Page 12 of Bones of Revenge and Reckoning

This is a large event, and I can hear voices. I peek inside and frown.

Jilly sidles up to me and joins me in peering into the room.

Sitting in a large chair, at the very back of the room, like a king on his throne, is Matteo. He’s surrounded by his friends and piles of gifts and is opening them all, but that’s not what has my breath catching in my throat. It’s the fact that sitting next to him, her hand on his arm, is Francesca DeLuca.

I clap my hand over my mouth as nausea quakes heavily in my stomach.

“Why is he sitting with her?” Jilly wrinkles her nose as if there’s a bad smell in the air.

I can’t answer her because I don’t trust myself to speak.

He looks happy in this moment, but I’m on the outside looking in, where I rightfully belong.

I stumble out of the doorway and race to the back of the house toward the restroom. I stumble into one of the two stalls, and Jilly joins me, slamming the door shut.

“Who has a restroom like this in their house?” she asks. “It’s more like something you’d see in a restaurant.”

She isn’t wrong. You enter to a double sink vanity. A chair, a huge mirror, and a basket of various toiletries and scents for guests to use. Then there are two stalls and toilets. This is Jilly’s way of distracting me, but it doesn’t work.

“Did you know he was with her?” I ask.

Jilly’s eyes widen. “No, of course not. I had no idea.”

“I hate him. How dare he! And with a DeLuca! Those girls have made my life a living hell, Jilly!”

“They aren’t even pretty,” Jilly seethes. “It’s an insult to you, Rennie. You’re gorgeous. You’re better than him.”

I’m not better, though. I might be gorgeous as Jilly says, but I don’t fit in. I never have. I don’t fit in at home. Or at school, and I had stupidly thought I might one day fit in with the Mancinis. At least if I had Matteo at my side, but they were the stupid, adolescent dreams of a silly schoolgirl.

I can see that now.

I think of my diary and all my pathetic words of longing about the boy who is right this minute sitting with the one of the ugly sisters, betraying me.

The one lesson of truth my mamma taught me is that the only thing that matters is power, and I gave mine away when I let my heart long for a pretty boy with dark pools for eyes and a wicked grin.

The gift I brought him is still in my arms, and I drop it on the floor. I’m about to stomp my foot on it and smash it when the door to the restroom opens with a creak. I put my fingers to my lips as female voices fill the space. Jilly nods.

“I swear, Frannie, he’s so into you.”

Oh my God, it’s the DeLuca girls. Jilly mimes throwing up, and I can’t help but smile at her silent dramatics. Suddenly it all makes sense. The missed calls from “Frank.” The girls laughing in the background when he missed our date at the café. He fucking betrayed me! Lied to me. Made a fool of me!

“He’s not. He likes that stupid Andretti cow.”

There’s a pause and the sound of something being spritzed. The cloying scent of hairspray fills the space and catches the back of my throat. I can’t cough, and trying to stop the tickle has my eyes watering.

“Frannie, he doesn’t like her. If he did, then he wouldn’t keep it a secret. No matter what people might think. You know, I heard he’s just with her so he can try to find out information for his family.”

People know about us? Oh shit. Then her other words register. My blood turns to ice. He wouldn’t. What information? I don’t know anything. A small, choked gasp escapes my lips, and Jilly shakes her head, slapping her hand over my mouth.

“Hello?” one of the DeLuca sisters calls out.

“Sorry. Just struggling with my stomach,” Jilly says. “You might want to get out of here in a moment. It won’t be pretty.”

Oh my God, she has no shame at all.

“That’s gross.” The sister who speaks has a lower voice, and I think it’s Francesca.

“Not as gross as you sucking Matteo Mancini’s dick when he’s hot for an Andretti.”

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