Page 9 of Dirty Mafia Sinner

It’s over.

I curl a tea bag around a spoon. It’s two in the morning, a bad time for a caffeine fix. Except, I can’t sleep, so what does it matter?

He left that night after our wild fling, and I thought that was the end of it. Then, a few days later, a man in an expensive suit showed up at my apartment to install a new lock. Ciro—when I approached him later about it—was dumbfounded, and I realized he was the wrong man to thank. Not fully comprehending I’d soon be doing so in person.

My buzzer rang, waking me. It was well past midnight, but I scrambled from bed to answer the door, believing guilt had driven Emily to come over to apologize for a fight we’d had over dinner. That, or because she’d left Ciro. Because who else would show up at this hour?

Except it wasn’t Emily standing there, eyes smoldering and daring me, just daring me, to comment on his return. As if his presence didn’t make my throat go dry and words impossible. He came every Friday night, then practically every night until his visits stopped altogether.

Now, it’s over.

I squeeze the amber liquid from the tea bag. The tea’s too hot, but I drink it anyway, welcoming the burn and the reminder that even something outwardly innocent like tea can still hurt you.

The things we did, the boundaries he pushed …

He was everything I didn’t know I was searching for.

Liquid sloshes across my T-shirt and kitchen floor. “Great,” I mutter, setting everything on the counter before tearing off the shirt to rinse it in the sink. Once finished, I grab a towel, get onto my knees, and wipe up the mess, blindly making wide swooping arcs to reach liquid I can’t see while I work.

Why is it so dark in here?

Big windows bookend my apartment’s railroad-style layout, with plenty of natural light filtering in. The kitchen and small functional bathroom sit on one end, the living area square in the middle, and my bedroom on the other side. With renovations ongoing and the other apartments vacant, it’s quiet at night.

“You live in a newly renovated NYC apartment rent-free,” Emily informed me after I finally commented on how she’d bailed on being my roommate. One minute, she was crying over catching Ciro snorting coke like a character straight out of the movieScarface, and in the next—after I suggested she move inwith me “as planned”—she was defending him and attacking me. “Everything always has to be about poor, poor Riley, doesn’t it?”

This from a friend who’d picked me up from the airport, dropped me off at the curb, informed me there’d been a change in plans and she’d moved in with Ciro, then, blurting out the entry code, drove off without the slightest remorse.

I’d stood on the sidewalk, in an unfamiliar city, in front of an unfamiliar building, two suitcases at my side and my one connection to home abandoning me. Left behind with an emptiness eating away at me.

“He could chargethousands.”

“Is that why you’re dating him?” I snapped, unleashing an anger that had been brewing for months. “For his money?”

Her claws came out to sink into my jugular. “I liked you better when you barely talked.”

I stood up from the table, wavering somewhere between being the wrecking ball and the wrecked. “We’ll talk when you’re ready to hear the truth,” I said in a flat voice before walking off.

But maybe I have changed. Still broken, yet not entirely defenseless.

I submitted to him yet discovered an inner strength long absent from my life.

With a sigh, I sit back on my haunches and toss the towel at the sink. “Why did he have to end it so soon?”

A grunt disrupts the quiet. A muffled sound, which has me falling backward. I search for the source, and find it at my kitchen table, a shadowy figure seated in the dark.

My eyes shift toward the door.

“Don’t.”Hisvoice.

Fear quickly changes to indignation. “How long have you been sitting there?” The kitchen curtains are pulled closed, shrouding the table in darkness. I can barely make out his features.

I stand, arms folded, very aware how naked I am, wearing nothing but a skimpy red thong.

He doesn’t respond. Typical. What else should I expect from a man who so reluctantly offered me his name.Al—that’s all I got. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I know.”

Three weeks, and he knows?