I understand that dealing with stress through sex is not the healthiest decision in the world.
And it’s painfully obvious that this little pattern I’ve fallen into—inviting Angelo into my bed, going too far with him, acting like nothing happened next day—isn’t going to improve anytime soon unless I go back to my apartment.
Maybe it’d be smarter if I got my own room, or if I stayed at a different hotel, or if I just admit that I want to have sex with this man, that I want it so desperately I’m willing to play these stupid games in a vain effort at holding on to my dignity, and maybe then we could both move on and just—have sex as much as we want.
Which is a lot. And often.
But I’m not there. In the cold light of day, all the reasons I had for keeping my distance in the beginning come rushing back.
He’s in the mafia. He’s dangerous. He’s everything I’m supposed to dislike.
And I can’t let him find out that I’m pregnant with his child.
The closer he creeps, the more likely he is to figure it out, and I can’t have that.
It doesn’t help that he follows me to work now and sits on my little chair in my cramped office going through my notes on the case files. It really doesn’t help that I find him annoying, frustrating, conceited, and actually pretty useful and insightful.
I wish that weren’t the case, but Angelo has an eye for this stuff.
Probably because he’s a criminal.
“I’m tempted to break into that freaking police station and steal the rotten interview files myself,” Angelo says after tossing down a folder with an annoyed glare. “There are a million different places they could be hiding it.”
“Assuming it’s even still around. They could’ve shredded the thing.”
“Maybe,” he says, making a face, “but why would Vance push us in that direction if they just tore the thing to bits? No, I think they still have it.”
“Why? Wouldn’t it be easier to destroy the evidence?”
“Cops are still cops and some of them might still be clean. I bet whoever’s trying to cover up what really happened can’t risk getting caught, so they buried the files instead. Plausible deniability.”
“Big words for a mafioso.”
“I’m a clever man when I want to be.”
There’s a knock at the office door. I look up as it opens and my heart instantly leaps into my throat and it feels like the world slows down to a standstill.
My mother shoves her head into the room, smiling like she’s about to present us with an award, followed by my father.
This can’t be happening.
It’s like my body’s frozen as my parents stand on the threshold to my tiny office. They’ve never been here before although I offered to show them around a while back. Mom wasn’t interested and Dad was too busy, and I haven’t bothered inviting them out to my work since then and seeing them here is absolutely bizarre. It’s like seeing two aliens land in the middle of Manhattan, two sludge-dripping monster creatures lurching around and groaning like hungry zombies. God, I’m such a mess right now, I can’t even keep my monster-metaphors straight.
“Mom,” I say and get to my feet. “Dad. What are you two doing here?”
“Well, hello, darling,” Mom says, and her fake smile is plastered on her fake face so tightly I think her teeth might crack. “I didn’t know you had a client. We can come back.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say quickly. “This is just Angelo. He’s helping me with a case.”
Mom’s eyes drift down to Angelo and she stares at him like she doesn’t understand what she’s seeing. Angelo grins back at her, and the enormous mobster slowly stands up, his hulking body taking up most of the freaking office, and he holds out a hand.
A hand covered in tattoos.
Mom looks at it like it’s covered in flies.
Fortunately, Dad steps forward and shakes. “Good to meet you,” Dad grunts as he scowls around. “This is the place then? This is your whole office. It’s nice.”
“She’s very proud,” Angelo says, squeezing Dad’s hand before releasing. “You two must be ecstatic to have a daughter as brilliant as Sara here.”
“Uh—” Mom says, blinking rapidly. “Yes, of course we are.”
“Brilliant,” Dad says with his lips pressed together. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Okay, great, glad you all met. Angelo, do you mind?”
He looks at me and shrugs. “Not at all.” But he doesn’t move. My mother stares at him like she still can’t understand how he’s not out on the street begging for change right now, even though Angelo’s gorgeous and wearing expensive clothes. Anything that’s out of the ordinary is somehow garbage to my mother.
“Can I have the office? With just my parents?”
“Right,” Angelo says and slips past them. “Have a nice visit, folks.” He gives me one more hard look before he disappears down the hall.
I thought I might relax without him around, but it doesn’t help. Dad’s scowl deepens as he comes toward the only chair. Mom lingers by the door. She’s in fashionable workout clothing and her hair looks like she spent an hour blowing it out and making it perfect. Dad’s in jeans and a button-down, his frameless glasses perched on his nose, his gray hair cut short and close.
I’ve never wanted to see my parents less in my entire life than I do in this moment.
“Are you busy?” Dad asks and looks at my desk. It’s covered in folders. “No, I guess you’re not if you’re sitting around chatting with your assistant.”
My face flushes with embarrassment. “Angelo isn’t my assistant. I said he’s helping with a case. And yes, I’m very—”
“Where did you even find that man?” Mom asks, her nose wrinkled. “Honestly, Sara. He looks like a bartender.”
That’s about the biggest insult my mother can imagine.
“I can’t discuss the case with you two, all right? Why are you here?”
Dad turns his hard glare on me. “Is that how you talk to your parents now?”
I stiffen in response. “No. Sorry. I just mean this is a surprise, is all. You caught me off guard.”
“You don’t need to be on guard for your parents, dear,” Mom says from the door. She looks like she’d rather throw herself out a window than come deeper into my office.
Shame hits me hard. I don’t keep my space as neat and tidy as I should. It’s not bad—it’s clean, and I keep it dusted and I have my own organization system—but it’s cluttered. That’s just how I work. But back when I was a kid, my parents would constantly criticize the way I kept my room. Mom would go on and on about how a cluttered life meant a cluttered mind. Now she must be sick, thinking this is what my brain’s like.
“I just mean—I’m working, that’s all.” I look at Dad, feeling helpless, but he’s not about to make life easier on me.
“We heard you have a new case,” he says, eyes narrowing. “A friend of mine told me at the club just last night.”
The Club. He means the Oak Club, this exclusive rich guy place where all his powerful friends congregate. I’ve never been there, but Dad’s famous and skilled enough that all the high-powered wealthy folks who like to have a doctor around granted him a membership.
“Who’s talking about me at the Oak?” I ask, feeling genuinely disturbed.
“You don’t need to know that,” Dad says and crosses his arms. “Sara, dear, you know your mother and I were very happy when we heard you got a junior position at Klein and Houndson, but we didn’t know—” He stops himself and glances back at Mom.
“We didn’t know your office was so small.”
I clench my jaw. I wanted to scream at them that I’m lucky to have an office at all, that I’m brand new here and the bottom of the totem pole, that I’m a woman working twice as hard, that I’m freaking pregnant, but I can’t say any of that. Instead, all my anger gets funneled deep inside and channeled into the dark pit I have brewing in my chest, the place where I’ve always shoved my feelings. I plaster a smile on my face and try not to feel like I’m going to snap.
“My office is fine, Mom, and I don’t know what you’ve heard about my cases, but everything’s fine.”
“It’s fine,” Dad says, pursing his lips. “Are you sure about that, dear? From what I’ve been told, you took a case from some very unsavory characters.”
“Is that man who just left involved in all this somehow?” Mom asks. “Darling, you can’t be serious about working for a man like—that.”
“Angelo is helping with the case,” I say again slowly like I’m a child trying to explain how I spilled a drink. “I’m working with respectable clients. Brice’s husband—”
Dad sneers at me. “Brice’s husband? You mean that Scavo man? I’ve heard all about him at the Oak. He’s a member there, did you know that?”
“Yes, Dad, I knew that,” I say quietly. Brice likes to visit the Oak whenever she’s in town. She tells me all about the absurdity of the place, about the giant tree growing in the atrium, about the rich and famous people lounging around at the bar and eating at their exclusive dining room. She thinks the whole thing is absurd—and my father is a part of that world, if only on the fringes, and only because he’s useful.
“Carmine Scavo is not the sort of client you want. I understand you have to work hard when you first start, believe me. I had to struggle myself when I was a brand-new resident, and yet I never stooped to something like—Carmine Scavo.”
“Honestly, dear, he has a terrible reputation,” Mom says with a shake of her head. “You can’t seriously think it’s a good idea to work for him.”
“I took this case because it’s a good one, and I can’t talk about it with you two. So, please—”
“Drop Scavo,” Dad says, his tone firm. It’s the voice he uses when he’s ordering me around and expects to be obeyed, and every fiber of my being wants to bend over backward to do what Dad’s telling me. “I don’t care how much he’s paying you and the firm. I don’t care if he’s a member at the Oak. Drop him, get rid of his case, and move on.”
I want to thrash and fight and run away like a scared prey animal. I can’t believe this is happening. Mom and Dad are in my office, looking at it like this is the most pathetic place in the whole world, and now they’re telling me to give up on the one good thing I have going for me.
And I want to do it.
Not because I’m giving up on Nicolas and Carmine and Angelo, but because all my life I’ve done whatever my parents asked of me. It’s baked into me, burned deep into my bones. I worked hard, studied all the time, spent my days and nights in the library because that’s what Mom and Dad expected, and now they’re here telling me to get rid of a case I don’t want to stop working. It’s like I’m split in half—the Sara that’s always done what my parents said wars against the Sara that wants to be her own person, and I don’t know what to do.
“Really, darling, listen to your father. And honey, don’t show anybody this little room.” Mom shakes her head sadly. “It’s rather pathetic, don’t you think, dear?”
“I don’t care about the office,” Dad says sharply. “I care about you dropping the case and staying far away from Scavo.”
“Who warned you about this?” I ask and my voice is a soft whisper. “Who were you talking to at the Oak?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Was it someone in the police department? Dad—”
“Enough,” he says through his teeth. “Drop the case, Sara. That’s all we came to say.” He turns and leaves, brushing past my mother.
“Really, dear, your father is very worked up about this. I’d do what he says if I were you. And for the love of god, please, straighten this little room up. It’s so cluttered and unbecoming. Really, Sara, honey, you know what I say about clutter and minds.”
“I know,” I whisper as Mom hurries after Dad and the pair of them disappear.
I slump back into my chair and stare at the floor.
I feel like someone came in here and bashed me in the face with a hammer. My ears are ringing and my head’s spinning, and all I want to do is chase after my parents and tell them that I’m going to do whatever they want if only they’ll be proud of me. I have to physically resist the urge because I’m not a child anymore, I’m not that little girl desperate for my absent father’s approval and terrified of my drunk mother’s scorn. I’m a grown woman with my own life, my own decisions—and my own baby coming.
Angelo appears in my office door. He looks at me for a long moment and I force myself not to stare back at him. He seems different to me now—rougher, harder, much more terrifying. I know that isn’t fair, but hearing my parents talk about him that way, it’s like they tainted whatever we had growing between us.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine?”
His smile is tight. “Yeah, you seem fine.”
“Why are you even here, Angelo? You don’t need to be here, okay? I have work to do and I don’t need you hovering over my shoulder all the time.”
His face doesn’t change, but he seems to deflate slightly. “I can make myself scarce if that’s what you want.”
I want to tell him no, that’s not what I want, that’s what my parents want and all I ever do is obey all their fucking commands, but I can’t find the words.
“Thanks.” I flip open a file at random. “I’ll see you later.”
He lingers in the doorway. I feel him staring at me like a spotlight. I want lash out at him but finally, he turns away and disappears, leaving me alone in my little room.
