtle. Except we don’t talk about it, not ever, and I just broke the one rule we had about her relationship with Orsino.

“You’ll do what you have to do for the family,” she says and she sounds so much like him it sends a chill down my spine.

“There has to be another way. You can’t really let him sell me to the Rossi family, can you? I mean, seriously, Mom, this is crazy. What if I just refuse?”

Mom steps closer. Her eyes glare at me and her jaw works. “If you refuse and you make a fuss, that will piss your stepfather off, and you know what happens when you piss him off.” Some of her tone softens, and a little fear slips through. “For both of our sakes, don’t do that.”

I shiver and look away. Orsino hasn’t been violent with Mom, but he does have a temper. I’ve seen the way he talks to her, so condescending and biting. He can belittle her and put her in her place with only a few words, and it’s frightening to see my strong mother slapped down like that.

“I’m just trapped here,” I say quietly, almost begging her to understand. “I never had any choice. I wasn’t allowed to go to college, and I’m barely allowed to work, and I’m followed all over the place, and now I’m expected to marry a stranger. I just want a choice. The way you had a choice.”

“You think I had a choice?” Mom’s eyebrows raise. “I had a little girl that needed me. Gran died and broke our hearts, and I was struggling every damn day to make ends meet. I was dancing all the time, you remember that? You think I had a choice? I would’ve done anything else, if I had a choice, except we needed money, and all I had were my tits and a willingness to show them. Don’t talk to me about choice.”

I shrink back away from her. I never knew she felt that way. I remember those days, and they weren’t so bad in my memory. Yeah, Mom worked a lot, and her job wasn’t exactly glamorous—but I didn’t see a desperate, trapped woman.

But of course, I didn’t. I was a little girl. I couldn’t have understood back then, and Mom must’ve worked hard to hide it from me.

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask her, and now I’m the desperate and trapped one. “Just go through with it?”

“Yes,” Mom says, her tone sharp. “Just go through with it. Don’t make your stepfather’s life harder.”

I nod my head, feeling empty. “Right. You’re right.”

“We need this, sweetie. It’ll make Orsino happy, and that’s important right now, okay? You’ll see, it’ll be good. You’ll be treated well. Orsino promised me you will.”

“I guess we can trust him, right?”

Her jaw works and anger flares, but she shakes her head and swallows it. “I know it’s hard, but try not to make this difficult for everyone, okay?” She walks over, snatches her water bottle, and leaves the gym.

* * *

Niccolo snuggles up against my side as the Ninja Turtles fight on the TV. I’m barely watching the cartoon, mostly just enjoying my little brother leaning up against me while staring off into space and thinking about how crappy my life has become in a very short period.

Things haven’t always been terrible for me. When Mom first married Orsino, he was extremely affectionate with her and gave me basically what I wanted, probably because he was trying to win us over to his side. And then Mom got pregnant and had Niccolo, and I helped out a lot with him.

But when I graduated from high school a few years ago, things really changed. Orsino wouldn’t let me go to college even though I applied to some good schools and got in. My grades were fantastic and I scored pretty high on the SAT, but none of that mattered, because women don’t need education, you’re lucky you went to high school, according to my lovely and very progressive stepfather. Mom did nothing to change his mind, already terrified of him leaving her and unwilling to back me up.

That was the start of my house arrest.

At least I have Niccolo. To everyone else, I’m a problem to solve, a piece that doesn’t quite fit—not mafia by birth, but still related to the Don. Nobody knows what to do with me, and most of the time, I agree with them.

“Lana?” Niccolo sounds sleepy. It’s a little past eight and I really should get him to bed, but I’m enjoying our snuggle time.

“What’s up, pup?”

“Why do the turtles have to fight?” He yawns and covers his mouth. “Shredder’s so mean to them. I think all they want to do is ride skateboards and eat pizza.”

“They’re heroes, kiddo. Sometimes heroes do really hard stuff that they don’t want to do because it helps other people.”

“I wanna be a hero.”

I squeeze him tighter. “Yeah, little guy, you already are.”

Except being a hero sucks. Nobody wants to be a freaking hero. They’re the ones that ride off into battle, do noble deeds, get their asses kicked, burn out, and die young. They live in stories, but that’s not really living—that’s just giving themselves to everyone else around them. Nobody actually cares about a hero, only about how the hero can help and what the hero has left to sacrifice. I don’t want Niccolo anywhere near a freaking hero if he can help it.

But he’s barely seven years old and I don’t bother saying any of that stuff.

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