Page 2 of City Of Thieves
Judging.
Giggling in the hallways and cheap condoms stuffed into my locker.
I used to be the most popular girl in school. Now, I’m just…used.
I’m staring at Dad’s painting again. My mom owns a private gallery a couple of blocks from here, and my entire childhood was spent making sense out of a canvas while other kids were seeing shapes in the clouds.
I’ve never wanted to crawl inside a piece of art so much.
I want to live in it.
Forget myself in it.
I don’t see a girl lost in the flames anymore. I see a new home. The only place I want to be—stranded—where no one can hurt me again.
I must have moved because a dark laugh fills the room.
“Not calling Daddy yet?”
His voice is muddy and cruel. It’s a Russian river that no amount of orthodox prayer can cleanse.
“I told you I wouldn’t,” I whisper.
“Good, because I am not done with you,kiska.”
My stomach lurches.There can’t be more. Please God, no more.
I try to crawl away, but he’s too fast. I beg and scream, and he hits my face to keep me quiet. I silently plead for help as he hooks his hands under my arms and drags me onto the desk my father loves so much.
He leans over me, murmuring why he’s doing this. How he’ll never stop doing this, how he’s going to fill up every part of me with his hate for my family, but I keep my eyes trained on the wall behind me the whole time.
I wrap the acrylic brush strokes around me like a blanket.I hide myself in the gilt frame, so I can’t think or feel.
It makes me numb.So gloriously numb.
I am that painting now…
I’ll be whatever the world wants me to be, but they’ll never see the real me again.
Chapter One
Renzo
Three Months Ago…
People saydeath is the great equalizer.
Not for men like Rainero Marchesi.
All Saints Catholic Church will be standing room only today, but not because my older brother was an upstanding citizen. When you’re part of the New Jersey Underground, notoriety and excess bleed well into the afterlife.
From the dark end of the street, I observe a procession of stretched limos idling next to the curb, splintered in both directions like black bullets. Behind them, a swarm of paparazzi and media reporters line up, salivating for a glimpse of the grieving family.
My family.
Tipping my leather flask back, I let the alcohol slide down my throat, burning me in all the right places, as the clicks of their cameras become the soundtrack of my intoxication.
“Great equalizer, my ass,” I slur, my voice sounding like broken glass dragged along asphalt.Not in my world.Not when I’m a quarter of a bottle of Macallan down, black tie draped around my neck like an afterthought, staring at the stone exterior of the church like an outsider.Like I don’t belong.
