I couldn’t be related to Angelo.
Just fucking couldn’t be.
He was the sperm that should have been swallowed.
And I was his offspring.
What did that make me?
The muscles in my neck tightened. “She’s a minor, and she’s a Vitali. Either of those reasons alone should be enough to dissuade a rational person fit for the position of De Luca mafia boss.”
He ignored my dig—just barely, I suspected. “The Vitali need to know their place.”
“What do you think happens when a minnow picks a fight with sharks?”
My dad stood up, his fists clenched at his sides. “Watch your mouth, son.”
I had been.
For eighteen fucking years, I had been.
But I felt my plan coming to fruition, and I needed him to lose control for it to work. I needed him to take a swing at me and make contact. Somewhere visible, where the physical proof couldn’t be missed. A black eye, perhaps.
“Oh, Angelo. You don’t get it, do you?” I shook my head and tsked. “You’re the minnow. The Vitali are the sharks. And they will eat you alive.” I rose from the divan until we stood eye-to-eye, arms width apart. “Feel free to facilitate your own death, but leave the De Luca name out of your mess.”
“You will not disrespect me like this.”
“I already have.” I’d always taken his abuse without a word, and maybe he’d gotten used to it because his eyes expanded before forming angry slits. Still, he needed more provocation. I let loose a deep, disrespectful chuckle. “Or what, Dad? You gonna kill me like Great-great-grandfather Ludo killed his son? I dare you to fucking try.”
Hatred brimmed in me, such a contrast from my time spent with Ren, and with her mere feet away, I wanted to stand up for myself. I didn’t want her to see me like this. Didn’t want the patience I needed to take over the syndicate to coerce me into taking the emotional abuse my dad had been spewing my way since childhood. Didn’t want to wait for this damned plan to work before I destroyed him.
But I needed him to punch me. I needed there to be physical proof of him losing control for the soldiers and capos to see. An inkling of doubt lurked in my conscience. Ren didn’t need to hear this.
Too late.
Dad swung at me, his form all brute and no finesse. I feigned a dodge to maintain appearances of a fight but let his fist connect with my face. It connected hard enough to leave a bruise. He adjusted his suit while I fell to the floor. As he towered over me, a sharp laugh struck the air before he walked away.
I leaned my head back onto the floor, thinking about the million times he had dished a similar punishment to me. Usually with a belt on my back. This time around, the marks would be visible. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it?
Self-pity clogged my throat, making the breaths I forced myself to take sluggish. A few seconds after the door clicked shut, Ren emerged from behind the drape and stared at me. She moved a step closer, and a lock of hair loosened from her bun and covered her right eye. Didn’t matter. I had the color memorized.
She looked particularly angelic in that moment, though. The light blonde hair. Pale skin. Eyes an inhuman shade of amber. But I preferred her naughty side. The one that argued with me—all strength, backbone, and sass. I wondered which side she’d give me now.
I waited for her to say something. The more time passed, the more I convinced myself she’d rub what had happened in my face. Self-pity didn’t flatter me, but I did nothing to stop it from building.
I could have curled my lips up into a smirk. Made a witty remark. Told her how hot she looked from this angle. But that would make a mockery of our friendship—and we were friends, even if she didn’t know it yet. Hell, sometimes it was even hard to admit our friendship to myself.
She opened her mouth, and I braced myself for her words. “Pick yourself up, Damsel.” My eyes hardened at the nickname, the context striking me harder than I would ever let on. I opened my mouth to retaliate, but she beat me to it. “Angelo De Luca is weak, and when you dwell on the punishment he dishes, so are you.” She brushed the hair out of her eyes, giving me half a second to absorb her words. “But that’s not who you are. Is it, Day?”
One day, when I didn’t have my head so far up my ass, I would look back at this moment and realize it was precisely the moment I fell for Knight.
Chapter Seventeen
“After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can’t trust a person.”
– Evelyn Waugh
Renata Vitali
Girl power. Noun. Power exercised by girls, specifically in the context of supporting oneself and fellow women. Origin: coined by American punk band Bikini Kill. Alternative spelling: grrrl power.
Antonym: Laura Willis.
Laura had supporting herself down to a T. I would give her that. But when it came to empowering other women, she fell as flat as a slashed tire. It had taken me five seconds at Devils Ridge High to realize exactly the type of obstacle she would pose for me, and months later, I could confirm the accuracy of my initial assessment.
Which was probably why pickpocketing her phone wasn’t the best idea I had ever had, but other than my nightly forays with Damian in his home library, boredom had become a sibling of mine. Plus, I needed a phone to contact Maman.
Devils Ridge, like other small towns, possessed more gossip than a lifetime subscription of Us Weekly magazines. Only, nearly everyone in this town had mafia ties, turning it into an incestuous community of shared dirty little secrets.
One of which was the ban that had been placed on phones for me.
My teachers kept me away from tablets, phones, and laptops. No one would lend me anything, Angelo had cleared the household of stray electronics, and I’d never ask Damian for a phone because I didn’t want to break the tentative truce he and I shared by reminding him of how we’d met in the first place.
I wasn’t normally a thief, though I happened to be good at it. The thin metal felt powerful in my hands as I leaned into my locker and typed out the password I’d seen Laura entering during AP English Lit the week before. It opened without trouble, and I pulled up her browser app and checked my emails.
None from Maman.
My head and hands buried in my locker, I drafted an email to my mom.
From: Renata Vitali
To: Margot Vitali
Subject: Earth to Maman?!
Hey Maman,
I tried to reach you months ago on a phone. It wasn’t mine, and I no longer have access to it. I haven’t heard from you, and I’m worried about you. Are you okay? I’m sure Papà told you where I am and gave you orders not to contact me, but just know I’ll be looking out for word from you just in case.
I’m staying with Angelo De Luca—he has a son!—at their mansion. Papà gave the order to remove communication privileges from me. Papà wants to silence me, Maman, because I saw him doing something he wouldn’t want you to know. Honestly, I would rather tell you what happened in person. I know you cannot defy Papà and move me back to Connecticut, but maybe you can visit. I can tell you in person.
I miss you Maman. You’re probably worried about me, but don’t be. I’m fine. I’ll stay fine, too. I just needed to tell you that I’m safe, and I need to talk to you. I’ll find a way to get access to the internet again soon.
Love You,
Ta petite guerrière
A hand gripped my scalp and yanked my hair back before I could press send. The phone clattered to the floor as my face left the locker. Laura’s eyes met mine. Crazed. So crazed I knew she’d forgotten her place below me in the mafia hierarchy. The hierarchy that was probably the only reason these kids had left me alone all these months.
Damian emerged through the crowd, his eyes leaping from Laura to me. We’d been doing the secrecy thing, and this marked the first time he’d been near me at school. There was nothing to out. We weren’t in a relationship, but there would be implications to the complicated relationship we did have.
Still, I wondered what he’d say or do, so I waited for his reaction instead of sending an elbow backward into Laura’s gut and taking care of this in my least preferred method of dealing with people—physical fights.
“Stop.” Damian’s voice bounced off the narrow hallway walls.
I liked where this was going.
He took a step forward, looking particularly menacing with the shiner Angelo had given him a couple days ago. “She’s a Vitali.” He shook his head when Laura’s hand tightened on my hair—she had a thing for him, and his defense of me had to be eating away at her ego. “Stop, Willis.”
My scalp burned, but it was worth it to see Damian defend me. I knew how he behaved at school by heart. He didn’t defend anyone. He kept to his corner and let the kids come to him, like a king, indulging his loyal subjects. This… this was everything.
Laura turned up her chin, but it wobbled, and her hands shook on my scalp before she lowered her head in submission. “Because you’re protecting her?”
“No.” Damian’s eyes flicked to me, and they speared me for all of point one seconds before he dismissed me with his gaze. “Because she’s nothing.”
And that was my cue to leave.
I swallowed my emotions, pushed my heel down onto Laura’s foot, swung an elbow backward into her stomach, and twisted away when she released my hair with a surprised yelp. Violence didn’t satisfy me, but I needed to get out of the hallway, and it was the quickest way. Plus, the De Lucas had invaded Devils Ridge. The staff would do nothing, and either way, in the eyes of the international syndicate court, my Vitali name justified any action I chose to take. I could kill Laura, and there would be no repercussions.
I didn’t bother addressing either of them as I closed my locker door, swung my book bag over my shoulder, and made my way to the library for the rest of the lunch period. About ten minutes before the bell was set to ring, Damian pulled out the chair across from the table I sat at, a worn copy of Nightmare Abbey open before me. I’d just gotten to the part where Marionetta torments Scythrop. Fitting if you asked me.
“I never took you as an anti-romance type of girl.”
I turned the page. “Was it my lack of faith in humanity that persuaded you otherwise?”
Our banter marked familiar territory, which he didn’t deserve. He’d hurt my feelings, which meant I cared, and I couldn’t care. His opinions shouldn’t have mattered to me. They were only words, and he was a pitstop, not the finish line. He hated me; I hated him. That was the familiar territory that should have superseded this weird friendship that had burgeoned between us.
“You’re mad at me.”
Did it matter? This arrangement would be over when I turned eighteen in a few weeks and could flee without legal repercussions.
“Anger would require emotions, and I don’t have any of those where you are concerned.” I cocked a brow and met his eyes.
They were so talented at guarding things. At school, he played off his dad’s onslaught of abuse well. But I saw the real him. The rage simmered on a loop, and I knew I would never figure out how to extinguish the flame. A part of me wanted to watch him self-destruct, just so I could be the one to pick up the pieces.
Some knight I was.
“Okay, I deserved that, but in my defense—”
“Those words are usually the predecessor to some lackluster excuse—almost always offensive, and one hundred percent likely to piss me off. You’re better off stopping now.”
He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. “I was an asshole out there, but it’s better that way.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’ll get worse if they know we’re friends. Plus, you can handle a few schoolyard bullies. I have no doubt about that, though I do doubt they can handle you.”
My lips twitched, and I knew we were both thinking about the elbow I had swung at Laura. Violence was never funny, but I couldn’t help myself. Damian’s excuse could have been as simple as a De Luca protecting one of his own. I could understand that and part ways without spending more than a few sleepless nights dwelling over it.
But here he was, in front of me, and that I didn’t understand.
“Why are you here, Damsel?”
“You have until the bell rings.” He slid something across the table to me.
I glanced down at it.
A phone.
The library had been empty when I entered, but I still checked before clutching onto the contraband device. My mouth opened and hung there, unsure of what to say in this situation. Did I thank him for the phone or toss it back at him, offended at the idea that he could buy my forgiveness?
I didn’t want to do either, so instead, I unlocked the phone, pulled up my email account, and sent the email I had drafted earlier before logging out and deleting the history. We had five minutes left until the bell rung, and I didn’t know where this left us.
It wasn’t like I thought we’d figure things out in five minutes, but not trying didn’t feel like an option. I’d meant it when I likened us to kindred souls, chasing away loneliness in each other. I didn’t want to lose that.
I only had a few weeks to go before I was old enough to leave Devils Ridge on my own. Damian shouldn’t have mattered, but he did.
“Princess?”
Oh. I’d been staring. I slid the phone to him.
He stood and pocketed the phone. “See you tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. Tonight.” He slid the chair back under the table. “This doesn’t count as our library date.”
Date, he’d called it.
Shut up, stupid pitter-pattering heart.
Chapter Eighteen
“It is not a shame to be deceived; but it is to stay in the deception.”
– Olivia
Renata Vitali
The beige leather of Damian’s Range Rover caressed my skin. Probably the only smooth thing about this car ride. My chipped nails fiddled with a stray white hair on my hoodie. Short. Coarse. Dog fur, maybe, except I obviously didn’t have a dog.
My eyes veered to the driver’s side. Damian’s hand rested on the steering wheel, his body posture casual. If it weren’t for his black eye and my frumpy attire, we’d look like a million-dollar car commercial.
I’d gotten used to his black eye. It even faded a bit. The girls in school gossiped about it. They talked in the halls about how much hotter it made him. The guys fist-bumped Damian’s shoulder whenever he passed, giving him props for the black eye as if the memory of how he’d gotten it didn’t still haunt me.
I didn’t know how people outside of school reacted, but judging by the horrified stares Damian received from the staff and faculty at Devils Ridge High, the De Luca members didn’t like the idea of Angelo beating their golden boy. It didn’t help that Damian did nothing to dispel the rumor that his father had hit him.
Once again, I examined the black eye, tried to stop the pure hatred for Angelo from consuming me, and had to confront the idea that I cared for Damian more than I’d like to admit.
“You’re staring at me again.”
I redirected my gaze, flicked the strand of dog fur from my hoodie, and stared out of the windshield. “Are you sure your dad’s driver can’t drive me to and from school?”
“The man’s appendix burst, Princess. What do you expect from him?”
“What’s the recovery time for an appendectomy again?” I could last a few days. It wasn’t the end of the world.
“A week at the very least.” His eyes cut to me.
“Keep your eyes on the road. This is precisely why Orlando should be driving me.” Definitely not because I couldn’t handle being this close to Damian.
He reached forward and turned up the air conditioner, his fingers so close to my body. “Orlando has one to three weeks of recovery left, and no amount of complaining from you will change that.” The flat voice he spoke in did little to appease me.
I shook my head, my denial weak at bes
t. “I’m not complaining. I don’t complain.”
He braked at a stop light and returned his attention to me. “Do you have a problem with me being your ride to school?”
I paused. “Did you say three weeks?”
“Yes.” His fingers tapped the steering wheel, and he repeated, “Do you have a problem with me being your ride to school?” His probing gaze scorched my skin.
The stop light refused to turn green.
Come on, come one, come on.
Devils Ridge had to be the worst place for me to realize I had a heart. Small town. No way out. Unhinged mafia boss. The hottest guy I’d ever met everywhere I turned. And now we’d be stuck in a car together every morning and afternoon? No way.
My teeth dug into my lower lip before I opened my mouth again. “What happened to us not being seen together?”
“Everyone in town knows Orlando is in the hospital. They’ll understand when they see you with me.”
“Did your dad put you up to this?”
He slammed on the brakes and stuck his arm in front of me to stop my body from shooting forward. His head swung to me, and his eyes scraped their way up and down my face. “Are you serious?”
I looked down at where his arm touched my chest. “Yes.”
No.
I didn’t know.
Damian shook his head. “Angelo wanted you home, and you’ve seen how he’s been hiding out all week.”
I caught the implication. Damian had made the decision to drive me to school, rather than leave me with Angelo. Considering his motives meant considering the possibility that he worried about me, which would imply he cared.
Maybe one day, I’d be able to accept that without a fight, but until then, I’d keep my guard up and trust no one with my heart.
But it was getting harder and harder to temper my feelings.
Chapter Nineteen
“Love cannot live where there is no trust.”
– Edith Hamilton
Damiano De Luca
The edges of my black eye faded by prom night, but the damage had been done. The regulars at The Landing Strip saw the ugly bruise, and they talked. Meanwhile, the girls helped plant seeds of doubt about Angelo’s sanity.
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