His face darkened. “How are you holding up?”
“Just fine,” I said, looking down at my bare feet. They’d brought me new shoes but I didn’t see the point of wearing them. “He’s treating me like a queen.”
“I’m guessing he gave you that black eye.”
“He wasn’t too happy when I turned down his offer.”
Dante sighed and rubbed at his face with a hand. He’d always been nice to me over the years, even when it wasn’t fashionable or a good thing to be kind to the awkward cousin—but no matter how gentle he’d been, or the small polite smiled he’d given me, he was still my brother’s man, through and through. It didn’t matter if he pitied me or thought Vincent was treating me poorly, he’d do what Vincent said because that was what the family demanded of him.
I’d met a thousand mafioso just like him, and they were all the same.
“I know none of this is fair,” he said, spreading his hands.
“Fair?” I barked a laugh, almost spitting it back in his face. “That’s a stupid way of putting it.” I grimaced as the pain in my side flared.
“I’ll do what I can for you, but Vincent’s pissed. What did you say to him?”
“Slapped his arrogant face and told him to fuck off.” That was mostly true, at least, and it felt damn good to do it.
He sighed and shook his head. “Come on. You know Vince, you can’t disrespect him like that. You’ve got to play the game.”
The old anger rose up again as I took a few steps toward him. “I’ve been playing the fucking game my whole life,” I said, barely controlling myself. “Alex wanted to play the game, and he ended up dead. Do you remember Alex?”
His face remained expressionless as he nodded once. “I remember him. Friend of yours. Nice guy.”
“Dead for a long time now, all because he wanted to play. I’m sick of playing and tired of all this bullshit. I want to get the hell out of here.”
“I’ll talk to Vince,” he said, backing toward the door. I saw the discomfort then, and I guessed he didn’t like seeing me this angry, didn’t like seeing a woman with this much rage in her—or maybe he didn’t like the way he looked in my eyes, how it reflected a bad image of him.
I wanted to show them all, show each and every one of them how sick and broken they were. Vince talked about controlling the city and keeping order, but without the mafia, life would be better for people. It wasn’t the mafia that was keeping the city from itself—the city needed to keep itself from the mafia.
“Go ahead, but I’ll tell you right now he won’t care. My cousin’s long gone, and you followed him over into the deep end. How much did you cost, Dante?”
That got to him. “Vince might be wrong about this, but that doesn’t mean I’ll blindly follow him.”
“Then let me go, right now. Open the door and let me walk out. Hell, give me some money and help me escape. Do the right thing.”
He shook his head. “You know I won’t.”
“I know.” I sneered at him. “Because you’re like all the others. You think you’re better, but you’re wrong.”
“Take his offer. That’ll get you out of this mess.” He put one hand on the doorknob.
“I’m not interested in his offer. I just want to go back to my life.”
“Back to your husband?”
I clenched my jaw, but nodded once. I wasn’t ashamed of how I felt. “Back to Reid.”
“I feel bad for you, Cora, and I’ll help if I can, but you should help yourself first and take Vince’s offer. And apologize to him.”
“He can apologize to me then go fuck himself.”
A moment of anger flashed into his eyes. “You act like you’re the only one that gets beat up in this place.”
I laughed at the absurdity, and would’ve kept laughing if it didn’t hurt. “You walk around like kings.”
“I watch my friends die all the time. I kill when I need to, fight when I have to, and risk my neck for the goddamn family. You think you have it bad? You get to drift through life and all you have to do is put up with our shit.”
“You’ll never understand.”
“And you’ll never get over it if you don’t try.” He opened the door and turned to step into the hallway. “I’ll still do what I can for you, Cora.”
“Yeah, I bet you will, asshole.”
He shut the door, locked it, and left. I heard his footstep recede down the hallway.
I let out an angry scream and kicked the bed hard, then fell down to the floor gasping with pain. I gripped my foot and groaned, rolling side to side, tears in my eyes, cursing myself, cursing Vincent and Dante, and cursing the whole damn city.