Page 2 of Married to the Mafia

I'm not moving out the way. That's the one thing I'm certain about. I am lying here and either getting killed or stopping them from doing it. Simple as that.

I close my eyes. If this is my time, so be it. I'll die knowing I did everything in my power to stop the animal shelter from getting demolished.

They waited until Amelia was back at college. That was their trick. They waited patiently until she was gone and I was all that was left. That was when they started to move.

They've no idea I'm willing to die to save this place, even if it means lying down in the road so they'll have to drive over me to demolish the shelter.

Ever since the permits were granted, I've been sleepingup here just in case. Dad tried to get me to come home at night, but I wouldn't listen. This is too important. Besides, it's not that bad sleeping in the shelter.

Weird with no dogs inside, but warm enough. I've watched movies on my cellphone and wrapped myself up in plenty of blankets. It's been fine, really it has.

Until today. Today they seem to mean business.

The wheel is less than six inches from crushing me and still moving. I close my eyes. Are they actually going to do it?

There's a hiss of brakes and then the digger stops.

I think the strangest thoughts. First, that the asphalt underneath me is surprisingly comfortable. The sky looks so blue, it could be a dream. Then does it count as a wheel when it's a tread like on a tank? Is that still a wheel?

The digger backs up again. A shadow falls over me, and I look up at a man in a black suit. He's blocking out the sun so his face is just a silhouette.

He's huge, broad-shouldered, clearly used to dealing with stuff like this a lot. His arms are folded as he examines me like he's found a bug in the dirt, one he wants to crush before it has time to bite him.

"Get up," he says. "Now."

I'm almost up just at the command. It's hard to disobey a voice like that. A deep rumbling growl like the digger's engine.

"I'm not getting up ever," I say as bravely as I can manage, coughing to clear my throat. "Not until you lot take your diggers and your trucks and your wrecking balls and pack them nice and tight into a compacted metallic dildo and then shove them up all your asses, one at a time. Go fuck yourself up the ass. I'm going nowhere."

"Quite a mouth on you."

"Go fuck yourself twice. Without lube."

"Get up. You're in the way."

"It's my legal right to protest and you can't stop me."

"Can't I?"

He waves an arm to his left, and immediately a sheriff's deputy appears. It's Jenny. The nicest one. "Jenny Judas," I say to her when she reaches me. "I thought you cared about the shelter."

She looks down at me and sighs. "Rose, I don't want to arrest you. Why don't you just get up and let them get on with it?"

"Because they're going to demolish the shelter, Jenny. We can't let them do it. Come and lie here with me. They can't run over all of us."

"There's only you protesting, Rose," she says as the man walks away, letting the sun shine in my eyes once again. "You know why that is?"

I glance right. The tread of the digger dig gets very close to my face. "Because I'm the only one who cares?"

"Because everyone else seems capable of accepting that this old place is being knocked down to be replaced by a shiny new one right over there." She points to her left. "Twice as big. Everyone else is happy about that. Why aren't you?"

"You believe their bullshit?" I say with a bitter laugh. "Some city douchebag wants to build a mansion out here and pinky promises that he'll build a new shelter a quarter of a mile that way and you believe it'll really happen? As soon as the shelter's down and the mansion's up, that'll be the end of it, and then where will the dogs go?"

She runs a hand through her hair before beckoning over a colleague. "I don't want to arrest you, Rose, but if you don'tget up in the next two minutes, I'm going to have to take you in."

She goes to talk to one of the other deputies. I fold my arms, cross my ankles, and lay back in the sun. I will not move. I will not let them demolish the shelter. If Amelia was here, she'd stop them. She'd make them see sense.

Just because I'm eighteen, no one listens to me. No one listened when I tried to cash in that casino chip I found in my safe deposit box. Laughed at me and told me to come back when I'm twenty-one. No one ever listens to me. It's so obvious.

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