“You should have known better than to steal from a Perelli, Marco. I always get my money back.”
I jerked when he pulled the trigger and the sound of the gun going off slammed into me. That movement sealed my fate—the door I’d been creeping at swung open, and one of the men who’d been waiting at the edge of the room, watching, stood in front of me.
I didn’t even think. I turned and fled.
Racing back through the house, my breath pumped in my lungs as I urged my legs to go faster. I slammed out of the front door and nearly fell as I leapt down the front steps and towards my car waiting in the driveway. A moment later, the front door swung open, and my father descended the steps, his eyes dark as they zeroed in on me.
Flooded with gratitude that I’d left the keys in the ignition, I cranked the engine.
“America!”
The screech of tires reached my ears seconds after my car was already on the move. Although I was moving fast, it felt like the world had almost frozen around me, all my senses slightly numbed, the surrounding sights and sounds reaching me on a delay. I spun out of the driveway, my hands fumbling and shaking as I reached for my phone in the console.
I jammed my fingers onto my screen as I careened wildly down the road. Several other cars honked at me, but I didn’t pay them any attention as the dispatcher’s voice came across the line.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
I breathed out through my mouth and inhaled through my nose. Say it, I thought. Just fucking say it.
“Nine-one-one, are you there? What is your emergency?”
“I-I need to report a crime,” I said shakily.
“What is the nature of the crime?”
Swallowing, I pressed down harder on the gas as I blew through a stop sign, turning the wheel and cutting across several lanes of traffic. I turned and looked back, half expecting someone to be following behind, only slowing when I realized no one was.
“Ma’am. I need to know the nature of the crime you wish to report? What is your location? Is someone hurt?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Is that person conscious?”
Shaking my head, I clutched the wheel as if it was my only chance at staying above the sea of fear threatening to drown me. It was when the dispatcher didn’t respond I realized she couldn’t see me.
“No, he’s not,” I said, realizing that I was crying—tears were pouring down my face. I opened my mouth again and I knew that as soon as I said it, there would be no going back. “He’s not conscious because he’s dead,” I continued, “and my father was the one who killed him. Jason Perelli. He killed someone, and I saw it.”
1
Mare
Five years later…
“Damn, it’s coming down hard out there, isn’t it?”
I huffed and shoved my short blonde hair back from my face, my fingers tapping on the front door glass. If this Uber could hurry the hell up, that’d be great, I thought in irritation, my eyes scanning through the windows of the classy Italian restaurant I worked at.
“You got a ride, Mary?” Donald Brutello—the owner’s son—asked from behind me. My lips thinned at hearing my new name. Mary Peterson, a woman who lived alone, kept her head down, and tried to work enough so she could pay rent.
Bored, lonely, surviving despite everything.
“Yeah,” I answered finally, mentally shaking the string of negative thoughts from my mind. Unfortunately, though, I could feel him move closer, his hand hovering just over the small of my back. I sidled away before he could touch me, my head tilting as if I was trying to make out shapes through the downpour outside. The move helped me control the retort that wanted to escape. The slightly overweight perv really irritated me, but I needed this job so I bit my tongue.
“There’s my ride,” I said only a moment later when a set of headlights flashed over the front of the building, my cell buzzing in my hand. “See ya tomorrow, Donny.”
Before he could stop me, I yanked open the door and darted into the rain. I’d rather drown like a wet rat than stand another second in that skeevy dick’s presence. Goddammit, I wish Charlotte hadn’t ditched her shift as second closer tonight. With Donny closing down the restaurant, I’d had to endure a good thirty minutes of his eye-fucking and lip-licking before I had finished everything I needed to in order to get out. As it was, I was leaving a good ten minutes early. Guess luck was on my side for once. Either that or the thought of spending more time with Donald Brutello kicked my ass into gear. It was safe to say it was probably the latter.
I ran to the small but newer sedan waiting for me, holding my thin coat over my aged and worn backpack as I slid into the backseat, slamming the car door behind me with a sigh. Ubers were cheaper than taxis, but I really wished this thunderstorm had chosen a better time to hit. Brutello’s was only about two miles from my apartment and walking was always cheaper.
A year of financial help from the government hadn’t done much, not in the long run anyway. It was a good starting point, and in the beginning, I thought I could truly start over. Went to community college, had a place to live, got a part time job … all was good for a time. Living expenses added up, though. Tuition. Rent. Utilities. It hadn’t mattered that I’d been given a new start, even debt built up after a while if one couldn’t keep up. Credit cards maxed out. School loans in deferral. I’d done what I could and survived. That was all it was now, a fight for survival.
Even with the financial assistance from the program, I was, for lack of a better term, abandoned to my own devices. They’d dropped me off in St. Louis five years ago and never looked back. I’d served my purpose. Every so often, I’d get a call—something short and untraceable—from my handler. They kept up the pretense of wanting me alive, but according to them, I wasn’t in any danger. To everyone else, my father had moved on and so should I. I hoped like hell that was true.
I shook myself mentally, dislodging the thoughts and memories plaguing me. Watching the rain trail over the windows of Brutello’s, I waited impatiently to get back to my studio so I could relax for the night. Because that was what my life had become. Wake up. Work. Go home. Try to relax and forget. Go to bed. Do it all over again the next day. Even on birthdays, everything remained the same.
“Thanks,” I muttered, handing a tip over as I clambered out of the car a few minutes later while it idled in front of the crumbling Victorian.
“Jack, you dumb bastard! What the hell—”
I flinched as the sound of shattering glass and screaming neighbors reached my ears even through the roar of the rain as I made my way around the front of the house down to the private side entrance. My landlords were notorious drunks. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d tried to fall asleep to the screaming and slurring of Mr. and Mrs. Hanson through the paper-thin walls and doors that sectioned off my part of the house from theirs. From the sounds of it, I was looking at yet another sleepless night.
As soon as my foot hit the step that descended to the basement entrance, I felt it. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, goosebumps raising across my skin, neither having to do with the iciness of the rain. My heart started to pound, fight or flight urges warring in my mind but I couldn’t seem to make myself move. Not before I scanned the darkened street behind me. No odd vehicles, no lights on in many of the row houses.