Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
It’s been three days. Three miserable, ugly days. We distract ourselves with texting and video chats. He’s gotten me off a few times, and while I love it when he orders me around, it’s not the same. Although it’s close—Jackal sits wreathed in darkness, shirtless, and so beautiful it’s painful to look at, as he commands me to finger-fuck myself into oblivion.
It’s good, but it’s not enough. I miss him, and I’m lonely.
I have no idea how to process these feelings.
I thought I quieted that part of myself years ago, but Jackal and Marco turned them back on. Feelings, messy little emotions, crawl all over me and I don’t know how to shut them down anymore. It’s all too much, but as much pain and need as I feel, there’s also so much pleasure and joy that it’s hard to say what’s worse: life before where I was an emotionless husk, or life now where I’m a mess.
But then he’s there, sending me more messages. Sometimes they’re flirtatious, but more often they’re entirely normal. Questions about my work, about what I’m eating, about what I’m watching. I spend three hours—three full hours—explaining to him my sculpting techniques, and he listens the entire time. No, he doesn’t just listen: the guy actually asks questions like he’s paying close attention. We have normal conversations, the sort of mindless chatting, the kind of comfortable interaction I’ve never had before, and never knew I craved until him.
We make sense. It’s so easy. And even though it makes me want him more, and I feel myself falling harder every hour, I smile every time a new text comes in or a new video call summons me from the basement and into the bedroom.
Because I want to fall. I can’t keep lying to myself. I’ve fallen, I’m a splattered, smeared wreck of viscera on the sidewalk, all for them. Jackal and Marco.
“Is that a doorbell?” he asks on the morning of the fourth day. I’m in my kitchen making coffee, doing what he refers to as “boiling water and dumping it through mud,” and he’s right. My doorbell’s ringing.
“Call you back.” I hang up and hurry down the hall, not sure who the hell is bothering me right now. Simon knows better than to show his face at my house—maybe he’s safe in his office, but this is my fucking turf, and I won’t hesitate to kick him in the throat.
“There she is, my little sister the traitor.” Angelo leans against my porch railing with a vicious smile. His tone is halfway between serious and joking.
“What do you want?” I cross my arms, not inviting him inside.
“Simon told me everything. We should talk.”
“Did he mention the part where he took my car and grounded me like a fucking teenager?”
“Can you blame him?” Angelo’s smile fades away. “Marco Vitale was a Santoro Capo. He was the fucking enemy.”
“Emphasis on the was in that sentence. The Santoro mafia is dead and buried, remember?”
He grunts and pushes off the railing. “How the fuck did you even meet the guy?”
“Funny you ask. It was at Cage during the first gallery opening.”
Something crosses his expression. Surprise, anger, maybe a little guilt. But he shuts that down. Angelo’s always been good at hiding himself, especially around me, and I wonder how long he’s been doing it. Since long before he went to prison, though I think going away toughened him up.
“He must’ve been there to do something. I can promise you right now, I didn’t invite the guy. Did you ever think he’s just using you?”
I tamp down my rage. Screaming at my brother on my front porch isn’t going to convince anyone to let me leave the oasis. Even though I want to jam a knife straight through his eye and lick the gooey mess.
“Go away before you piss me off even more.” I turn to head back inside.
But Angelo follows. I try to slam the door in his face and succeed only in smashing his foot. He curses and muscles his way past me, grumbling the whole time, and I have to do a short breathing exercise to keep from grabbing a kitchen knife and gutting him.
“Simon was right to keep you locked up here, you know that?” He glares at me, standing next to my half-finished pour-over coffee. “God damn it, Laura, you’re not this naive.”
“Marco isn’t using me. Did you think for a second that I’m using him?” My lips twist into a snarl. “The sex is fantastic.”
“Oh, fuck you,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You think talking about fucking the guy’s going to scare me off? You’re just being a dick.”
“Actually, you and Simon are the dicks in this situation.” I pick up a saltshaker and casually throw it at his face. He barely ducks out of the way. It hits the wall and clatters to the floor, much to my annoyance. That would’ve been more satisfying if it had broken.