“Olivia?” I whisper over her shoulder.
“I didn’t want to use your real name. Oh, and by the way, you’re not my cousin. You’re my friend from Aspen, Colorado.”
I bob my head as we sit. “Okay, friend.”
She smiles, and the stylist asks us both what we’d like. I decide to go with a basic blowout, though the highlights the woman across from me is getting are tempting.
“I’m glad you told me, Gia,” Jen says my way, her voice low. Her lips twist. “I hope to find someone who fuels me too—maybe not a kingpin mafia leader, but someone who still makes good money the legal way and wants a big family. Like a lawyer or an architect or something.” She sighs looking into the mirror in front of her. “I think that’s what I want.”
She’s so innocent and naïve. Jen is so…pure—the complete opposite of what I am. I’m worried having me around will only taint her. I am not good. Hell, I’m far from it, but she seems to be drawn toward me like a magnet.
Some of us Nicoteras should stay that way. Innocent. Pure. Sweet.
Not tainted, vile, and vicious. Not sold off to the highest bidder as a virgin Nicotera, scrambling around to save our own lives.
But I guess with a name like ours, things like that are usually bound to happen. Someone will come along and snatch that innocence right away. They will eliminate all the good left inside you until you are nothing but a vessel, with veins full of ice and a heart as black as coal.
I was afraid of becoming that…but now that it has happened, I don’t see it being any other way. Being what I am now makes me strong. It keeps me on my toes. It gives me something to fight for—and I’m fighting to feel good again.
To be good again.
Get rid of all of my enemies and no longer having a target on my back. I just want happiness, even in the midst of all this darkness. I want to get away and be free—literally free of all the worldly troubles and all the violence.
The only problem is, the person I want to share this happiness with is Draco. That’s why I have to find him. I have to be with him. I have to tell him how I really feel before it’s too late.
I have to be his reina, so I tell my stylist, “You know what? I want what she’s getting.” I point to the woman across from me. “Give me highlights.”
18
GIANNA
We get home just around lunchtime.
There are warm, lip-licking aromas drifting through the house, and Jen groans, like it’s the best thing she’s ever smelled.
“Gah, I love it when she cooks.” She steps to the side to kick her boots off. I untie my shoes and place them on the doormat in front of the coat rack. I follow Jen upstairs, and we put our bags in our rooms, then we head back down to the kitchen, where Aunt Minnie is standing over a pot on the stove.
There are freshly sliced baguettes on the table top, bowls already set up there for whatever she’s preparing.
“Hey, Mom. What are you making?” Jen asks, stepping up beside her and peering over her shoulder. “It smells amazing.”
“My famous autumn chowder soup with toasted baguettes.” She announces the meal with pride, and I smile. I can’t believe it’s fall already. Though it was only two months of being captured, tortured, beaten, and then treated like his reina, it felt like years.
I hear the front door shut, and I step back, taking a look down the hallway. I expect Clark, but it’s Uncle Jack. He walks my way, smiling wide with open arms. He wrangles me up into a big bear hug, and I let out a small wheeze before laughing.
“Might as well get used to those. Everyone under my roof gets hugs when they first see me during the day,” he laughs, letting me go. “Everyone but that crazy son of mine.”
“Another one of your uncle’s ridiculous rules,” Aunt Minnie adds in.
Jen and I laugh, and Uncle Jack scoops Jen up in one arm, wrapping his other around Aunt Minnie’s chest and kissing the top of her head.
“Like the hair, girls,” Uncle Jack notes, smiling at us.
I return a smile. They are the perfect little family.
They seem so normal and nice. I’m certain they can get down and dirty if need be, but I don’t think they’ve had to in long, long time.
A slight pang of envy strikes me. Why couldn’t it be this simple and quiet for me? Why couldn’t Daddy take Mom and me to a secluded home, away from all of the madness?
Why couldn’t he keep his mafia life and his personal life separate? Everything he did, I ended up knowing about, either by an argument between him and Mom, or from overhearing my bodyguards.