Page 14 of Hustler in the Mafia

This man was brutal. There wasn’t anything nice in him. Yet his gestures flowed with kindness as natural as a stream in the midst of a forest. How could I ever deserve him?

CHAPTER EIGHT

FLORINA

There comes a time when a girl like me knows that good things aren’t here to last. They never did. It had been two weeks. Two weeks of fucking every night like we were diseased, and fucking was the only way we could get it out of our blood. Two weeks of shared meals and washing up. Two weeks of intent stares and static vibes that electrified the molecules in my body into believing a lie.

Because this couldn’t be anything but a lie. A delusion leaking into my blood and clouding my judgement. There was no way this could ever last.

He acted like I was his lifeline. The very air he needed to breathe. He touched me like I was precious. Came inside me like I was the only treasure he wanted in life. It was a lie. I was sure of it. No man so handsome, so good, could ever want me like he did.

This would end. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the next week. Only I was a woman who took control, and I was deciding to end it. Today.

The first step was to sneak out of the laundry room window at the back of the house. I was right. If I had really wanted to, I could have left this house the second he went upstairs that night two weeks ago.

Every day he left here, he told me with his deep, intense eyes fixed on me to stay inside. That was the only way he could protect me. Every day, I listened. Not today.Who was I kidding?No one had ever stood up for me. Step one to end this was done.

The easiest thing would have been to run through the trees to the darn hole I had cut out in the metal fence. But the masochist in me wanted him to see who I was. Who I really was. Before I left him for good.

I could have stayed. Hung around for a bit longer. But he had to be…him. He was so freaking nice it made me want to burst out in sobs. He should have known. I wasn’t a woman born for nice things. I really wasn’t.

With a heaviness that far outweighed the trudge of my muddy sneakers, I made my way to the villa. The house loomed ahead of the path, taunting me silently.What are you doing, girl?Taking back control. That’s what I was doing. I was back in my old clothes, which taunted me about how much I must have stunk when I first met him. I had stood in front of his cupboard with my hands on another shirt of his with an ache to live in them as I’d done for the past two weeks. But why take a slow burn when you can jab a knife into my fucking heart? It was better to cut my losses. From everything once and for all. Now, just a few minutes later, regret pooled in my heart. My hair and body were fresh from a shower, but the stink of my clothes put my gag reflex on edge. I had washed them three fucking times. Still, the smell clung to me as hard as the shambles of my life. This is what he had done. Two weeks and I couldn’t stand the life I had been used to.

I ducked in between trees and bushes because I didn’t want to be caught before I made it to the house. Crouching next to the bins, I peeped through the kitchen window, and my heart bolted to a stop.Cristo.Whipping around, I pasted my back to the wall, trying to calm my harsh breaths. I hadn’t been around the house during the day, and the women in the kitchen were a sharp reminder of that.I can do this.I shouldn’t have been doing this. But I couldn’t stop myself if I had even wanted to.

Creeping under the windowsill, I edged my face closer and watched the scene before me. Watching other people’s happy lives unfold before me was a pain I could have done without. A few maids were there, but my attention shot like a magnet to the brown woman carrying a child on her hip. She was the lady of the house. I could tell. The way she moved and spoke was so elegant. Something I would never be. My man… no, not my man. Marco could have clad me in gold, and I still wouldn’t be like her. She was talking to a younger woman like she didn’t have a care in the world. She didn’t need to count the pennies in her pocket to match the distance that would get her away from here. She didn’t need to wonder when the next time would be when she could find a warm bed. Instead, she smiled and tickled the baby on her hip.

The door leading to the inner part of the house swung open, and a small child flew through it, followed by an older woman. The brown lady laughed as the child hid under the table and the older woman pretended to look for her. The brightness of their lives was a glare in my face. The table where I had sat down and had my first meal with Marco was now clouded with bright wooden toys. They didn’t even have the trash toys. They had the pretty ones. The ones sold in quaint little shops. This was the life Marco would one day have. He should have a wife like the brown lady. Not me, who didn’t even know to eat like a nice lady.

I dropped down on my haunches. Nothing like seeing what I could never become to know I stood out here like horse shit on a clean floor. I should have just stepped inside that kitchen and got it over with. But I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring myself to be the lousy memory for those children.

They were so clean. So pretty. I would have tainted them with my smell. With my looks. So I sneaked around the corner and found an open door. It was a laundry room. If the fresh scent of lavender didn’t give it away, the starched white shirts hanging on to a thin metal line did. The washing machines hummed quietly as I sneaked past and walked through a small hallway. The irony of it. These people didn’t have one but three of these machines.

The laughter from the kitchen floated beneath the door and edged the outline of my heart. A yearning, deep and painful, took hold of me. Where you were born really did mark your life. If only I’d been born somewhere else. To different parents. Someone who loved me. I could have been in there with that beautiful brown woman. She would be nice to me, I was sure. But not this me. Never this me. I kept my burning eyes on my sneakers and made my feet move.Get this over with, you stupid woman.

I walked into an open hallway. It was big and rich. The first time I’d been in this house was a few years ago. Peppe had brought me in and taken me to the library. That room alone had been bigger than anything I’d lived in. He’d taken me through the back door, and I’d never passed this hallway. I would have remembered if I had. Warm white marble tiles on the floor, a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and a walnut wood banister curling around a spiral staircase. Quaint little furniture pieces were set against corners like someone had given it a lot of thought and had them made to measure because they fitperfectly. Like the glossy images of a mansion in a magazine. Only thing that repelled this perfect image was the sight of me.

Fuck.I wanted to be anywhere but here. But every time Marco fucked me, it felt like he cracked my heart. Now, it was lined with too many cracks, and I was terrified it would burst into a zillion pieces if he did it one more time. Then what would I have left? I was poor, but I at least owned my heart. What if he took that from me, too?

I didn’t understand how he made me feel. He made me deranged. He made me mad. He made me careless and easy. The craziest thing was that I wanted to be whatever he wanted. Night and day.

I didn’t want to be Florina the random Rromani girl. I wanted to be his. For once in my life, I wanted someone to want me like I was his and only his.

I wasn’t sure if it was courage or stupidity, but something made me pull my way up along the pretty stairs. This part of the house was private, I could tell instantly. The floor told stories of children's feet running, little hands catching along the bannisters, and the walls spoke of clandestine meet-ups between their mamma and papa.

The first door I opened was like a fist to my heart. It was a nursery. All pretty, pink, and soft.I should take something from here.The Florina I knew would have done it. But I couldn’t. My feet wouldn’t budge beyond the threshold, and with a sigh, I closed the door softly and trudged a few doors further.

This one opened to the master bedroom. I knew it the moment the door swung open. The room spoke of passionate nights and special memories. All of them private. My feet hovered uncertainly. I didn’t want to cross this line. A few heartbeats of hesitation, and I made myself do it, anyway. I stepped into the room, dirty sneakers and all.

Dark, charcoal walls and a warm wooden bed with ivory cotton sheets. A room to the left only for clothes, and a bathroom to the right so big I was sure it could house a king. And a queen. Because the numerous scented bottles lying around spoke of a woman’s touch.

Last time I’d sneaked into this house, the Capizzi brothers had been single. Not anymore, I guessed. At least one of them was taken. I waited for the disappointment. Because in a distant past, I’d imagined seducing them, my ticket to a better life. But now, all I felt was the hurt that was yet to come when I showed Marco what I was capable of. My chipped nails ran over tiny bottles in pretty pink. I hadn’t had my nails polished in ages. It looked expensive. Like one bottle could pay for an entire meal. Why I needed it, I didn’t know. What was the point of pretty nails when your stomach was empty? But I chucked it into the pocket of my shabby dress anyway.That should do it,I convinced myself, even though, in my heart of hearts, I knew I should have taken more. And I almost made it out of the room without putting my grubby hands on their pretty things, except for the sparkle that beckoned to me from the small table next to the bed. A soft lamp and a half-burned candle sat on it.

But it was the pretty earrings that called out my name. I knew I shouldn’t. Instinct told me this was going to be the worst betrayal of all. But when had it ever stopped me? Stepping towards the earrings, I grabbed them in my hand and squeezed them in between my palms. They were heavy, looked old and cherished. But they were gold and pretty. I opened my palm and looked at them again. It looked like an Asian design, and I knew they belonged to the pretty lady. Regret washed over me. I didn’t want to hurt her. Indecision riled me. I might have put them back. I would never know. Because even as I was thinking of it, the mood changed like an impending storm and I just knew, even before I turned, that someone was onto me.

My breath choked in my throat. Antonio Capizzi stood leaning against the door, hands fisted in his pockets with a jaw thumping loud enough to win over an elephant stampede.

“Who the fuck are you?” Even as the words flew towards me, I saw the recognition in his eyes. I shrank away from him, but it was too late. It was like I’d gone back a few years, and he’d caught me in the library. Stalking over to me, he yanked me by my arm and charged downstairs, pulling me with him.

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