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He’s already called the dog ‘Diabolo,’ and Diabolo’s tail thumps the upholstery as he licks Mikey’s hand. Probably the first human kindness the poor animal has seen in its life.
Mikey looks at me. “Onward and offward?”
I smile. And nod. That’s been our saying since he drove me to kindergarten. If Mikey thinks we’re safe enough, that we’re far enough away from the house and any witnesses, that’s good enough for me.
As far back as my memory goes, Mikey watched over me like my guardian angel. If an angel can be built like a fireproof safe and have huge hands as fast as a title-fighter’s.
On the drive back home, my phone chirps with a text message from Federico, my former supposed but not really boyfriend.
Morning light is breaking blue around the horizon.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It feels like the face on my watch hasn’t changed the last four times I looked at it.
I’m hot and my mood is sinking fast. If it were anyone else I was waiting for, I would just get up and go. Probably break a few things on the way out, so that they knew I had been here, waiting.
Not with Daddy, though. Let Daddy see your temper and he’s going to show you the force of a real rage.
He makes me wait and bake in the sun by the pool. The white three-quarter circle of the house wraps around the pool, and it traps in every glint of the sun’s rays. When I asked him could I wait indoors, he scowled and pointed at the sizzling lounger.
Now I don’t dare move and I’m more certain than ever that he’s going to be mad at me. A cocktail of sensation fizzes through me. Uncontrollable buzzes, a mixture of shock, fear, and amazement. The currents spark something else, something deep and dark. Something horribly familiar that I won’t ever put a name to. It ripples and flashes inside me as I try not to squirm while I’m waiting.
I think about the offer that my former supposed boyfriend made to me.
We were pretty close. And he is super hot. I just never got the feels for him. Maybe because he was always too nice to me. He told me he didn’t have the feels for me, either. I didn’t ever believe him, though. He was always rock hard, but maybe teenage boys just always are.
Everyone in high school assumed that we were an item, and it suited both of us to let them go on thinking that. And it was true that we made out a few times, but we both just wanted to know what it felt like. He didn’t really have much of a clue. I gobbled him up in no time.
In a strange kind of way, him being clueless was sort of hot in itself. Sort of.
We went back to being friends pretty quickly. We liked it better that way. Still, we did keep everyone talking when we went to the senior prom together.
I hadn’t spoken to Federico for the longest time when he DM’d me out of the blue last week. He’s going to work as a musician and DJ on a cruise ship.
He asked if I would like to come along. ‘Supposed relationship status optional,’ he said.
I smiled at the thought, but I texted him straight back, wishing him luck and bon voyage.
At the time, I didn’t really think about his offer too seriously. Thinking about it now, the timing could be perfect. His text earlier told me his boat is leaving tonight, and he’d still love for me to come along. Now, I feel like maybe I should run, grab the chance with both hands and get gone.
This could be my one and only way out, my first and maybe last chance to get away from all this mob business. And, like Mikey once told me, a life in the mob rarely ends in a peaceful old age. Federico’s offer could be my lifeline.
I’m fidgeting and anxious for what feels like long, slow hours in the hot sun. Finally, Daddy sends Mikey to tell me he wants to see me.
I slip into the big, dark study — his ‘library,’ he calls it. As soon as I’m inside the room, leaning back on the door to close it, I feel like I’m walking in to my execution.
He’s hunched over the big desk in a hood of orange light at the far end of the room. He doesn’t even look up. The heat of his anger is like a wall.
My feet drag across the thick carpet and all the time his head stays down, like he’s lost in the papers and books in front of him. Like I’m not even in the room there with him. So much that it makes me want to make a noise. To cough or clear my throat. Anything to break the silence. But I don’t. I can’t. He would go on ignoring me. I would not have been able to take that.
I already know how he’s going to be. I always know, but facing his fury somehow still shocks me.
But I can usually talk him round. Eventually.
The pattern is the same as always. He wants me to do something, he trusts me with an important task, and I do it for him. Knowing that he’s just using me as a human shield.
Having me take the risk so that Miko and Chris are protected. But then, when I do the thing, I take it all a little too far. Sometimes a lot too far. Then he shouts and bangs his fists to show me that how upset he is. And, sometimes, it’s worse.
