“Right, sure, of course.” She blinks a few times and makes herself grin. “Blood and loyalty, right?”
“Blood and loyalty.” I motion for her to join me. “Come on. Let’s go see what Mother’s cooking.”
“It smells so good,” Emiliya says, falling in beside me, and we walk back to the spiral staircase. She chatters about her day, but all I can think about is Siena and Bastone, and our future with the both of them.
Is Father right about this? I worry we’re extending ourselves too far, to say nothing of the logistical issues of running girls. There’s a moral aspect to all this, but I’m a gangster. I learned a long time ago to turn off that part of my mind and do what’s necessary, no matter the cost in blood.
I have to go back to her. I know I shouldn’t, but I need to speak with Siena. I have to understand who she is and what she’s doing working at that place. That night she was wearing expensive clothes and designer heels, and she looked like she came from money. There was no way any of the girls in that place had clothes like she was wearing—so where’d the dress come from? Where’d she get that black credit card?
Questions burn through my mind, and they all revolve around Siena. Questions that I should never try to answer.
We had our one night. Why can’t that be enough?
Because she hasn’t left my mind. Nothing can distract me from feeling Siena’s touch in my dreams each and every night, and it tortures me. It tears me to pieces.
It can never happen. My life is not my own.
And yet I want her, and I will have her.
I’ll go back to Bastone’s, just as Father commanded.
But for my own reasons.
Chapter 6
Siena
Another toilet, another bleak afternoon. I scrub and scrub and scrub until the cheap white porcelain shines. Anything less and Zita will slap me across the face until my nose bleeds. When I finish with room sixteen, I push my cart out onto the second floor and pause as I look out over the balcony.
For the last two weeks, I’ve looked down at the parking lot and felt a surge of hope. And each and every day, disappointment has flooded through my heart.
No BMW. No Maxim.
I don’t know why I keep thinking about him. It’s foolish and pathetic. He’s not a knight in shining armor. He’s not going to rescue me from this place. Papa explicitly forbade me from ever seeing him again, and if I break that order, Zita will take great pleasure in making me hurt for it.
Maxim won’t change my life, and it’s pathetic to keep dreaming that he might.
This is my world now. I look at the metal cart and the cleaning supplies. My spray bottles filled with nameless solvents, my brushes and my mop and the towels folded at the very bottom. This is my world, my purpose, my entire existence, and to imagine something more is foolish.
Besides, why would I ever want a man like him?
I know his type. Gangsters and mafioso. My brothers are like him. My father is like him. They all treat me like dirt, and the ones that aren’t my family want one thing from me and one thing only: my mouth shut and my legs spread. I’ve been fighting off stupid, horny mobsters for my whole life, and only finally gave in for one single night with Maxim. That night was heaven, but so what? So he can fuck me like I never dreamed?
He won’t take care of me. That’s for damn sure.
I sigh and push the cart. It clatters over the concrete and my hip brushes against the metal railing. The Velvet Rope is my home now and I have to get used to it.
Shouts ring out from a room at the end of the row. Shouts turn to screams, and I shove my cart forward, one wheel shaking wildly, throwing off my balance. I surge forward anyway, because I know that voice.
It’s Mira, and she sounds afraid.
I slam my cart into the end of the railing and fumble for my keys. “Shit, fuck, come on,” I say, flipping through them, until I find the right one: unit thirty. I shove it in the lock and turn it with a click.
The door swings open.
The rooms a wreck. The bedspread’s on the floor like a puddle of blood. The sheets are tangled, and the TV’s been thrown against the far wall. The client stands with his back to me, his fist cocked back before throwing it forward with a sick, dull thud, directly into Mira’s face. She’s on the floor in front of him, sitting against the wall, her hands up trying to weakly fend him off, but he’s pummeling her anyway.
“Stupid. Fucking. Bitch,” he shouts.