Chapter 21 Katya
Cinnamon sugar dances across my tongue as I take my first bite of the coated soft pretzel. The sugary delight was left on my desk this morning and I know by who. It was one of the food items we listed. Fall in love with cinnamon sugar pretzels. Check.
After Enzo gave me my first mind-bending orgasm, but consequently saw my scars, I hurried back to my room. Showering away the event in a boiling cascade of water. I couldn’t explain why but I needed to wash him off me. His judgement, his pity. I hate the way it feels on my skin.
Maybe not pity, per se, but the way someone looks at an abused child—anger, fear, sorrow, all rolled into one and I hated it. He doesn’t have a right to be angry for me. It’s mine and mine alone.
He called me five times last night. I didn’t answer any of them. I half expected him to barge through my door and demand I speak to him, half hoped he would. But he didn’t.
And this morning, a single text.
Enzo | Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel
I didn’t understand till I opened my office this morning, finding the box from a local bakery with a note and a scribbled, “I’m sorry.”
Two simple words.
And the first time in my life someone has said them to me.
I had to fight down the feelings infecting me, feelings I can’t even name but couldn’t afford to know.
As I lick my fingers clean, a knock sounds at my door, and I issue a command to enter as I wash my hands. “Lucy! I need your help!”
I’m scared I’ll find her shot through the stomach or missing a finger, but when I spin around, frantically assessing her body, nothing seems out of place. “Not help like that.” Her cheery tone makes me want to shake her until her brain matter realigns.
“Don’t scare me like that!” She pops up on the counter next to me as I toss the towel I just used into the trashcan. “I have the night off and I…want to go to HELL.”
My brow lifts as to why this involves me. “So go?”
Her head falls back in exasperation. “I can’t. Angels aren’t allowed. I need you to help me sneak in.”
A vision of my head mounted on a stake and posted outside the Angels’ House with a sign reading, A warning to those who would think to aid our Angels in doing things they were explicitly told not to do flashes in my mind…it would be a pretty big sign.
“Ha!” Turning, I cross my arms. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not! You know the code to the elevator. Enzo told me.” She slips down from the counter. “Please! Please, please, please,” she begs with stupid puppy dog eyes.
I knew as soon as she asked, I’d give in. I’m great at making bad decisions and require the smallest amount of convincing, but I wanted to see how she might get me to say yes.
“Enzo’s fighting tonight…” She trails off, a mischievous uptick in her words. She knows the…odd relationship we have and she’s using it to exploit me. Good girl.
“Fine,” I say, crossing my arms. “But we are going to need disguises. Any idea where we can get wigs and different clothing? Maybe some makeup? I don’t have a lot with me yet.”
She tows me away, straight into trouble I imagine. “Lucy, you’re talking to a sex worker who lives in a house with thirty-two other women who literally put on a show every night…of course we have all of those things.”
It doesn’t take but mere moments before I’m in the black SUV, Nova speeding toward the Angel House. I check my phone to make sure it’s on loud in case Enzo, Rafael, or Dante call.
Nova jabbers on about how excited she is to see the fights, questioning if there will be women in the fights or if she’ll see any of her clients get their asses handed to them.
I tune her out as I focus on the trees zooming past. I wish it was raining so I could watch the droplets cascade down the window but it’s a rare sunny day in Seattle.
The light beams through the pines, making them glow.
When we arrive at the house, she hauls me to her room. It’s an open space, split into two different sides. Her bed sports a light pink comforter with a daisy pillow, posters of Billie Eilish and Madonna line the walls, showcasing her varying degrees of musical interest.
She pulls out a chair in front of a wooden vanity. Maybe vintage, but I couldn’t say from when. Not really my level of expertise. I stand there, taking in the room, stunned because it seems mundane compared to what I thought it would be.
“Okay, you first. I can’t wait to play with your hair!” She jumps up and down, giddy with excitement. Nova was made to be a sister. Tonight, I guess she’s mine. “Or we can do a wig! What do you think about going blonde for a night? I think it would suit your skin tone beautifully!”
I wince as I sit. “I’m not much of a blonde…”
“Red?”
I consider it for a moment but decide it might draw too much attention. “What about brunette but short? Like a bob or something.”
“Boring,” she draws out as she runs her fingers through my hair. “Are you a natural brunette?”
I take a piece in between my fingers, twisting it. “Uh, yeah but lighter. I dye it darker.”
“Hmm,” she says, exiting into a closet and coming out with a brunette wig, cut into a bob and I’m surprised she has the exact style I was thinking.
As she begins to braid my hair, I can’t help but think about her and this life. She doesn’t deserve to be here, no woman does, but what could be so important? “Nova, can I ask why you stay? What keeps you going?”
Her gaze meets mine in the mirror, cautious but assessing. “I can’t really speak on it, Lucy.”
“Please. You can trust me.”
“I want to, I do but—” She shakes her head. “If it gets back to Dante…it will all be for nothing. Everything I’ve been through, what these girls have been through…it will be for nothing if he finds out.”
“I hate him as much as you do, Nova.” Shivers run down my spine at the gentle way her fingers manipulate my hair.
“Why?”
“I just do. Everything about the mafia life—the leaders and the high horse they sit on, the innocent people who die or live in suffering because of their greed, the way they think they can use what’s between their legs to rule over everyone and everything.
The way they forced—” I stop, realizing I was about to reveal more than I should.
I know Nova’s a friend, but she’s family to the twins.
What I say to her will undoubtedly be shared with them. “I hate him.”
“What about Rafael and Enzo? Rafael will be Don once Dante dies, Enzo his right hand. Do you view them the same?”
I hesitate, evaluating what an honest answer would be and if it would be safe with her. After a few minutes, I decide to never lie to Nova if I don’t have to. It’s the least I can do for her kindness.
“I used to. Hate them, I mean. When I took this position, I thought I could use it to make positive changes in this world, help innocents and get close to the bad guys. Maybe I could do something to…”
“Save someone,” she finishes.
I reach behind me, snatching her wrist and twisting around on the small stool. “You have a choice, Nova. You can get out. You don’t understand how rare and beautiful it is that Rafael and Enzo have given you that. Not all of us—” I clear my throat. “I mean, not everyone has that opportunity.”
Tears threaten to fall but I won’t let them. Blinking rapidly, I clear them away and watch as her mouth pops open, readying to reply but she doesn’t. Instead, she moves her wrist from my grip, lacing her fingers with mine.
“Everyone has a choice, Lucy. Sometimes it’s all we do have. At the end of the day, all I can do is decide for myself what path I’ll look back on and be proud I traveled. It’s not always the easiest, or what we would have wanted for ourselves.”
She continues plaiting my hair as I look back toward the mirror, watching her in our reflection.
Long moments of silence stretch out as she finishes braiding my hair in two French braids, then she pins it up and places a lace cap over it.
Securing the wig in place, she admires her finished work with a soft somberness overtaking her features.
“I don’t know where you come from, Lucy.
Which paths you’ve traveled, but if you can’t look back and be proud of the choices you’ve made, you better make sure you make a difference with the path ahead of you. ”
Her words hit the pit of my stomach, a foreboding feeling spreading through my body. The only thing I know for certain is I don’t know anything at all when it comes to the Alessi twins.
“You’re pretty wise for a seventeen-year-old.” I give her a faint smile, one I know she sees right through. But instead of calling me out on it, she gives one back.
“I know.” She gives a single, playful shrug.
“Now, enough with that depressing talk, let’s do your makeup!
Oh!” She snaps straight. “I totally forgot to ask, what’s your favorite color?
I’ll need to match your makeup to your outfit.
I’m thinking of a black sparkly number, maybe fishnets?
Or are you more of a pantsuit girl? You seem like you could rock a killer suit. ”
Standing, I approach her like I’m nearing a rabid squirrel. “Nova. Slow down. Breathe between sentences.”
She catches her breath. “Sorry. I’m just excited. I’ve…never had anyone I felt close with like I do you. I know we just met but it feels like you’re my soul sister.” Her cheeks redden as her gaze meets the floor.
I reach out, tipping her chin up. “Never look down, Nova. It doesn’t suit you.”
Tears blur her irises as she sniffles. “Sorry.”
Letting her chin go, I walk into her closet, which is as messy as this girl’s mind. Riffling through the hangers, I try to find something discrete yet sexy. “Don’t you get ready with the other girls? Do you feel close to them?”
She falls to the floor, tossing clothes, searching for a specific item.
“We…don’t like to get too close. We never know when one of us will be gone and we don’t get to contact anyone after we leave here.
” She finds what she’s searching for, pulling a fishnet top with long sleeves from the pile and popping back up on her feet.
“And we kind of like to get ready by ourselves. I can’t speak for the other girls, but for me, it’s kind of my time to mentally prepare as I put my mask on and put my guards up. ”
“I see,” I say, fully understanding what she’s referencing because I do the same thing before an assignment. I need to be alone the night before. I imagine what Nova and I mentally prepare for are two sides of the same coin, both of us giving a piece of our soul to a man.
“This is it,” she says, holding up the fishnet top layered underneath an all-black pantsuit, gold studded heels in her other hand.
“It’s perfect.”