Emilia (Part 1)(68)

“Shut the fuck up, Lettie.” Sal yanked on the collar of his shirt like he couldn’t breathe. I hoped he fucking suffocated, and I wished she choked on her spit. “I should have never said anything about this to you. Dominick will cut out my tongue if this gets back to him. And it’s not like that with Emilia. I care about her.”

What. In. The. Actual. Fuck?

He cared about me?

I had lived a sheltered life, not by choice but due to circumstances beyond my control. Even I knew you didn’t manipulate people you loved or cared about. I stood rooted in place, unable to do anything other than watch the tragedy of my life unfold in front of me.

Lettie’s lips still twitching, she tugged on Sal’s shirt, and my stomach twisted. “C’mere baby. I’ll make it all better. Now that I know why you’ve been avoiding me for months, I won’t hold it against you.”

Part of me wanted to charge into the room and scream, yell, and claw at both of them until they were bleeding on the outside like I was on the inside. I balled my hands in anticipation of doing exactly that, then Lettie’s fingertips skidded across Sal’s heavily stubbled jaw, and all the fight seeped out of me. Nothing I did would change Sal’s feelings for me. I had to face the facts. My father had crafted this illusion to manipulate me for money. Jesus, if he had told me about it, I would have gladly given him what he wanted.

Inching backward, I covered my mouth to ward off the bile crawling up my throat with a vengeance. I’d heard enough to get the gist of what had been happening over the last year. I was a pawn in a game where I didn’t know the rules or the players, which left me with one option. I needed to get the hell out of New York tonight and away from all the people who didn’t care about me. Who saw me as a cardboard cutout without real feelings or emotions.

When my back hit the cold metal of the rear exit door, I pushed it open and took off down the street, running as fast as my trembling legs would go. My duffel bag pounded an erratic beat against the back of my thighs and my wig swung around my face. I stopped a few blocks away, bent over, and lost my pathetic excuse for a dinner along with the shots of Sambuca.

As I wiped my face with the back of my hand, a taxi barreled down the street and I stumbled off the curb, my hands waving frantically.

The driver pulled over and I climbed in the back.

“The bus station on 8th Ave,” I said, short-winded.

When he pulled into traffic, I popped the sim card out of my phone and tossed it out of the window along with all the burner phones Sal gave me. They probably had a tracking device on them, and I had no intention of being found until I was good and ready.





EPILOGUE





After a year and a half of moving from town to town, living in motels, renting random rooms, I found a place to call home. An ad in a local newspaper advertised a position for cooking and light cleaning that included room and board.

I almost didn’t bother showing up for my interview because I couldn’t take any more rejection. I was numb to everything and everyone, and I wanted to die. I had less than five dollars to my name. I had pawned the bracelet Marcello gave me two months earlier to fix my piece of shit car. The rent was due at the end of the week, I hadn’t worked in three months, and not for lack of trying. There weren’t a lot of jobs that paid in cash under the table.

Something forced me to keep going that day, though, and I climbed into my car. I promised myself if the job didn’t work out, I’d crawl back home, tail between my legs, and beg my father for his forgiveness rather than killing myself like my mom.

An hour later, I pulled up to the gates of a cattle ranch in the mountains of Colorado. Everything about the place took my breath away. Snowcapped mountains framed acres of rolling hills, cattle and horses roamed free, and smack dab in the middle was a sprawling two-story log home. The whole thing belonged on the cover of one of those outdoors magazines. Best of all, it was the polar opposite of everything I’d come from.

The rustle of the wind filled my ears instead of honking horns. Bright blue sky stretched out in every direction without a single building marring the horizon. It smelled of pine needles and fresh, clean air rather than exhaust and whatever restaurant was nearby. I loved it on sight. To my utter disbelief they hired me on the spot, and I gained a makeshift family in the process.







Gavin, my best friend and the son of the woman who owned the ranch, cracked open the door to my bedroom. “We need to talk.”

My shoulders sagged with defeat. I already knew what was coming. I managed the books and paid the bills. While the ranch wasn’t all that profitable in a good year, his mother’s medical bills were bleeding the Lancasters dry. “Yeah, I figured as much.”