chiara
Sitting in Alessandro’s car after making up with him, I swayed my feet back and forth underneath the dashboard and watched him pull out into the dark, dreary New York street at five-thirty a.m. He pulled to the corner of Albany and South End Avenue and cut the lights. He leaned back in his seat and sighed quietly, fixing his gaze on the foggy edges of the windshield. Rain hammered against the Benz.
A single streetlight flickered above us, illuminating the letters C.A.C. etched into the grip of the 9mm that sat in my lap.
“You know what you have to do,” Alessandro said after a few moments, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.
We needed to find a place to stay, but he had his focus on killing Dad as soon as possible.
“A bullet through his head will make us a target for the rest of the family,” I said.
But I already knew we were a target for the rest of the family. They were in hot shit and had to get rid of me as quickly as possible, before word got out about who they were and what they did to innocent kids.
Red and blue lights flashed in my rearview mirror as a police car pulled up behind us.
Alessandro swore under his breath, “Shit.”
Two figures exited the car. One of them stepped into a puddle near the curb.
I traced my initials on my gun with the tip of my finger, then wrapped my hand around the rubber grip. Alessandro pulled a single bronze bullet from his pocket and handed it to me. The bullet brought back memories of this past week. The haunting image of a car rolling into the river, the stench of gunpowder and blood seeping into the seats of my car, the bullets ricocheting off of my car.
One bullet, one death sentence.
Alessandro shifted in his seat and stared at me with those gray, dangerous eyes. “Do you think your father deserves to live?”
“Does anyone who has done what he has deserve to live?”
I hid my gun in my waistband and stuffed the bullet into my pocket. The only life that mattered in this business was your own.
An officer tapped three times on my window and shone a flashlight into the car.
“What’re you doing out here?” he asked.
“Just enjoying the weather,” Alessandro said to him, smiling at the man.
The officer looked further into the car at me, furrowed his brows, and frowned. “Do I know you?” he asked, giving me a weird look.
“No,” I said, suppressing an eye roll and smiling sweetly at him.
He must’ve been new.
I leaned forward and watched as his eyes dropped to my tits. “Do I know you?”
Eyes flickering to mine once more, he grimaced and looked back at Alessandro. “You shouldn’t be out this late. Go back home. A storm is coming.”
Then, without asking another question, the cops disappeared back into their car and waited for us to move.
“Hotel?” Alessandro asked.
“No …” My lips curled into a small smile. “Officer William’s home.”