Page 138 of 10 Days to Ruin

…BUTCHER’S BABE…

…How a Mob Princess Infected NYC’s Press Corps…

John collapses into his Aeron chair. It groans beneath his weight. “Here’s the thing, Ariel.”

Adrenaline sours my tongue. “I didn’t realize you moonlighted atTMZnow. You want my side of the story? It’s about?—”

“Extortion, racketeering, conspiracy to distribute narcotics.”

I stop short. “What?”

John tosses arrest records at me.OZEROV, SASHAis printed across the top. Blurry surveillance stills of Sasha exiting a Queens warehouse with blood splatters on his shirt. His scrawled signature on bank transfers moving nine figures into offshore accounts.

“Do you think this looks good for me, Ariel? For my paper?”

“John, I?—”

He holds up a hand to silence me. “To be honest, I don’t particularly give a shit about what you have to say. It might even make me legally culpable for something, which I assure you is the last thing I need.”

“Please, John, it’s just?—”

“Stop. Ariel, just stop.” He rises and plants his fists on his desk. “The legal shit is low on my list of worries. I’m worried about themob shit.I worked the crime beat for twenty years. Did you forget that? I know how these guys operate. I’ve been to crime scenes that these fucks left behind. I’m still in therapy about it.” His eyes are haunted, his cheeks gaunt. “One mobster’s daughter? Another mobster’s girl? You’re a target. And as long as you work here, that means we’re a target, too. For the sake of my paper and my staff, I can’t allow that.” He slides a termination letter across the desk. “All you have to do is sign to acknowledge it.”

The pen John slaps down feels like a scalpel. The patient on the table?

My career.

Ariel Ward—Reporter.I worked so fucking hard for that title. I still remember doing “field work” my first semester in journalism school, interviewing a deli owner whose security camera had caught cops planting evidence. Rain soaked through my knockoff Blundstones as he chain-smoked Parliaments and laughed at my questions.You the billionth kid who thinks she gonna change the world with a notepad?

“No,” I’d said, proud and defiant to a fault. “I just want to tell better stories than the ones the world makes up about us.”

Two years later, John hired me straight out of j-school because I crashed the Gazette’s holiday party wearing a dress made of rejection letters. That first byline is seared in my brain.Local Hero or Arsonist? The Strange Case of the Bodega Cat That Solved a Twenty-Year-Old Cold Case.Sixth page, but who cares? Mama framed it next to my preschool finger paintings.

She’s the reason I’m here at all, actually. She taught me to love stories while we perched on the cracked vinyl stools of that Greek café. Our game was sacred: Mondays after school, two lemonades, one baklava to split.

I used to think those stories were real. Then, when I got a little older, I realized they were just to make me laugh. Now, I see that I was actually right the first time.

Theywerereal. Because the man in the suit just might be a dark prince. There really may be a happy ending walking down the sidewalk.

We all wear masks. Book jackets that hide the story of our lives. It’s not until you crack it open and start to read that you learn anything about anyone.

John taps the paper. “Whenever you’re ready. Security is waiting to escort you out.”

I put the tip of the pen to the paper, but then I hesitate. For a long moment, I consider what to write. I’ve been so many different people now that I’m starting to lose count. My past is littered with skins I’ve shed. I’ve been Leander’s pawn, Jasmine’s sister, Belle’s daughter, Sasha’s puppet. I’ve been Ariana Makris and Ariel Ward. So who am I now?

My choice in the end surprises me.

Ariel Ozerova.

Ariel Ward—Reporterdies without a byline. Just another mob story’s bloody footnote. What comes next is anyone’s guess.

He nods when it’s done. “Your badge, please.”

My fingers tremble as I tear the lanyard off and set it down on his desk. Then I rise to leave.

But the door bursts open before I reach it.

Gina’s heel cracks marble as she storms in to hurl her own badge on John’s desk. “Suck my entire feminist ass, you spineless sellout!”

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