Chapter 20 #2
“Yeah. So, my sister, Raffi, was eighteen. She’d just gotten into Columbia.
Full-ride scholarship. She was going to study biochemistry.
She wanted to be a doctor. But there wasn’t anyone to look after me and Gabri, my little sister.
She was five, then. We didn’t have any relatives to go to.
My mom’s people were all gone, my dad was out of the picture since Gabri was conceived.
Gabri and I would have ended up in the system.
Raffi couldn’t let that happen. So she gave up the scholarship. ”
I flinched. “Oh, fucking ouch.”
“Yeah, that was how I felt, too,” Kat said. “But she told me it would be okay. That we’d all get through this hard part together, and eventually she’d figure out how to get a medical degree.”
“What happened?”
“Well, she worked like a donkey. She got two jobs. She waitressed at this local Italian restaurant in the evenings, worked as a paralegal at a law firm in the morning, and she tried to take care of us. I helped with Gabri, keeping her clothed and bathed and fed, getting her to school while Raffi worked her butt off. And then…”
Kat’s voice trailed off. I braced myself, my mind whirling with ugly possibilities. I stroked her foot again, a slow, soothing caress.
“Turns out this Italian restaurant was the favorite hangout of a local crime boss and his family,” she went on.
“Very powerful, very ruthless. They loved the Signora Sciancalepore’s ragú.
They went there all the time for it, and my sister always served them.
They asked for her specifically. She was really pretty. I mean, insanely pretty.”
“I believe it, having seen you,” I said.
“She was much prettier than me,” Kat said swiftly. “She was… I don’t know how to describe it. Sparkly, somehow. And she spoke Italian. She’d learned it from my mom and grandma. I don’t remember much anymore, but Raffi was fluent. At least in dialect.”
“Your family was Italian?”
“Mom was. She said our dad was a Swede, but I have no way to corroborate that. Mom was dark, but the three of us were fair, like him. But Raffi was the real beauty. With the long curly blonde hair, and these eyes, and this incredible smile.”
“Oh shit,” I said. “I think I see where this is going.”
“Yeah,” Kat said. “I’ll stop, if you’d rather not hear it. For real. No problem.”
“Fuck, no,” I said. “Please, go on.”
“Okay. So, yeah, it was a train wreck waiting to happen. Raffi never had a chance, once Tony saw her.”
“And Tony was…?”
“The crime boss’s son,” she said. “A real piece of work. A total narcissistic sociopath. He saw this beautiful shiny thing, and he wanted it. And no one was around with the presence of mind to tell her to run like hell. Change her name, find another job, go to another city, do any fucking thing she had to do to get away from him.”
I let out a slow, calming breath, and prepared myself. “What happened?”
Kat buried her face against her knees. “Tony was handsome, in a thick, sleazy sort of way. He was nice at first. He promised to set her up in a luxury apartment, give her a car, an allowance for clothes, jewels, etc. We couldn’t go with her, of course, but the money he was promising was way more than she could earn with the waitressing and the paralegaling.
She was just nineteen, with us on her back, so she did it. ”
She stopped again, and I sensed she was building up the nerve to push onward another step through this wall of thorns. I squeezed her ankle, patiently waiting.
“She tried to hoard money for us, but Tony got angry,” she went on softly. “She’d try to sneak out to see us when he was gone, but he got angry about that, too. Then she realized that Tony got angry about everything. Because he liked being angry.”
“Did he hit her?”
“Yes. Every time we saw her, she was wearing makeup to hide the bruises. Then that thing with the cat happened.” She stopped, shaking her head.
“Cat?” I prompted gently.
“Penelope. Our calico cat. She adored Raffi, so Raffi took her to the new apartment, with Tony’s permission. But Penelope hated Tony. Took a big dump in his Ferragamo loafers one day.”
“Yay, Penelope,” I said.
“I thought so, too,” Kat said. “But then Tony killed her.”
That made me flinch, shocked. “Fuck! He killed your sister’s cat?”
“Yeah. Threw her against the wall. Broke her back. And Raffi just…snapped, that night. She tried to run. She came to our apartment, but he followed her, and…well. He had a gun.”
Minutes of silence followed. I wondered if I had pushed her too hard, selfishly. Just to satisfy my curiosity. It wasn’t worth it if it hurt her, stirring up old nightmares.
“So, Tony stormed in, and rants about how he hadn’t signed up to pay for these fucking brats. Then he looked at me, in my underwear, and the lightbulb went on in his little reptile brain. He’d thought of the perfect way to punish Raffi.”
“Oh shit,” I whispered. “Oh, Jesus, Kat. I’m sorry.”
“He said if I was old enough to get a man to pay my rent, I was old enough to fuck, and he went for me. Raffi freaked out and attacked him, hitting and scratching him. He shot her through the heart. Gabri couldn’t stop screaming. So he shot her, too.”
“And you?” I asked.
“He got me one, too,” she said, rubbing the scar on her shoulder.
“But I went out the window and down the fire escape. I jumped down onto a pile of garbage, barefoot, in my underwear, and took off running. I barely remember it, now. I made it all the way to the cops somehow. And I was lucky enough to talk to the right detective, a guy who wasn’t on the take with Tony’s dad.
The detective really wanted to take those bastards down, so he protected me, for real. ”
“You testified against Tony?”
“Yes. Tony was convicted of second-degree murder, but he only got sixteen years. His lawyer made my sister out to be a slutty temptress who cheated on him and drove him to it. He might actually get out of prison soon. That should make life really interesting for me.”
“And you’ve been in witness protection since?” I prompted.
“Yes, but Tony’s family will never stop hunting me. That’s why falling into bed with a famous sexy billionaire who has lunch with the senator is a really shitty idea.” She swatted my arm. “So please don’t take it personally.”
“What’s Tony’s surname?” I asked. “What prison is he in?”
Kat stiffened. “Uh-oh,” she said. “This is where it starts, right? When you start pushing and pushing me for more info? Bound and determined to solve all my problems? Nope. Not gonna happen.”
“Tell me his name, Kat,” I coaxed. “This is information that I need, to help protect you.”
“Listen to me, Ethan Masters, and listen good. Those scumbags already took my family from me. I will not let them take you, too. I’d rather get the hell away from you, and at least know that you continue to exist. Even if I can’t enjoy you.”
“Enjoy me?” I murmured. “Ooh. I like the sound of that.”
“Don’t make this all about you,” she snapped. “Peacock.”
“Right, right. Sorry.”
“I will not tell you Tony’s name,” she said. “And I can’t be your pampered concubine, either. I know you’re not like Tony, but even so. I just can’t.”
“So,” I said carefully. “Where does that leave us?”
“Nowhere,” Kat said. “Which is exactly where I’ve been, for the past fourteen years. It’s where I live, Ethan. And you can’t be with me there. Nowhere is a place you can only inhabit alone.”
“I can’t accept that. I simply don’t believe there’s no solution.”
“Well, tough shit. I’m not risking your life to find out. Tomorrow, I go back to my life, Ethan. I’ll figure out my shit on my own, without getting anybody else killed.”
I pulled her into my arms. “I can’t walk away from you. Stop asking me to try.”
Kat shook her head, letting out a soggy laugh.
“I was thinking about how you took care of your little sister and brother when you were a kid. You weren’t much younger than Raffi was then.
Shane was my age, Freya was Gabri’s age.
You were lucky you had a marketable skill to sell.
You didn’t have to sell your body to a monster. ”
“Yeah. But in her place, I would have done the same thing. I got lucky, with that contact in the juvenile detention center. I was walking a tightrope, back then.”
“Raffi was walking one, too,” she said. “But she fell off. We all did.”
I tightened my arms around her and she melted against me, soft and yielding.
“I miss them so much,” she whispered. “Raffi would have been, let’s see, thirty-three.
She’d be a doctor by now. Gabri would have been twenty-two, about to graduate from college.
She wanted to be an astronaut, you know?
We put those adhesive stars on her bedroom ceiling.
She had star maps and posters and spaceships on her wall.
Maybe aeronautical engineering, or the military.
Fighter jets. She was such a bright kid. ”
“And you? Where would you have been?”
Kat’s shoulders jerked. “Oh, I don’t know. I wasn’t gifted like Raffi or Gabri. And I never had a chance to dream anything up for myself. That all got shut down.”
“It’s not too late to dream.”
“How sweet. You are a secret romantic, Mr. Masters. Truthfully, though, I don’t mind what I do right now.
Helping women and girls learn to stand their ground…
that’s enough for me. But sometimes I start to think about an alternate universe where it never happened.
Raffi never had to give up her scholarship.
I taught Gabi to drive. Helped her shop for a prom dress.
Watched her graduate from high school. Celebrated when she got into college.
It just makes me so…oh, shit, not again. Here I freaking go again.”
She dissolved once more, against my chest.
I wound my arms around her, and tried to keep her all in one piece with the strength of my embrace.