Twisted Loyalties (The Camorra Chronicles 1)

I was speechless.

“Your father always only protected himself. That’s all he cared about, saving his own ugly ass. So if you tell me that Fabiano kills someone to protect you, I tell you it could be worse. Would Fabiano ever make you pay off his debts with your body?”

“No,” I said with conviction. “He would kill anyone who dared to touch me.”

“Good.”

“Hey, are you coming back? I paid you forty dollars!” my mother’s client shouted.

Mom sighed. “I have to get back to him.”

I watched her scurry back into the bedroom. Slowly I loosened my death grip on the counter.

I needed to figure out a way to get the money my mother owed the Camorra, so she could stop selling her body. If I kept working in Roger’s Arena I would make enough money to pay for the apartment, food and her drugs. She’d never have to bear anyone’s touch again. I didn’t want to think about what she’d said about Fabiano. Even before her words, back when I’d sat in the bus, I’d wondered if I should really leave him. If I should give up the chance of love. But Fabiano’s harsh words today had taken that decision off my chest. This wasn’t about love, not for him at least.

I pulled the rest of the money Cheryl had leant me from my pocket. I still had fifty dollars left. Not much. But they could turn into more.

I grabbed my backpack again and headed back out, glad for the silence in the bedroom. If I had to listen to my mother doing that old bastard, I’d lose it.

Cheryl’s face fell when I walked into the bar. She dropped what she’d been doing and staggered toward me, ignoring a few customers waving at her to serve them. Mel took over quickly. Cheryl gripped my arm and pulled me behind the bar. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be gone by now?”

“Fabiano caught me,” I said quietly. I didn’t need people to overhear. I could tell from the looks people were giving me that they were already talking about me because of what happened to my father.

“Oh fuck.” She sighed. “I told you.”

“I know.”

“You know, if he doesn’t let you leave, perhaps you need to beat him with his own weapons. Go along, let him have fun, give him what he wants until he doesn’t want it anymore. Can’t be that hard?”

I looked away.

“Or is he some kind of sadistic bastard in the bedroom too?”

I didn’t say anything. I knew Fabiano wouldn’t appreciate me talking about these kinds of things. For some reason I didn’t want to betray his trust, and I was uncomfortable talking about them. Because no matter what he’d said during our last encounter, he had showed a gentler side when he was with me, a side he didn’t want people to know about.

Sleeping with Fabiano didn’t scare me for the reasons Cheryl suspected. He had been a far cry from sadistic in the bedroom.

“I’ll give you your money back as soon as Roger pays me, okay?” I told her.

She shrugged. “I don’t care about the money. I wish it would have helped you.”

I smiled. I’d never forget that she’d been willing to help me. “Where is Griffin?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Don’t go down that road. It’s a slippery one. You saw where it got your father.”

She didn’t have to tell me. I remembered what had happened to my father, had relived it in vivid color repeatedly. But after what Mom had told me today, I wasn’t broken up over his death anymore. At least not because he was gone. I only wished I didn’t have to see Fabiano do what he’d done. “I know what addiction does to people, and I have no intention of making betting a habit, believe me.”

“Nobody ever does.” She shrugged. “He’s in the booth behind the cage.”

“Thanks,” I said, then made my way to Griffin. He sat with his gaze glued to his iPad while he pushed fork after fork of fries into his mouth. I sank down on the bench across from him. He looked up, then back down. “I don’t need anything.”

“I’m not here to serve you,” I said quickly.

I pushed the fifty dollars over to him. “I want to bet against Boulder.”

Griffin raised one grey eyebrow, then nodded. Boulder had won every fight in the last couple of weeks. He was rumored to be Fabiano’s next opponent, if he won tonight. And everyone was certain he would win tonight.

“That’s 1 to twenty,” he said calmly.

So much money. “Can I bet money I don’t have?”

“You can get a credit from us and use it for your bet,” Griffin said, then pointed at my wrist. “Or you could put that down for a bet. I’d give you five hundred.”

“It’s worth much more,” I muttered.