Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
But Rico isn’t paying any attention to Dom right now. He’s looking at me like we’ve got business to settle. He steps closer, invading my space, reeking of expensive cologne applied with a heavy hand.
“It was you,” I say. Not a question. “That was your text that called me home. How—"
He cuts me off. “You don’t know shit about what’s happening, do you? Little Giovanni, always the last to know.”
I grab my phone, keeping my face blank. My fingers move with precision while my mind catalogs escape routes.
To: Marco Bavga, Angelo Bavga, Salvatore Bavga
Where the fuck are you? I’m at home. Guess why.
The responses arrive simultaneously. Three variations of the same message.
Marco: cabo. why the hell didn’t you come with?.
Angelo: party, party, party! who dis?
Father: if you’re in the middle of confronting Rico LaRiccia, stop. do not make problems for me while we’re having a nice time in mexico. We’re on good terms with the LaRiccia family right now and he’s been given the run of the estate for the week. Big changes are coming soon. Don’t fuck it up.
So. That’s where I stand, I guess.
Rico engineered this. He fabricated a family emergency to lure me here. And he practically got my father’s permission to do so.
I pocket my phone and look up. Behind me stands the pool house with its glass walls and electronic locks. Inside waits Emmaleen, protected by nothing but a door.
“Everything good, cuz?” Rico’s voice slides through the afternoon air.
His smile hasn’t changed in twenty-four years—all teeth, no warmth. His eyes move from me to Dom to Ricky, collecting reactions like trophies.
“Perfect.” I keep my voice neutral. “Just confirming details.”
The crunch of tires on gravel pulls my attention to the driveway. Black SUVs and European sports cars arrive in steady procession.
Ten, eleven, twelve vehicles.
They park near the main pool entrance rather than approaching the pool house.
“You’re gonna stick around, right?” Rico asks me. “I’ve got ladies,” he says, whispering the last word like prostitutes are something special and unique.
“Sure,” I say, lowering my eyelids to a lazy position. “I’ll stick around.”
Rico shifts his weight. Laughs. Rests his hand on Dom’s shoulder with false camaraderie. “Fantastic. Let’s get this party started.”
Dom looks back at me as Rico wraps his arm around his shoulder, forcing him to walk with him through the tunnel of wisteria vines that lead from the pool house to the pool.
I shake my head. That shake says, Don’t do anything. I’ll handle this.
Then I turn back to the pool house where Emmaleen Rourke has no idea what’s coming her way.
16
Welcome to the Bavga Family Murder Mansion, population: me, my bad decisions, and a king-sized bed that’s practically screaming “plot development.”
The blackout blinds have plunged me into darkness so complete I might as well be in a sensory deprivation tank. Or a coffin.
Equally comforting options.
I press my ear against the front door of the pool house like I’m auditioning for the role of Nosy Neighbor #3 in a community theater production of Rear Window. The voices outside are muffled—angry male syllables that don’t quite form words through the soundproofing. Great. I’m trapped in a glass box that’s suddenly not glass anymore, listening to what might be my boss plotting murder or ordering pizza. The context clues are slim.
Didn’t I wake up this morning in a homeless shelter? Wasn’t I just standing at a desk in too-big red shoes three hours ago?
The timeline of my day reads like someone with severe ADHD wrote it while on a cocaine bender.
Let’s recap, shall we?
Late to work. Check. Nothing says “professional” like missing your start time on day one.
The contract with its “Sistema di Demerito”—Italian for “Ways Emmaleen Will Fail Today.” A series of punishments that apparently include “surprise road trip to mob family dinner.” Very normal workplace policy.
Who can forget, Satan’s stilettos?
Standing for hours sorting meaningless papers while Giovanni watched me like I was a particularly interesting science experiment.
The errand to get a suit from his bedroom. A trap disguised as a task.
Driving the Lamborghini—okay, that part was actually incredible, if we’re being honest. Felt like piloting a spaceship designed by someone who hates poor people.
The mansion that belongs in a murder mystery dinner theater.
The closet filled with clothes in my exact size, which means he’s either psychic or had me measured in my sleep, and I’m not sure which is creepier.
And finally, the offer: “Unless... you come with me.”
Five words that weren’t really an offer but a test. Or a trap. Or both.
Now I’m staring at a king-sized bed that dominates the space like Chekhov’s most obvious gun. He said he’d take the couch—the world’s least convincing lie. That bed is waiting like the final boss in a video game I didn’t know I was playing.
This isn’t a job. It’s an audition for Stockholm Syndrome: The Musical.
I am spectacularly, monumentally, award-winningly stupid. That’s the only logical conclusion I can possibly come to after reviewing the evidence before me. My decision-making skills deserve their own special category of Darwin Award—one where you survive just long enough to keep making progressively worse choices until the universe itself has to step in and say, “Honey… no.”