Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“Dunno. I’d fuck her,” one of them said, making my stomach twist.
“Nah. Too big for me,” another of them said, getting more laughs as the door closed, silencing anything else they may have had to say about me.
There was a window between the garage and the waiting room, allowing customers to check the progress going on in the back.
But also allowing the mechanics to see into the front office.
I could not cry.
No matter how much my eyes were stinging.
I took a deep breath, blinking rapidly until the wetness retreated.
Then I slowly gathered all of the cookies off the desk, shoving them back into the plastic container, allowing anger to replace my upset, even if they both created a similar shaky sensation inside of me.
Then I squared my shoulders and made my way toward the door to the garage, leaving the coffee for guests to help themselves to, and moved into the garage, the temperature immediately ten degrees colder thanks to the open bay doors. It only managed to make me feel even shakier.
But I had to do this.
I couldn’t let them get away with it.
I let the door slam behind me, making all their heads turn to watch me as I walked over to the open metal trash can and dropped the cookies—plastic container and all—into the bag.
“Ren,” I called, hating the cocky smirk that toyed with his lips. And the way I felt like I was going to shake apart in seconds. “If you ever speak to me like that again, you’re fired. Do you understand me?”
“I didn’t—” he started, that stupid smirk falling as a darkness crossed his brown eyes.
“Do you understand me?” I asked, each word its own sentence.
“Fine,” he said, embarrassed to be scolded, but clearly wanting to keep his job.
With that, knowing I was close to losing it, I strode toward my uncle’s old office, steps deliberate—quick but not hurried.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw David give me the smallest of nods.
“Bitch,” I heard mumbled just as I closed the door.
That was fine.
I could be a bitch.
So long as I wasn’t the rug they walked all over.
I locked the door, glad that my uncle kept all the blinds drawn in the glass room, so no one saw me as I sank down in his old torn leather chair.
And cried.
CHAPTER TWO
Santo
“Jesus Christ,” I hissed, breaking off mid-stride when I saw someone moving around my kitchen.
“Charming as always,” Smush said, rolling her eyes at me. “If you got up before ten, you wouldn’t even know I was here.”
“You been talking to my mom?” I asked, making a beeline for the coffee pot, brows pinching when the light was off and the contents cold.
“Your lady friend turned it off before she left,” Smush told me as she pulled toothpaste and floss out of one of the bags. “She was pretty. Should I tell Aunt Giulia to start planning the wedding?”
“Why do you hate me?” I asked, dumping the pot of coffee, figuring it just made more sense to get some on the road now. “She’s already breathing down my neck. You think it’d be enough that Nino, Mass, and August got women and are popping out kids.”
“That is a Grassi mother,” Smush said with an understanding smirk. “They’re not satisfied until we’re all married and reproducing. If you think you have it bad, imagine how hard she is on Valley.”
That was likely true. And my sister spent a lot more time around my mother than I did. She had to be getting nagged relentlessly.
“So what was wrong with this one?” Smush asked as I went into the fridge to grab a yogurt, seeing she had already restocked that for me.
“What do you mean?”
“The girl. She was super pretty. And sweet.”
She was.
“Nothing’s wrong with her.”
“But you’re not going to be calling her again.”
“Probably not.”
“Why not?”
“We both just wanted some fun,” I told her. At her dubious look, I shrugged. “She was just in town for a wedding. She’s back to California tomorrow.”
“Convenient.”
“Hey, I’m not against finding the right woman. Until then, I’m just as happy to find a lot of the wrong women.”
Smush shook her head at that. “Shouldn’t you be at work by now, slacker?” she asked.
“Eh, just doing my rounds today,” I said, finishing the yogurt and tossing it in the trash.
We didn’t exactly talk details about our work with the women in the family. If shit went down, we wanted to make sure they had plausible deniability if the cops ever tried to lean on them. That said, they were part of a mob family; they understood a lot of the inner workings.
Some days involved meetings. Others, working on new money-making schemes. But a lot of days were just days when we did our rounds. Meaning, we played bag man for the family, collecting the protection money from local businesses.