Made in Love and Blood (In Love and Blood #1)

Prologue

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Francesca’s favorite thing to do at parties?

Hide under tables.

There with a big cup filled with sugary something, she set herself up for a quiet evening. And there, under the freshly starched tablecloths without crinkles and stains, she could hear things.

Lots of things.

Nobody seemed to understand that she only wanted to be close to her father. It wasn’t about hearing things she shouldn’t. He was the only man in the room that made her feel safe.

There were a lot of those, too—other men. Their laughter roared harder and longer the later the evenings went on, and their opinions became louder after the wine switched to something harder.

The click-clack of familiar heels hitting marble reached Frankie before the shrill voice of her stepmother started. Just the woman’s stilettos stomping across the floor or down a flight of steps could send her running, but she couldn’t do that now.

“She’s gone off again, Sal. I am tired of this shit.”

Salvatore’s soft chuckle eased the sudden tension that had coiled itself around his daughter. They had a deal, him and her. She didn’t have to listen to Carina with him and Sissy around.

Plus, bruises made Sal angry, and Carina left a few of those. The last ones faded a while ago and none had been left since. Miss Sissy made sure of that. Frankie ended up getting a puppy out of the deal. It worked out.

“You just think it’s so funny, don’t you?” Carina hissed. “You let that little brat do whatever the hell she wants to do whenever she feels like doing it, and then when I have to look after—”

“And how often does that happen lately?” Salvatore interrupted.

“That’s not the point!”

The smooth drawl of her father sharpened instantly in a way he didn’t use with Frankie.

“Could you lower your fuckin’ voice? The last thing I need is the boss hearing you run off at the mouth again.

I am so goddamn tired of making excuses for you, Carina.

Considering he’s the only reason why I’m in this damn mess with you, I know he’s sick of it, too. ”

“Well, I wouldn’t have to raise my voice to get you to listen if you would just make that little bitch—”

Something hit the small table where Frankie hid with enough force for the glasses on top to clatter. A harsh gasp melted in with the scuff of shoes against marble. The eight-year-old could now see the heels of stilettos and the toes of leather loafers peeking beneath the tablecloth.

“She’s the only way I rile you up anymore,” Carina whispered.

There was something soft in her voice. Like the way Miss Sissy sounded when she spoke to babies and toddlers on their trips to the park. Frankie asked about it once, and the nanny called it a coo, but it didn’t sound the same now and it made her a little sick.

“Don’t start,” her father warned.

“So, we’ll get back to this later, then?”

“The one benefit of this fuckin’ sham between you and I is the later.” The shoes moved away from the table and Frankie’s bent knees relaxed. “I’ll find my daughter. You don’t go looking. Do you hear me, Carina? Capisce?”

“Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”

“And don’t come telling me when you’re ready to leave, either. I’ll find you.”

“Mmhmm. You forget I used to live in this fucking house, Sal. I know the boss’s rules.”

“Still think they found you in a dumpster and not at the church,” Salvatore grumbled. “Makes so much more sense.”

Her stepmother must have already been too far away to hear the comment as nothing vicious returned.

Her departure brought instant relief for Francesca right along with a new pain.

She crossed her legs and held her tummy to keep from peeing on the spot.

She only needed to peek at the now-empty cup of her favorite soda sitting to her left to know why.

Salvatore knew Frankie liked to hide at parties. He had even developed a way to call for her without it becoming obvious to others what he was doing. The low whistle of You Are My Sunshine crawled under the table and promised her safety if she just came out. But she didn’t.

The soft squeak of Salvatore’s loafers, and the whistle, inched away.

After the other voices in the room also seemed to move to another space, Francesca still sat with her legs crossed. She rocked back and forth slightly to ease the pressure down below. It didn’t help. Now she wished she had come out for her father’s whistle.

“Hey, don’t you know people are looking for you?”

Francesca didn’t know what did it—the sudden voice, the way she jerked backward when light spilled under the table, or the piercing green gaze of the boy scowling at her from where he lifted the tablecloth. Either way, there went her pee.

On the floor, soaking into the crinoline and silk of a brand-new dress, and it even got in her shoes. There was no hiding the way the liquid pooled out beyond her skirt, or the tears that instantly welled in her wide eyes.

“Oh, shit,” the dark-haired boy proclaimed. “Did you pee yourself?”

All she could do was nod. She knew his name, and his face was familiar enough to say she had seen it around more than once, but it wouldn’t make its way to the tip of her tongue. Those tears kept getting in the way. So did her sudden hiccups.

“What are you, like, five?”

“E-eight,” she sobbed.

“What?”

His indignation didn’t help her sudden fit of tears.

Without warning, the boy snagged her by the wrist and pulled her out from beneath the table.

He muttered something about helping her, but Francesca said nothing back, only kept her head down, tagged along and hoped no one else noticed.

And what about the mess they left behind?

Oh, God.

She didn’t really notice where he directed them until he pulled her into a room, and the door shut behind them. Already lit, a small bathroom with wood paneling and a black claw tub and matching pedestal sink caught her eye. He pointed at the closed toilet lid and demanded she sit.

So, she sat.

“Okay, okay, okay,” the boy rushed to say. “I’m sorry about that. Did I scare you?”

She shook her head and sniffled.

“A little, maybe?”

“Maybe,” she croaked. “I was holding it for a long time, though.”

“Why would you do that? Don’t you know that’s bad for you?”

“Well, yeah! But I also wasn’t supposed to be there!”

The look he gave her, all sly and knowing, said more than enough.

“I can try to find you some clothes,” he offered. “We have friends, some are girls, that come play on the weekend. They leave shit everywhere.”

Just like that, she remembered his name.

“You’re Nico, right?”

A grin twisted at his lips, but it didn’t look entirely happy.

“Yeah, Nico Russo. That’s what they call me.”

Francesca attended his last birthday party. A couple of months earlier, in the winter. Right after Christmas. He turned ten.

She didn’t go to his older brother’s party a couple of weeks ago. Not that she cared; that boy was mean.

“Do you want me to get somebody?” Nico asked while stepping backward until his fingers curved the rim of the black pedestal sink. “Your dad, maybe?”

She didn’t get the chance to say answer.

The bathroom door banged open and she noticed her stepmother first. Nico’s father, a tall, large Italian man with a booming voice stood right next to Carina.

She couldn’t distinguish the rest of the figures in the mix although she thought she heard her father.

Carina’s shrieking had Frankie shriveling on the toilet and sniffling from a fresh round of tears. She truly hated that woman. Every single part of her.

“What have you done?” Carina snarled Nico’s way as she rushed inside. All that venom in her words might have been spewed at the boy, but the way she grabbed Francesca off the toilet would surely leave a new bracelet of bruises.

Maybe she would get another puppy. Or a kitty this time.

“Did you touch her?” her stepmother demanded. “What did you do to her? There’s pee everywhere, you little shit!”

“No!”

“Nico, you tell me the fucking truth right this second.”

Nico’s attention snapped to his father who loomed closer to the boy as Frankie got dragged out of the bathroom. That aghast look on his face was the last thing she saw before Carina threw her into the waiting arms of Salvatore.

“No, I did not!” she heard Nico yell.

The bathroom door slammed closed again. It didn’t hide the sudden sounds of slaps or the stark cries that answered every hit.

“Daddy,” she whispered to her father, “he didn’t.”

Frankie tried to tell Sal. She even tried to tell Miss Sissy that night when she tucked her into bed. Nobody seemed to listen or hear her, or maybe they just didn’t care. What was done was done, they all said.

She did, though. Francesca cared.

But she wouldn’t see that boy for another nine years. And that lie they all told on him? She never forgot it. She couldn’t.