8. Cassandra
8
CASSANDRA
“ Y ou’ve got to be fucking joking.”
The words explode from my mouth before I can stop them. Even Teo looks up from his book to stare at me in surprise.
How was this the best idea Rocco could come up with? Trade me for Claudio’s debt? It’s hard to feel relieved that he kept his word when the solution is somehow far more revolting than the problem.
“Miss Cassandra,” Rocco begins, but I don’t let him finish.
“I’m not some kind of commodity you can barter for!”
“Cas,” Claudio glares at me. “Don’t speak to him like that.”
But I ignore him, too enraged to mind my tongue.
“What happened to, ‘ She won’t do shit for you ’?” I mock his words from the other night, hoping to strike a nerve. “What happened to condemning coercion?”
Rocco merely watches me, amusement dancing across his stupidly beautiful face as he twirls the opal fountain pen across his fingers. “And here I thought you were willing to beg for it, Angioletta.”
That stupid, stupid, stupid nickname sends a pang of longing through my entire body. As it has done every waking second we’ve been apart.
Even in my dreams, I find myself back in that room, imagining all the things I’d let him do to me if only he hadn’t stepped away. I imagined all the desires he would whisper in my ear that I would, oh-so-willingly, beg to fulfill for him.
It might have been the only thing that kept me sane as I fell asleep next to Claudio, who had hit me the second he noticed the bruise on my neck.
I’d endured all of it, the names he threw at me, the pain, to fulfill my side of our bargain. To lay low until Rocco announced his intentions.
But when I look at Rocco now, I see that alluding to what happened in that room serves another purpose than just pissing me off. It reminds me of the oath he made.
Both not to touch me again and to free me from Claudio.
“Or was I mistaken?” He asks with a pointed look. He may as well have said, ”This is your last chance to back out”.
I might not like his methods, but the fact remains. He’s trying to help me.
And I need to play my part.
I let color flush my cheeks as I look back at Claudio. “I never said that.”
“You slut,” he snipes back.
It’s not the first time he’s said it these last few days, but it still makes me wince.
From the fireplace, the sound of paper ripping tears through the moment.
“Sorry, am I interrupting?” Teo asks innocently as he discards his book and pockets the page he ripped out.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Rocco sweeping something into the trash can by his feet.
“As charming as this little exchange has been,” Rocco snatches our attention right back, “I have places to be. Lazzaro, you have my offer. Cassandra, should he accept, can I presume you will be as agreeable as you were the other night?”
I have to bite my tongue while I formulate an appropriate response.
“I only agreed because Claudio was in trouble.”
“And he’s going to be in a lot more if he doesn’t make his payment next week.”
I look up at Claudio, pretending to try to discern what he wants me to do. “Will you make the payment, darling?”
Claudio doesn’t look me in the eye when he replies. “No.”
Though it sickens me to my very core, I reach for his hands. “Claudio, if I need to do this, I will.”
He snatches them away before I can touch him.
“She would need to keep working,” Claudio declares, all but sealing my fate.
Rocco tuts. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that.”
“What?” I say, my voice a few octaves higher than usual.
“Cassandra will be joining me on a trip out of town,” Rocco announces before examining his nails and refusing to elaborate.
My teeth grind together. What exactly is he playing at?
Claudio, for once, seems to agree with me. “The Candelabra will be missing an act.”
“Things were operating just fine before Cassandra arrived. I trust you’ll be able to manage without her.”
“So what, you’ll fuck her for three months and then hand her back to me like a used-up plaything?”
Rocco goes deathly still. It’s the only telltale sign of his anger. “Are you really willing to lecture me about secondhand goods, Lazzaro? May I remind you that what I’m offering may well be the difference between your miserable life and a miserable death?”
An old kind of fury rears its ugly head within me at their words. It burns bright and hot as I will myself not to interfere, not to protest the way they’re talking about me, as if I’m not even here.
I almost break at the look on Claudio’s face.
He’s not angry, or sad, or even scared. He looks speculative. Hopeful even.
“And you will write off the entire debt.”
“On the condition that she stays with me until the hundred and one days are up.”
Claudio shakes his head in disbelief. “You really want her that badly?”
Rocco looks over at me carelessly. The way his eyes rake over me feels so dangerous. He’s exposing his feelings completely, and displaying his intentions for the world to see. “I think the real question is, do you want her enough to deny me?”
I swallow hard, knowing in my heart what Claudio’s answer will be.
“Mister Moretti, I accept your offer.”
And the tiny shred of hope that Claudio would even try to fight for me completely dies. I feel foolish for it, for even thinking he was capable of being half the person he pretended to be when we first met.
But that sweet, attentive man who whispered about the wonders of the world in my ear had never even existed.
Hell, I don’t have any idea who he is anymore. If he’s been running the Candelabra on Rocco’s behalf, taking sizable loans from this ”guild”, there is a very real possibility that Claudio has been a part of the mafia himself from the very beginning.
Was everyone at the Candelabra somehow involved with this? Danny and Teresa had been there the other night, too.
My blood runs cold.
Mia.
No, she wouldn’t have lied to me…would she? Yet she knew about Rocco and warned me to stay away from him.
Which means, at the very least, she knows about all of this. She knows who Criag is, too, and said nothing to me.
How many more lies will I have to endure from people who were supposed to love me back?
A hand gently grabs my neck, and I realize I must have been spiraling for at least a minute.
Claudio hunches over the desk, signing some kind of paperwork, and Rocco…Rocco is standing behind me. His thumb gently strokes at the parting gift he left me the last time we were together.
“Don’t be upset, Angioletta. You’re in safe hands now.”
I want to laugh loudly and bitterly. What does safe even look like to a mafia don?
“Come,” he says simply as he leads me to his seat behind the desk. “You must be tired of standing.”
It’s only when I’ve sat down that I realize my legs are shaking.
All of this is really happening.
“It’s done,” Claudio announces, slamming the pen on the desk.
“Excellent.”
“What shall I do with her things?”
Rocco nods toward Teo. “Someone will swing by to pick them up.”
Claudio nods back as he just stands there awkwardly. “So that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
The asshole has the nerve to look relieved.
“So I’ll see you in a few months, Cas?”
I gape up at him. The reality of what he’s just done is setting in hard and fast. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me?”
“Cas…”
“You just sold me to the fucking mafia, you dick!”
“You wanted this.”
“I wanted YOU,” I scream. “I wanted YOU to fight for me. To even just pretend that you loved me as much as you claimed to.”
I launch myself over the desk at him, only for Rocco to catch me by the waist. “I think that’s your cue to leave, Lazzaro.”
“I’M NOT FINISHED!”
But Claudio turns his back on me anyway, stepping out the door without even a glance over his shoulder.
“GET BACK HERE YOU COWARD!”
“Cas. It’s okay, it’s over.” Rocco’s voice is so gentle that he barely sounds like the same person he was a moment ago.
“He…he just left me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Heavy tears fall freely down my face as the exhaustion sets in.
“What would happen, do you think? If you broke up with him?”
I didn’t think it would feel like this. Like someone had been excavating a hole in my chest, only to remove the debris in one brutal blow. I feel lighter, but I also feel like I’ve lost something vitally important.
“I have some things to attend to.” Rocco falls into the chair in front of me, looking about as tired as I feel. “Teo will take you to the safe house. I trust him like a brother. No harm will come to you.”
“Fine.” I stare down at my lap, and something pale catches my eye.
“I also feel like I should apologize in advance for this.”
“For what?”
The last thing I see before the blindfold covers my eyes, is the two halves of a snapped, opal fountain pen lying at the bottom of the trash can.
I wake up somewhere entirely unfamiliar.
Vaguely, I remember how I got here. I remember how Teo had to all but carry me down to the back exit of the Candelabra, how I sat silently blindfolded in the back of a car before promptly falling asleep.
Someone must have roused me when we arrived, but they didn’t remove the blindfold until I entered this room. The last thing I remember was the welcome sight of a mattress with an actual bed frame before I collapsed.
Slowly, I rouse myself and wince at the headache that’s beginning to form behind my eyes. I almost cry at the sight of a glass of water on the bedside table.
I finish the entire thing before I remember that I’m in a mafia safehouse and that drugging the water would be a very mafia-like thing for someone to do.
I’ll have to be more vigilant from now on.
I turn on the bedside light and look around for a clock. When I come up empty, I slowly get to my feet to approach the window, which is hidden by a set of drawn curtains.
The material is thick and heavy in my hands as I pull the layers apart, capable of shielding away the brightest summer’s day.
But it’s dark when I look outside at the residential street of brownstone homes. I must still be in New York at the very least, but beyond that, I have no idea where I am.
I climb onto the deep windowsill to peer down below. There’s pavement a few floors below, but no one seems to move beneath the streetlights.
It must be late then, which makes sense, since my internal body clock has more or less adjusted to the Candelabra’s nocturnal shift patterns.
Not that it matters anymore.
Knock, knock, knock.
He doesn’t wait for me to respond before opening the door.
But Rocco doesn’t enter. He simply leans against the doorframe, letting the moonlight wash over his tired features as he watches me cautiously.
Even now, with his suit jacket discarded and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he looks unfairly beautiful. The tattoos that climb up his arms tell a hundred stories that I will likely never learn, and his thick hair falls dangerously across his eyes.
“I saw your light was on.”
Was he just waiting up for me? Or does he have one of his goons stationed outside my door?
I instinctively go to bury my hands in my jacket, before it registers that I’m now wearing a set of cotton pajamas. I flush at the thought of Rocco undressing me.
As if reading my mind, he says, “My housekeeper, Donatella, thought you might be more comfortable in those. You’ll meet her tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I don’t move from my perch as I stare at him expectantly.
He clears his throat. “If you need anything while you’re here, she will be able to sort it out.”
“Aren’t you going to fuck me every night for three months and then hand me back to Claudio like a used-up plaything?”
My bitter words make the Mafia don flinch. “I’m sorry you had to hear all that. This is, unfortunately, a delicate situation, and I needed Lazzaro to give you up without too much protest.”
“Well, I’m glad your little secret mobster mission was a huge success.”
He stares at me. “You’re upset.”
“I’m tired. There’s a big fucking difference.”
“Then rest.” He straightens himself up and reaches for the door handle. “I’ll be away tomorrow, so you’ll have the house to yourself.”
“Wait, this is your house?”
The ghost of a smile creeps onto his lips. “I told you, Miss Cassandra. The protection I offer is notoriously unparalleled.”