Chapter 39
39
SAMANTHA
I ’ve been alone almost as long as I was married.
Five weeks ago, Russo detonated a nuclear bomb in the middle of my life.
I’ve lost the ability to go out in public. Now, paparazzi follow me if I set foot outside the freeport gates. They scream for my photo, for any statement I’ll make for the camera.
I’ve become a full-time industry, like that girl accused of killing her roommate in Italy, or the man who murdered his pregnant wife, or the woman who drove her two little boys into a lake.
The man from the ditch on the mountain doesn’t have a name. No one’s ever found his family. But everyone in the world has a theory about why I killed him, what I was trying to cover up.
I was his baby mama. I owed him money for my college tuition. He trafficked me in a sex ring. I was possessed by the devil.
Giorgia and Gianni are nearly forgotten. They were my cousins, after all. They should have known what they were getting into, when they joined me at the party.
I hire an attorney, Sonja Heller, to represent me in the Delaware ethics proceeding. On her advice, I refuse to answer any questions from the press.
But I’ve lost more than my privacy.
I’ve lost all the trappings of living with a billionaire—household servants, chauffeured drives, an endless credit limit to be spent at any store on the planet.
I lost a child who was finally starting to trust me.
I lost the only man I’ve ever loved.
Yes. I love Braiden Kelly.
He carried me to his Jeep in the middle of a snowstorm. He spared me from marrying Antonio Russo. He gave me my safeword, and then he showed me my strength, power I never dreamed could be mine.
He told me the truth in that Rittenhouse suite. He’s a bad man. Protection rackets, drugs, murder—he’s done all that.
But I’ve killed people too. My mistakes can never be redeemed, no matter how much I insist my name is Samantha Mott, that I’m not Giovanna Canna.
I can’t go back to Braiden. He’ll never trust me, not after I kept Russo’s threats secret. He can’t afford to take me back, not when he has to protect the Fishtown Boys. I can’t blame him. That’s part of what love means.
So my life has shrunk to a tiny box within the freeport. I live like a nun in Goldenrod Cottage, with no unnecessary comforts, with no uncalled-for extras.
I have the barest minimum of clothes—two suits, five tops, a week’s worth of underwear that I wash by hand when necessary. I keep an almost-empty kitchen—a box of energy bars on the counter, a stack of Lean Cuisine dinners in the freezer, and a bag of mini carrots in the fridge.
I don’t watch TV. Dramas are ridiculous, with their made-up problems, all fixable in an hour. I don’t understand any of the comedies; nothing makes me smile, much less laugh. Every movie lasts too long.
I don’t bother with music. I don’t have any hobbies. I don’t have any friends.
What I have is work. There’s an endless list of tasks to complete. I have contracts to review. Briefs to write. There are statutes and regulations and guidelines that control every aspect of the freeport’s business. Every new client introduces a host of novel issues.
Everything I need fits inside this little cottage and my office in the freeport’s main building and on the narrow path I walk each day between the two.
It’s safest that way.
I can’t be hurt.
I can’t be bothered.
And I never have to think about the life I’ve left behind.