Hallie stands in front of me so I can’t see anything else but her. “Don’t ever say you’re being silly, Fi. What’s wrong? Do you want to talk about it?”
I glance around the lounge through blurry eyes. “Not here.”
Hallie motions to Dee, one of the waitresses, and whispers a few words in her ear. Dee shoots me a sympathetic glance and takes my place while Hallie pulls me toward the staff rooms.
As soon as we’re through the door, she pushes me down onto a chair and crouches at my knees.
“Talk to me,” she says softly. “I won’t breathe a word to anyone. Cross my heart.”
Tears thunder out of my eyes. I can’t stop them. It’s been two weeks, and up to now I’ve had nobody I could talk to about this stuff. I’ve bottled it up to the point the top has blown and all the fizz is bubbling out.
“I can’t do this,” I say through hiccups. “I can’t work here for a wholeyear, paying back debt that I have nothing to do with.”
Hallie listens, her face tilted at an angle.
“My dad, he—” I swallow, trying to calm my sobs. “He’s losing his memories. That’s why I came back to New York—to care for him. I gave up a job I loved, working in a hospital, caring for people who needed urgent medical help. I was doing something good. I gave it all up to care for Dad, and thanks to his beast of a brother, I’m stuck here doing a job I’m terrible at, hardly ever seeing the daylight, and too tired to care properly for my father. I hate it. I hate all of it. I don’t know how I’m going to do this for a year.”
“God, Fi. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”
Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. “And Il Diavolo hates me. He doesn’t say a word to me. I don’t know why he wants me here. If what you say about the Bellucci’s being brutal is true, why hasn’t he… I don’t know, tortured the money out of my uncle somehow? Why is he using me instead? I don’t understand.”
Hallie shakes her head in confusion. “I don’t understand either.”
It makes me feel marginally better knowing someone else is as perplexed as I am.
“But I do know this…”
She links her fingers through mine. It’s a sweet gesture but it makes me bristle. I force myself to not yank them out of her grip.
“If Il Diavolo really did hate you, you wouldn’t be here. I’ve never known him to let a problem hang around. He deals with it fast and swift. If you’re still around, it’s because he wants you here.”
I glance up, more tears swelling. “Then why doesn’t he speak to me? I see him speaking to the other girls—and you.”
She releases a tense breath. “I don’t know, Fi. It doesn’t make any sense to me either.”
I watch, detached, as our fingers interlink.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say, quietly.
She’s silent for a long moment, then looks up suddenly.
“There might be a way out.”
“What’s that?” I jump on it like an addict in dire need of a fix.
“Fallen Angels.”
There it is—that word again: Angels. The one Vivienne mentioned on my first night.
“What is that? Some kind of biker club?”
I meant it as a joke but she withdraws her fingers and bunches them on bended knees, nervously.
“It’s like a silent auction,” she explains. “But instead of bidding on items, they bid on people.”
“What?” I whisper. “Isn’t that illegal?”
She cocks a brow. “You think anyone here cares about what’s legal?”