I get comfortable watching, sitting on the edge, tucking a foot under me. Even with my eyes adjusted to the dark, I can’t make out her face. It doesn’t matter. I know her face as well as my own. I can see the bedspread rise and fall ever so slightly. That’s what matters. Maybe it’s creepy to watch her sleep. I don’t care. As long as she’s breathing, as long as she’s safe, then what I’m doing is worth something. I’m worth something.
She must sense me there, because she stirs. She rolls over, toward me. Does she have bad dreams too?
Her eyes blink open. They’re bright in the darkness. Not green, though. Not scary.
“Honor,” she says, voice thick with sleep.
“Go back to sleep,” I say, soothing. “Everything’s fine.”
I hope I haven’t scared her. And I haven’t. She trusts me to protect her. The only problem is I don’t know how. My life has never been about safety. It’s a foreign idea, like landing on the moon. Or falling in love. All I know is how to survive.
“Are you okay?” she asks, still in that distant voice. She must have one foot still in her dreams.
“I’m fine,” I promise. And I know I should leave it at that, but something pushes me onward. She’s vulnerable now. She’s more honest than she’d ever be waking. “Are you okay, Clara? Are you happy here?”
“Not happy. Can’t be happy.”
I flinch. I should have known the answer—maybe I did know all along—but I wasn’t prepared to hear it. Not in the middle of the night, so soon after the nightmare.
“God, Clara,” I whisper. “What have I done?”
I know we couldn’t have stayed there. I could never let Byron or his friends touch her. But this isn’t okay either, this shitty motel room. Can’t be happy.
“She’s hurt,” Clara whispers. “She’s hurting.”
Who is she talking about? Herself? I search for my voice, for some comfort I can give. “No one’s going to hurt you, baby.”
“They’ll kill him.”
I shiver.
Her hand reaches over the blanket and grasps mine. She feels ice-cold. I squeeze her hand. In those final moments she’d been fully lucid. I could feel her slipping away now, back into sleep. That is for the best. She probably won’t even remember this tomorrow.
They’ll kill him.
The truth is, they probably already did kill him. A young man who lived on our father’s estate, the son of one of his guards, helped us escape. I wait until her breathing evens out and her grip around my hand loosens before I get up. I’m still nowhere close to sleep, so I wander over to the window. The drapes in the motel room are heavy and wide. They block out most of the light. So when I push them aside to peek through, even the faint light pricks my eyes.
The sidewalk is empty. Everything is still and quiet.
My hand brushes the Madonna statue, and it wobbles on the sill. It’s light, hollow. Made of plastic. I’m not sure who would buy a statue like this as a religious symbol. It’s too irreverent. But we’re using it as one.
She looks over us, this mother holding her child. She protects us. It’s worked so far.
I put my fingertip on the top of her head. Just a little while longer. Once I get proof against my father, I can use it as leverage. We’ll be free of him then.
We won’t need the protection of a burned-out light-up Madonna anymore.
* * *
My father is a descendent from one of the original leading families in Las Vegas. Due to the path of our family tree and criminal politics, he didn’t play a major role in the larger organization. But he was still respected. Still feared.
He would tell me bedtime stories with delitto d’onore. Honor killings. About men who disrespected their families and had to be put down. I didn’t realize until later that delitto d’onore is why he might have killed my mother. Didn’t realize it until later that it’s why he might kill me…if he finds me.
Maybe one day I’d figure out what honor really meant, because I couldn’t be like him. I couldn’t give Clara away to one of Byron’s friends. I couldn’t let her be all but sold to a monster—all in the name of family honor.
Like I had been.
I’m done with honor. I’m ready to be bad. To break the rules for more than just money. Except, of course, the man that I want to break them with doesn’t come back. For five nights. Five long nights of dancing in a smoky room, of evading grabbing hands. The girls figure out something is up with me.