“You know what happens if you don’t bring me something useful.”
I try to turn my face away but he grips it between bony fingers and tilts me back to him.
“I told you,” he continues, almost conversationally, “these little mafia princes… They think they’re untouchable. Their fathers, their uncles… they run everything.”
His fingers brush my arm and I flinch.
“I’m not good enough for them, am I? Not trustworthy enough.”
Pettiness seeps into every word.
“They shouldn’t have turned me away, should they? Because I have a weapon that they don’t have, right sweetheart? I have you. And you’re going to help me give them a taste of their own medicine.”
He strokes a hand over my wrist, sending my pulse thundering through my ears.
“They’ll rue the day they stopped returning my calls.”
I swallow but because my throat’s so dry, it hurts.
“I give you names,” he says, like he’s talking to a small child. “You bring me information I can use. Okay? It’s called teamwork.”
“I don’t know how.” I whisper. “What kind of information?”
He lifts a shoulder then traces his fingertips down the length of my arm sending tendrils of fear through my flesh.
“Anything incriminating. Humiliating.”
“Humiliating?” I frown. I doubt the sons of mobsters do anything humiliating. “What if I don’t hear or see them being humiliated?”
He leans ever closer and licks his tongue up the side of cheek making my entire body seize.
“Then, my dear Pfeiffer,dosomething to humiliate them.”
The water burnsinto my skin but it’s nothing compared to the pain in my heart. I remember Callum’s instructions now as clear as if he’d given them to me yesterday. My fingers find purchase on the tile, steadying me from the sway of dizziness.
Finding ways to humiliate very specific people wasn’t easy. It was impossible. First I had to identify them, then I had to try to move in their circles without seeming too obvious. Then I had to come up with ways to undermine them. Every Friday when I arrived home to find Callum McAllister in my father’s kitchen, waiting for me, I had no news to give. No information to deliver. And so I had to stand there and let him put his hands on me.
My awareness shut down as he pushed his hands into my skirt and under my shirt. He’d touch a fresh part of me each time, like he was stumbling across a new, forbidden fruit.
I tried to push him off once. But he threatened to tell my father what we’d been doing. My father was still, fourteen years on, grieving my mother. I couldn’t put him through the grief of losing either me or his brother. Because he would have to choose. And he and Callum were so close, a small part of me thought too that perhaps, if pushed, Dad would choose his brother. I didn’t want to find out. So I stood there and took it.
When he was done, I’d walk numbly to my room, lock the door and throw up into a trash can. I’d wait for him to leave then I’d clear up the mess and scrub myself raw under a hot shower.
It was the only thing that ever numbed me.
There’sa boy standing at the side of my desk—I don’t remember seeing him before. He came to check that I was okay, but I can’t process anything he’s saying because the name ‘Bellucci’ is ringing in my ears.
Of all the names my uncle gave me, Bellucci was the one person I couldn’t find. And he was in my class all along?
Callum’s bitter words slot into place.
“Watch that one. Family’s trying to claw their way back into New York. Could be useful. Make sure whatever you do damages him double, or…”
I swallow. “Or what?”
“Or next time, I’ll be sliding my fingers inside you.”
Tears roll down my cheeks,dropping into the shower tray with the scorching water. My knees wobble, either from the heat or from the memory of feeling so helpless.