Page 35 of Mafia Boss

“I need some fresh air,” I lied.

“There’s a balcony,” Cristian said, moving up the bed and leaning against the headboard with his big arms crossed over his chest. He gestured to the sliding glass door and waitedpatientlyfor me to respond.

I shot up from the bed, told myself that I might as well run now while he was naked under the sheets, and sprinted toward the door. Why was I still running away from him? Other than hating the man for ruining my life, something about him reminded me of distant memories that I couldn’t quite remember completely, but I did feel as if they were haunting and gave me chills.

Before I could make it to the door, Cristian wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, shoved me against the wall, and pressed his body against me. “How many fucking times do I have to say it? You’re not leaving,” he growled into my ear. “I’ve waited too fucking long for you.”

“You say that like you fucking know me,” I sneered through my teeth. I tried to push myself off the wall and away from him, but he pressed harder against me. “I just want to leave. I never asked for this life. Why are you doing this to me? You’ve been acting like you know me for days now.”

To my surprise, Cristian pushed himself off me, stormed to his wallet, and opened it up. “You want to go out into the city alone at night?” he asked me, fumbling through his wallet. “Go. Do whatever the fuck you need to do, but be fucking back by morning, or I’ll find you and drag you back to Manhattan myself.”

He turned the wallet upside down, opened the pockets up, and let about twenty hundred-dollar bills fall out of it along with a white sheet of paper that couldn’t be bigger than a credit card. I glanced down at all the money with my brow furrowed and shook my head.

This man flipped through a variety of emotions, all within a few moments. Horny. Angry. Content and composed. Furious and cruel. It was like being a damn contestant on theWheel of Fortuneand wondering which card the dial would land on.

After slapping his wallet on the counter, pouring himself a glass of alcohol, and walking over to the sliding glass door, he stepped out onto the balcony in nothing but a pair of underwear and slammed the door behind him.

Without saying a word, I kneeled and gathered all the cash. Was I going to take it and run? No. I didn’t want any more of his damn money. That was what had gotten Ben into this mess. But was the thought of escaping his wrath and not having to walk on eggshells around him anymore tempting? Hell fucking yes.

I shoved every single dollar back into his wallet and picked up the white sheet of paper, turning it around to see that it wasn’t a sheet of paper after all. On one side was a date—December 14, 1994.I turned the sheet over to see a picture of two young kids, an old man, and someone who looked almost exactly like Cristian at a Christmas party.

My chest tightened, throat drying. One of those kids was me, sitting on my grandfather’s lap, and next to …

My heart dropped. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head.

This didn’t make sense. If this was me, Cristian, my grandfather, and Cristian’s grandfather … it didn’t make sense at all. My grandfather had hated Cristian’s grandfather and the entire Ricci family for as long as I could remember.

Grandpa had his hands around my waist, smiling as he looked down at me with those old, teary blue eyes, the sunspots apparent on his bald head. All I could remember was a grumpy man who was out in his garage all the time. Sometimes, he’d even take me into the garage to help him, but he had never lookedthishappy.

Bits and pieces of memories came flooding back into my mind of going over to my grandparents’ house and playing with a boy when I was younger. But … Cristian? I couldn’t seem to remember it was him. Come to think of it … I couldn’t remember much of spending time at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

What did we do most of those days?

After clutching the picture in my hand, I stormed over to the balcony, ripped open the glass door, and shoved the picture against Cristian’s chest. “Why the hell do you have this?” I asked him, something tightening in the pit of my stomach.

More suppressed memories continued to whiz through my mind as tears welled up in my eyes. Something wasn’t right. Something was making me feel disgusted, sick even. I wanted to double over on the balcony and puke my dinner up.

Cristian took the picture from me, registered what I had seen, and stood up. “Do you remember me now?” he asked suddenly.

I clutched on to the railing until my knuckles turned white, yet he stepped closer.

“Do you remember all those nights my grandfather brought me over and we’d play together? All those nights we threw rocks down by the river and stuck our toes in the water and—”

“And we would hang out with Willy,” I continued in a breath, feeling my chest tighten more every second that passed.

“Willy,” Cristian said lifelessly. “You always loved him, didn’t you?”

“Cristian … I-I barely remember him,” I whispered. Because I could barely remember him at all, just his name. Every memory of mine before the age of five seemed to be such a blur. It was as if I had purposefully tried to block them all out for some reason.

Cristian stepped toward me, alcohol heavy on his breath. “Willy fucking loved you. You’d choose to play with him over and over again. I could never fucking have you, Roxie. Never. So, you want to know what I did?”

I gulped and shook my head. I didn’t want to know.

“I killed him.”

“You’re fucking insane,” I whispered, stepping back even further until my back hit the other side of the railing. “Insane. You’re making this all up. It’s a lie. My grandfatherhatedyour family. He’d never smile in a picture with your grandfather.”

“My grandfather and your grandfather were business partners,” Cristian said to me.

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