I might run escort, but I only ran the best of the best. Women who made six figures a year and would be free to retire young and live a good life if they were smart.
For the first time since I'd taken over, a voice questioned me.
Because Ivory wouldn't like it. When she found out that was.
But she'd deal with it.
She didn't have a choice.
Six
Ivory
The deep breath I took before I opened the front door wasn't nearly enough to prepare me for the shit storm I was about to walk into. I knew that.
But there was nothing else to be done for it.
My father flung the door open with a sudden jerk, grasping me around the back of the neck and pulling me into his arms with a shudder. "Christ. Jesus fucking Christ almighty," he mumbled into the top of my head.
"Daddy, I'm fine," I protested in a mumble against his chest. The press of his shirt against my face muffled my voice, nearly suffocating me. "Well, at least death by hugging is better than being shot," I joked, and I heard my mother's gasp from somewhere further in the house.
How she'd heard me, I'd never know. The woman had eyes and ears everywhere.
"Ivory Leonora!" she cried, and even without being able to see her I knew she pressed her hand to her chest in outrage. She was nothing if not dramatic.
"It's true," I announced, giving my father a shove until his arms fell away. Even at 59, the man was fitter than most 40-year-old men because of his own inability to sit still. The number of times I'd heard him say, "idle time is wasted time," during my youth would make most of his Air Force buddies cringe.
My mother's arms closed around me as soon as I could breathe in peace, and I sighed. I couldn't blame them for their concern. Seeing your daughter on the news as police ushered her out of a bank following an armed robbery wasn't something most parents had to experience.
I'd called them back before going to Matteo's house, making sure they knew I was okay once I'd realized I'd been on the news. Still, the whole thing seemed to be far more traumatic for them than it was for me, and I'd been the one staring down the barrel of a gun.
"My baby," she cried, tears soaking my shoulder where she'd rested her face. I was taller than my mom, even when I didn't wear heels. Having gone straight to their house for dinner after seeing Matteo, I hadn't changed out of my impress-the-ex outfit.
Though I regretted dressing to impress.
Like a lot.
I shrugged off the anxiety plaguing me. I'd figure out how to deal with Matteo's threat in the morning, because there was no way to ponder it with my father staring at me.
Where my mom saw everything that happened, my father saw every thought inside my head.
Safe to say, I hadn't gotten away with anything as a teenager. Well, except for the one time I'd had Matteo in my bed in high school. After that experience, I'd gone the straight and narrow for a few years until I graduated. After that, well, that had been a different story.
My father cleared his throat. "All right Alice, you've coddled her enough. Let the girl in the house."
"Me? You suffocated her!" Mom protested, though her arms relented and released me finally. With a groan, I walked off into the house, leaving them in their own entryway to bicker as usual. They had a special love, the love people dreamed of finding. That didn't mean that they weren't as sarcastic with each other as possible before they got all kissy and gross.
I did not need to be around for that part.
Mom's fried chicken sat on the granite counter, waiting for her to move it to the huge oak table in the dining room. I grabbed it and moved it over, with the sounds of their arguments fading into the background when the humorous jabs at one another started to ease into affection. By the time they made their way into the kitchen, I was pulling the collard greens out of the pot and putting them in one of mom's serving bowls. "Oh honey, you didn't need to do that. I would have used the white bowl," she said, coming up and taking the macaroni and cheese out of the oven.
“Of course," I snorted. "If I'd used the white bowl, you'd have wanted the orange one. Anything to be the opposite of what I pick, contrary woman."
She huffed at me and started to object. "I am not—"
"Woman, you're the most contrary person on the planet," Dad announced, pulling out his seat at the head of the table. "Who the hell cares what bowl the food's in? You going to start taking pictures of it too?"
"Honestly, Martim. These things matter." I took my seat to Daddy's right, serving myself and listening to him gossip about which flight attendant was hooking up with his co-pilot. Apparently, it was quite the scandal—what with the woman being 26 and the pilot in his 50s. Normally, I put on a good show of listening to him sound like a teenage girl, but that day—given everything that had happened—my head just wasn't interested in his idle gossip. I poked at my food, barely eating and contemplating what I would do about Matteo the next day despite my resolution to forget him for the time being.
"Okay, what gives?" Daddy asked.
"What do you mean?" I mumbled, snapping out of my trance and forcing a bite of fried chicken into my mouth.
"You seemed fine about the robbery, my little warrior," he teased, reaching over and pinching my cheeks. I stuck my tongue out at him. "So why are you so in your head now?"
I sighed, dropping the chicken to my plate and biting the corner of my mouth while I contemplated what story I could tell my parents about Matteo. There was no way I'd ever admit I'd gone there, especially because a criminal had known him. "I talked to Matteo," I said vaguely.
My mother stilled, and I glanced at my father to watch his brow furrow. I was under no illusion that he didn't know what Matteo I meant, so I knew his next question was his attempt to give me time to rethink the course of our conversation. "Matteo who?"
"You know, Matteo Bellandi. From high school." I shrugged, as if discussing the boy who'd made me cry myself to sleep for weeks could ever be a casual occurrence.
"And where did you see him?" Mom asked, she forked some greens into her mouth, chewing as if she found them distasteful, but there was no doubting the fact that it was Matteo she found disgusting.
"I didn't," I lied. "See him, I mean. He saw me on the news and reached out to see if I was all right or if there was anything he could do. That's all." My eyes glanced at mom's curtains on the big picture window behind her, seeing that the rods needed dusting. "If you need me to come over and help with the housework, I can do that. I know you have trouble reaching some high places." I changed the subject deftly, knowing mom would bristle at the insinuation that she couldn't clean her damn house herself.
She started to do just that, but Dad's deadly serious voice interrupted her. "I do not think so, young lady. You are not changing the conversation like it doesn't matter that piece of shit somehow got your phone number. You're getting a new one. End of story." He stabbed a piece of macaroni and cheese, shoving it into his mouth angrily.
"What good would that do? With the assets the Bellandi's have access to, he could just find that number if he wanted it," I pointed out. Whether Matteo had my number yet was irrelevant. I'd known for twelve years that he could find me if he'd wanted.