Page 9 of Hustler in the Mafia

It was wrong. What he wanted from me was wrong. But would it hurt to pretend for one day? Pretend that this house was mine. Me, the happy woman painting her nails while her man was at work? I looked at my nails and decided it would. Pretend play never brought anything but heartache, and my nails were so chipped the polish would peel off before it touched the surface.Every instinct of mine told me to get out of here. Forget the man.For fuck's sake.I didn’t even know his name. And I was planning to play house with him. So I ignored all of that and stayed.

Because I never listened, and taking risks was second nature to me. When Tata was drunk and wasted, I would still goad him because that was who I was. When Mama brought her clients home, I didn’t shy away but yelled my displeasure at her. I didn’t care about getting hurt. So I wasn’t going to now either.

Besides, the man may have been delusional and not think I smelled. But a sniff in the wrong direction might have killed me from my own stink before he ever got the chance to.

So I did something I had never done before. I did something for myself. I went upstairs with the full intention of taking a shower. But I accidentally bumped into his bath… fine. I sneaked into his room to check it out and found a bath in his bathroom. So, I did another one of those ‘first’ things.

I soaked in it for hours. Then I emptied it completely, refilled it, and filled it with his smells. By the end of it, I wanted to smell like burned charcoal, too. My skin wrinkled from the water. It burned where I took a hard brush and scrubbed all over. It might have also been because I had found the brush in his storeroom, and it was meant to brush sidewalks with, not skin. But it didn’t matter. For once in my life, I wanted to be clean. I paused while I pushed the rough hair of the brush in between my toes to find the hidden dirt.Did I want to make myself pretty for him?The thought crossed my mind that I wanted to be anything that he would want.Whatever.I shouldn’t care. I was doing what I wanted to.

By the time I pulled myself out of the bath, my skin burned red, and my hair was dry and empty of any greasiness. The only disappointment was I still didn’t smell like burned charcoal. I smelled more like… I sniffed my skin. Normal. Pretty. Like lemon and pine.

I came out of the bathroom exhausted. I needed a nap. The fact that I hadn’t slept much last night might have also been the underlying cause. But I didn’t look into too many details. I wasn’t one of those doctors who could look inside a human brain.

I just did nice things for myself. What had he said? Enjoy yourself. So I did by plonking down on his bed and taking a nap for a few hours. Mine was all dirty and smelly because some filthy girl had slept in it last night. But his smelled fresh and like him, all male and feral. It was much better here.

When I woke up, the sun was gliding down, and my stomach was rumbling. For once, I had had ample food within reach but hadn’t bothered to eat. What an idiot.

It was quiet in the kitchen. Emotion prickled in my throat. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cooked. Well, I did. I cooked the last day Mama was alive. Tata was already dead by then. Alcohol really did ruin a man’s life. But I was stuck with my mother. I cooked. She keeled over and died. I buried her, then I guess I got lost and didn’t make it back to the wretched neighbourhood with the vile memories. Even when I was so hungry I could have bitten off my hand to eat it, I never regretted that decision.

But this kitchen reminded me of how much I loved to cook. How long it had been since I had made something nice. Suddenly, I wanted to make something nice. For him.If he didn’t want me to suck him off, then I’d at least cook him something so good he’d want to keep me.I smacked my head with my hand. I had no idea why I thought that.

MARCO

Antonio’s stare was sharp and pinned to me from his chair behind his desk. My poker face hid the guilt coasting inside my body. I’d never hidden anything from the man. But for some reason that I didn’t even know, I kept my new little secret to myself.

I was wrong. She wasn’t a bird. She was a fucking coconut. One I was going to have a hard time breaking open to get to her soft insides. But it wasn’t going to stop me from trying.

I wiped the amusement off my lips and shuffled uncomfortably in the chair across from his desk. I had a feeling he got these chairs down from his house in Boston for one purpose alone, and that was to make me uncomfortable. How was my broad body going to fit in this ridiculous thing with arms? Design, they called it.

“What’s up with you?”

Lots of things. Like a fucking coconut that needed to be cracked open. But I only gave him the reason I wanted to.

“There’s an Albanian looming around the property. I need to get rid of him.”

His stare instantly warped from sharp to murderous. My boss was a patient man. Except when it came to the safety of his wife and children. He leaned forward with a dangerous glint in his eyes. “How the fuck did he get so close?”

“A hole in the metal fencing.” One no doubt made byla mia piccola cocco. Which reminded me she now had two weapons to assault me with. Pliers she’d probably had with her to cut the fence and the big knife I’d noticed missing in my kitchen. Ah,la mia piccola cocco. She warmed my heart like no one ever had. What didn’t was the security footage I’d looked at to see theAlbanian following Rina into the property. I didn’t need to know the details to know it was another man who wanted to get his dick sucked by my woman. The line was getting fucking long.

There was a knock on the door, and Peppe came in with Antonio’s espresso. The man drank at least one per hour. One every ten minutes if he was in a bad mood. It was just my luck that today seemed to be one of those days. I didn’t need his death stares on me. Not today.

I concentrated on not killing Peppe instead as he made his way with the espresso vibrating in his hand. The air in the room hummed with his uneasiness. It took him three fucking steps. That’s all before the espresso ended up painting the fucking floor.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Antonio grunted as Peppe dropped to his knee, shaking from head to toe. I hid the wicked grin behind my hand as I watched him trying to clean up the mess. How could this idiot make this mess… well, messier? “Fuck this. Get me another one.” Peppe took to Antonio’s words like a siren blasting his freedom and hurled outside the room.

The chuckle I’d been holding in broke free.

“What’s so funny? What’s got into everyone? You’re acting fucked up, and Peppe looks like he’d had a gun to his face.”

My chuckle died down fast.Cazzo.The man was very close to the truth. “The real question is, why are you in a foul mood?” I asked to distract him. “I thought Aria slept through the night.”

“She did,” he told me with a proud smile, which instantly changed into a wicked grin. “So I had an all-nighter with Divya.”

I shook my head. “Of course you did. Like you’d even think of actually getting some sleep.”

“I did. But have you seen my wife?”

I knew better than to answer that. Antonio’s jealousy knew no bounds. Plus, I was fucking tired of hearing about all the action everyone was getting except me.

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