Page 17 of Bound in Debt
Angelo is going to want his money—either in cold, hard cash or in labor.
And I don’t plan on doing either.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a one-way ticket to take me somewhere no one would ever find me.
My only ticket out of this would be a ticket back home.
Exactly how far is Angelo Lombardi’s reach? I’m still in good standing with the Giordanos. One word to the family that there’s another mobster stepping on their turf and he’s dead.
“Dante, it’s not going to come to that,” Marissa states sweetly. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
Lying again.
“I don’t know what it will come down to,” I tell her flatly. “But keep your secrets. It’s the best way to keep it from blowing up in your face.”
Marissa frowns again. “It’s not like that. You know you’re family.”
“Distant family,” I assert. “He may have been my brother once…but I don’t know who he was when he died.”
6
VICTORIA
Saturday, September 7
“He better ask me to the afterparty tonight or I’m gonna be super pissed about coming to this game.”
Ellie barely stops chomping on her popcorn long enough to growl the warning. We’re sandwiched between crazed students decked out in Thronewood University gear and waving signs with abandon.
Ellie dragged me out to the football game hoping her crush-of-the-week, Billy, would pull her under the bleachers and make out after. I didn’t mind tagging along. It gave me an excuse to get out of the dorm and ignore the fact I’ve been hiding from Liam all week.
“Weren’t you wanting to jump Aaron Mathers’s body just the other day?”
Ellie waves a dismissive hand in the air. “Too entitled.”
I snort out of a laugh. “Isn’t that what we’re surrounded by twenty-four-seven?”
“Not Billy.” She continues to watch him on the field. “He doesn’t come from money. He busted his ass to earn a scholarship. And who knows what else he did to get here.”
“Sexy.”
“Very. I love a man who works for it, you know?”
“Unlike Aaron, who’d probably ask you to fuck on gold sheets.”
Ellie jerks her head at me with wide eyes and an even bigger smile. “Right? Prick…”
My cell phone buzzes in my sweatshirt and I fish it out, seeing the words: the one who won’t accept no. It’s my mother’s contact label flashing above the slider to accept a call.
Dropping my phone to my lap, I ignore it. Then it goes off again.
And again.
When it rings a fourth time, I know I have no choice but to pick it up.
“Yes, Mom?”
“Victoria, where the hell are you?”
