Haunt Me With Vengeance (31 Days of Trick or Treat: Biker & Mobster #1)

Chapter 1

CATERINA

Perfection only looks good on paper. On me, it pinches like a pair of cheap shoes that don’t fit quite right.

Dean Park smiles like he’s attending a press release while Mother Superior Carbone rests both palms on the neat stack of my life sitting in one manila folder.

GPA. Service hours. Conduct notes so spotless they squeak.

The portfolio of a girl whose soul’s already been sold to God.

“You are,” Mother Superior says, “a model candidate, Caterina. You’ve shown your purity, grace, acceptance, and faith beautifully.

From the time I met you when you were only a child, you’ve volunteered every spare moment to others.

We’ve watched as you handled your mother’s death with dignity, and you took her place in your household and the Church as we would expect.

The Order of Sacred Mercy is eager to welcome you after graduation.

We could even accelerate your postulate start, if you prefer. ”

I draw in a discreet breath through my nose, exhale slowly, and smooth a wrinkle over my knee, taking my time answering. That’s the thing—I don’t prefer it. I prefer air. I prefer freedom.

Being a postulate entails the exact opposite.

It means a five a.m. bell and my feet on cold stone tile before the second chime. Hair scraped tight, skirt hem pinned to regulation length, shoes shined enough to catch the overhead bulbs.

Morning prayers in the chapel, study hour in the library, kitchen duty on Tuesdays, laundry on Fridays, floors whenever the chart says so.

No phone—that’s locked up with personal effects. Calls home are scheduled and supervised. Letters, if I wanted to write any, are read before they’re mailed. Silence at meals unless spoken to.

Curfew at nine, lights out at ten, room checks at random.

I’d answer to Sister Clarisse, keep my eyes level and my hands visible, and ask permission for everything from Advil to air on the courtyard.

God forbid I have a headache.

There’s a sign-out sheet for the bathroom after vespers. There are demerits for sarcasm, for lateness, for a strand of hair that escapes the bun.

They call the uniform modest. It fits like a list of rules.

My chest squeezes and I try to inhale again. The air in Mother Superior’s office is suffocating…it’s starting to close in around me, almost, and I can’t quite pull a full breath into my lungs.

But that doesn’t matter to the two people watching me expectantly.

Grace above all.

“I’d like to finish my senior projects,” I manage, smooth and dutiful.

Don’t choke on the words. Don’t fidget. Don’t look at the door.

Dean Park’s smile clicks up a notch. “Perfect. The timing aligns with your father’s very generous endowment in your name. We’ll be able to grow the outreach program significantly.”

And there it is. The pinch I’m starting to feel everywhere tightens. I didn’t know about an endowment “in my name.” I didn’t have to. In our world, I’m secondary to the things that actually matter. Here, just like I am at home, I’m nothing more than a ledger line with a pulse.

“Generous,” I echo. My throat tastes like the old varnish the nuns use to polish the wood.

Bitter.

My phone buzzes once in my coat pocket and I don’t have to check to know who it’s from—Prudence.

Quietly, I slip my phone out and into my hand, hoping that neither of the adultier adults in the room decides to question me on it. I’m not theirs yet.

I was right. Pru’s name is right there on my lock screen, followed by a pumpkin emoji and then a ghost. Of course. Halloween. Campus is already running on sugar and sin. The North End will thrum after dark with saints and party-store devils.

I am supposed to be in bed by ten, reading about charitable tax law.

Mother Superior folds her hands, soft authority over steel. Her gaze flicks over the phone pointedly and she continues speaking. “Purity isn’t a burden, child. It’s a gift you return to the world.”

Purity is a leash that looks like lace.

“We’ll just need your signature to lock the postulate date,” Dean Park adds lightly. “No rush—end of week.” They pass over two slips of paper. One marking my attendance at the meeting, and the other stipulating that I want to move my commitment up by almost an entire year.

No rush. Just the end of my life on paper.

“I’ll review everything.” I sign the attendance form with my best obedient-daughter handwriting and stand, holding on to the other form. I keep my knees steady and my smile intact through sheer force of habit. I’ve trained for this.

The corridor air is cooler. I lean my shoulders against stone, inhale the scent of floor wax and old wood. I count to four. Then eight. I hold the numbers in my mouth like lozenges until my ribs stop trying to climb out of my body.

“Are we about to murder someone?” Pru appears, a backpack full of cables banging her hip, nose ring flashing.

A smile carves my face despite the meeting I just exited. Pru is my hands-down favorite chaos gremlin, carrying sunshine with her wherever she comes. “Cause I brought bail money. By which I mean a granola bar and an expired student ID.” She pauses to look me over. “How did it go?”

“I signed the attendance sheet,” I say. “I didn’t sign away my soul.” The word yet hangs unspoken between us.

Her eyes flick over my face—she reads me, files away my responses, and then offers a grin.

“Good. Because Theater misplaced the costume closet key, and I have a moral obligation to facilitate a felony of fun. Also, Carbone called you ‘the perfect candidate’ by the salad bar. She’s beta-testing your halo and I think you need to take it a step further. ”

“Perfect is just PR with a rosary.”

“Honestly girl, you’re perfection without trying.

If you weren’t so honest-to-god nice, I would have hated you on sight.

But you’re not. So let’s mess up their plans, at least for a little while.

Make you completely not-perfect. Just for a little while tonight.

We’ll be ghosts before midnight. And then you can turn back into a pumpkin and return yourself to the tower you’re locked away in. ”

“I think you’re mixing up your fairytale princesses.” I chuckle, but the entire time I’m chewing on the inside of my lip.

I should say no. I should sit in the chapel and practice looking holy beside the donation plaque with my name on it. I should call my father and thank him for purchasing my virtue in bulk.

Stained glass spills fractured light across the hall. Saints in jewel tones. Shadows where the sinners stand.

“Seven,” I tell her. “Are costumes optional?”

“Optional? Babe.” She squeezes my arm. “You’re putting on a habit, and you’re gonna look just as hot as Whoopie in that old movie.”

I laugh. It feels sacrilegious. It feels like oxygen feeding the flames of my freedom. “Go, before Carbone catches us planning to enjoy things.”

“She can fight me.” Pru backs down the hall, already tapping on her phone. “I’ll bring the ghost. You bring the girl who wants a life outside of the nunnery.”

When she’s gone, I text my father.

Meeting went well. I’ll review the packet.

No emoji. He hates them, and if I use one, chances are he’ll accuse me of drinking or using drugs.

The reply arrives before I pocket the phone.

Proud of you. Dinner tonight?

I stare at the screen until the words blur, then type:

Can’t. Study group.

A lie so gentle it barely qualifies. A lie that buys me a few hours as an almost-someone else. A someone with a life. God, I wish I could be the person that walks away from family expectations.

I go to the chapel anyway. I choose a pew halfway back. There are twelve panels in the nearest window. I count them three times to make sure. The counting helps.

Why can’t I be as perfect as my mother was?

I try so damn hard.

Every single day, and yet… I fail. I’ll never be like her. No matter how much I try. No matter how many times I do penance. Or how many hours I spend volunteering my time.

A whisper of movement from somewhere near the confessional draws my attention away from the window.

The old wood creaks like a ship in winter seas, sending me off.

I close my eyes and imagine silence big enough for me to hide inside.

I imagine a life where my body isn’t a bargaining chip and my name doesn’t carry the weight of expectations.

Footsteps scrape against the floor, soft. Not a priest. A student? Security?

I open my eyes, expecting to feel haunted, but everything looks like it always does—gold, shadow, centuries of borrowed holiness.

“Perfection looks heavy,” says a voice from the dark. Irish edges sanded down to Boston salt. “You want a hand taking off that halo?”

I don’t startle. I am a Moretti, after all. We don’t admit to as pathetic of an emotion as surprise. I turn my head, urging my heart to stay calm.

The intruder is mostly shadow and a grin you could light a candle with. Handsome, in the way a fallen angel is.

“I’m praying,” I say, and it’s almost true.

He tips his head, studying me like he’s deciding where my edges end. “Right. I won’t interrupt that important task.” He starts down the side aisle anyway, slow, respectful. He’s not a threat. Not yet.

“Campus is closed to the public after seven, you know,” I say, because that’s what a good girl says.

He gestures at the door. “It’s not seven.” His mouth curves. “Happy almost-Halloween.”

“Almost,” I agree, and I feel it: the itch under my skin, the pinch turning into a pressure that wants to become a choice.

He stops one pew behind me and one pew over.

Not crowding. Close enough I can smell soap and something colder—night air, maybe.

I can see him without turning around, and I can’t decide if he’s treating me with respect or almost mocking me.

His hands stay visible, palms on the pew back like he’s holding onto something, or holding himself back.

“Sanctuary,” he says, nodding toward the inscription on the marble wall. “It means ‘no one is allowed to hurt you in here.’ You know that, right?”

My throat tightens against his ridiculously astute observation. “I read Latin.”

“Then you know the other meaning behind that word.” He leans his cheek briefly against his knuckles, eyes on the altar. “Places can be holy, like this one. But that’s not all. Your decisions can be holy. Those decisions can offer just as much sanctuary as the chapel.”

What the heck kind of conversation is this? I feel a bit like Alice, fallen down the rabbit hole.

I should stand. I should leave. I should never be the kind of girl who talks to a stranger in the dark and thinks about freedom like a moth drawn to a flame.

“I do read Latin,” I reply, just this side of tart. I try to ignore the fact that I like the amused smile that dances on his lips at that.

He’s a handsome man. Too handsome, with greenish-hued eyes and dusky brown hair that curls a little around his ears and at the nape of his neck. It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but it looks like there might be red tones in it if the sun hits it just right.

His chin is covered in a fine bristle that my fingers itch to touch, just to see if it’s itchy or soft. If I were the kind of girl who made bets, I’d bet he was the kind of man who broke hearts.

I shouldn’t be talking to him.

“Do you ever get tired of people naming you before you get to introduce yourself?” I ask, surprising us both. “Making assumptions about who you are. What your place in this life is?”

“All the time,” he says softly. “I’m Cay—” He stops himself, corrects with a smile that feels like a secret. “Casey.” Obviously he doesn’t want me to know his real name. Which is fine with me.

I breathe his not-name in, then tuck mine behind my teeth. “Catherine.”

“Saint’s name,” he says.

“Depends on the day.”

“Tonight?”

I look at the altar. At the door. At the empty confessional with its old, heavy wood and a little brass sign I could count the screws on if I needed to breathe. “Tonight I’m a girl who has until midnight before reality sucks me back in.”

He laughs once, quiet. “Then we’re pretty much the same. At least for tonight.”

My phone buzzes again, and I force myself to check the notification. Prudence.

Costume acquired. sinner chic inbound. [A skull emoji. A knife.]

I swallow a smile.

“Seven,” I tell Casey-Not-Casey as I stand. “You need to leave by then. Try not to steal anything while I’m gone.”

“I don’t steal,” he says. “I claim.” His gaze takes my face first, then the rest, a slow audit. “And I wait for what’s mine.”

A shiver takes me. I turn and walk swiftly away after one final, uncertain nod.

The doors let the cold in as I step out into the blue hour. Campus bells mark the time—six-thirty—twice. I count the chimes even after they stop, because the numbers keep my sanity intact

One last night of freedom, I promise myself.

I’m not gone. I have tonight. It’s not forever.

Not yet.

It’s just long enough to remember I have a pulse before I sign my life away.