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I flipped the light switch next to the door and was relieved when a nearby lamp flickered to life.

At least I’d remembered to keep up with the utility bills.

The glow from the light illuminated a compact space that could best be described as utilitarian.

Bed to the right, sofa to the left, kitchen straight ahead, with a door beside the fridge that led to the bathroom.

I grabbed a change of clothes and went to shower, turning the water up until it was scalding.

Trails of pink ran down the drain as I scoured the last of the blood from my skin.

In my mind, I replayed the memory of Tommy’s car disappearing beneath the black surface of the water, and I grinned.

I was glad he was gone, because it freed up one of the last hurdles standing between me and his daughter.

Lauren Marchetti.

The girl I’d grown up with back in the “old neighborhood,” as we called Little Italy, before my parents moved us out of the city and into a swanky suburb.

She’d been a grade below me, and at the end of my senior year, a situation involving the two of us had spun out of control, getting so bad that she’d ended up transferring out of the district.

I closed my eyes, thinking back, my smile slipping as I remembered the feeling of Tommy’s knuckles hammering into the side of my face, hearing his enraged voice tell me that if I ever so much as looked at his daughter again, he would kill me.

I’d gone home afterward, making a beeline toward my room, wanting to hide the shame of getting my ass kicked by an old man, but my father had caught me, taken one look at my face, and demanded to know what happened.

I shook my head as the water rushed over me, thinking back to what a na?ve kid I’d been, even at eighteen, even after all the shit I’d already seen and done.

Dad had forced the story out of me, and I’d been terrified he’d make everything worse by going on the warpath against Tommy.

Mafia men weren’t exactly known for letting slights against their family go unanswered.

But instead of promising retribution, Dad only offered more threats.

Well, Tommy was no longer around to follow through on his, and I didn’t fear my old man as much as I used to. I was done fucking around. I was done waiting. I’d spent nearly a decade keeping my distance from Lauren, and god help anyone who tried to get between us this time.

Once I was out of the shower, I bagged up my dirty clothes and carried them down to a dumpster around the corner.

Dumpsters were great for disposing evidence.

By the time the cops got suspicious, the trash was already in the landfill, and good luck sorting through it.

Even if they eventually found my clothes, being left out in the elements and surrounded by rotting refuse would contaminate them enough that any samples would be useless in court.

I kicked my shoes off by the front door afterward and collapsed onto the threadbare couch.

And then I did what I did every night without fail: I pulled my phone from my pocket, opened my favorite social media app, and went straight to Lauren’s profile.

Her page was filled with barely clad photos of herself, all artfully posed and perfectly lit.

Interspersed among these shots were small slices of life: what she’d had for lunch; a snap of her hugging her monstrous dog; her holding a sign at a rally.

Today’s picture featured her wearing a fitted black pantsuit, shaking hands with an older white woman in an office.

I smiled to see it. Marion Blackwell had been a hard nut to crack.

Lauren had been trying to meet the councilwoman for months, hoping to secure her vote on a new city ordinance aimed at making sex work safer.

The more conservative-leaning Blackwell had been avoiding Lauren, but a little digging revealed her son’s “white powder” problem, and all it took was the threat of leaking photos of him snorting lines in the back of a strip club for Blackwell to change her mind and take the meeting.

I would have done much worse to see this picture of Lauren looking so triumphant.

She’d come a long way from the quiet, bespectacled honor roll student with an arm full of textbooks I remembered.

This curvaceous goddess barely resembled her anymore, but the evidence was irrefutable: large brown eyes, a button nose, that slight gap between her two front teeth, and most damning of all, a beauty mark right beneath her left eye.

Scrolling back to the top of her profile, I clicked on the link in her bio, and up popped my Me4U app. Lauren was so determined to secure rights for sex workers because she was one herself.

And I was her number one fan.

Just beneath her creator profile was a small button that allowed you to request a custom video from her. I tapped it and then sent my latest request, along with a message.

Good job with Blackwell today. I’m proud of you. Now show me how proud you are of yourself, Lauren.