The Italian

I laugh out loud. Actually, that’s a pretty good toast. “To making men jealous.”

11

Olivia

I smile as I write the text and hit send.

I’m reporting you to Human Resources for being a bad influence.

I am wrecked.

Whose brilliant idea was it to drink four bottles of Prosecco on a Monday night?

I don’t know what the hell happened last night, but I left work thinking I was going straight home, and then somehow arrived home six hours later, drunk and disorderly. Giorgio is hilarious, and his boyfriend Angelo ended up coming and meeting us for dinner. He’s lovely, too.

I had fun last night—the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here—but there is one small problem.

For the life of me, I can’t stop thinking about Rici Ferrara.

It’s eating at me. The whole damn thing is eating at me. He is the world’s biggest asshole.

After the way he treated me in the police station, he has the nerve to judge me for going on a Tinder date. I mean, who the actual fuck does this guy think he is? Who died and made him God? The more I think about it, the angrier I get. At first, I was in shock, but now I just can’t believe it.

He marches over to my table, drags me outside, and then calls me a whore.

What the actual fuck was I thinking by standing there and taking it? Why didn’t I punch him in the face or something much more satisfying?

I keep hearing my pathetic little whiny voice. Go away, I said.

Damn it, I should have marched over and kicked him as hard as I could in his bastard shin. Nobody is that good looking that they can get away with treating people the way he has treated me.

Nobody.

My phone beeps with a text.

Please do notify HR.

Hopefully they will put me out of my misery.

Sick. As. Hell.

G

I giggle. Good. I’m glad he’s sick, too.

I sip my tea as I type two words into Google.

Enrico Ferrara

That guy said he was a crime boss.

I was so rattled the other night that I left that major detail out of my thought process. What did Franco’s cousin mean by that exactly? Could it be true, could Enrico really be a crime boss? The whole notion seems ridiculous. He’s a policeman, and I know he really is because I saw him at the station myself.

But then I think back to how wealthy his family are.

The search results pop up and I read on.

Enrico Giuliano Ferrara