Page 35 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

Faintly, the house coming alive broke through the haze.

Footsteps outside. An occasional voice. My eyes burned and my throat was dry.

I couldn’t break down. Not now. Maybe never.

I stared at the bag I had started to fill.

I couldn’t just walk out like that. I couldn’t take any of it with me.

So I left it all behind and walked out the front door, wearing a tight smile I didn’t feel on my face.

I heard a broken girl with no hopes left telling Giuseppe Ada wanted some groceries done.

My legs were tired sticks that stumbled to the car.

I chewed on the inside of my mouth to stop the emotion from spilling out.

When the house disappeared in the side mirror, a part of me was relieved.

I didn’t want any of them to suffer for the mistakes I’d made. I didn’t have to worry about them now.

I made Giuseppe drop me off at the supermarket.

Then I calmly walked out the back door as if I did this every day.

A part of me hated that I always knew this was how it would end.

I took a bus to get to this paradise. It was only right that I did the same to leave my short, independent life behind in Sicily.

My chest squeezed. For a second, I didn’t want to breathe.

I had thought it would be easier. To leave behind a woman who had helped me with the kindness of her heart, a girl I had come to think of as a sister, and a man…

what did it matter? It was never meant to be.

He was Italian. I was Indian. Four thousand miles came between us.

Not only in location, but in our different paths.

He was the don. Set to lead and marry a beautiful girl.

I was nothing but a broken piece of society running away from a monster.

I was made to hide and suffer in silence.

He may have been a monster, but he owned me.

And what he did with me was really up to him.

I could do this. Carry this secret with me until the day I died.

My family would not come to shame because of my actions.

Amara’s future would not be destroyed because of my idiocy.

I would not allow Pāpā to crumble. He had a standing.

People looked up at him. He was a leader.

I wouldn’t do anything to destroy the reputation he had. None of this was worth it.

So at the next stop, I swapped SIM cards and switched on my VPN. Then I looked at the sky, breathed a silent, heavy prayer, and made the call. My hands shook so hard the phone rattled against my earring.

“Rajesh Sharma speaking.”

His cold charm touched my heart as much as a ghost walking through my body. My heart froze. Frosted into stone. I had gone into all that effort to run and hide. I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry that I was going back to him. Willingly, after all of that.

“Hello?” A pause on his side, then a low, disdainful laugh filtered through. “Who’s this? My favourite whore?”

The tears I’d kept locked fought to spill out. “What do you want?” I choked out.

“And the village idiot. What the fuck do you think I want?”

“Can’t you just sign it? Please. Just let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” I hated how weak my voice was. I wasn’t even before him, but already I was back to that weak woman hunched in front of a mirror. Broken. Again.

He laughed. It sounded like the echo in a haunted house. The menace sent icicles to my chest. With that one sound, he showed me the power he had over me. “And who will believe you, my filthy whore?”

No one.

No one would believe me over a millionaire entrepreneur with a PHD from Oxford and generations of wealth behind him. No one. A surge of anger exploded inside me. I hated him. I hated how he had backed me against a wall. Nothing to protect me. No one to hide behind.

“I just—”

“Shut the fuck up.” The coldness in his tone morphed into pure malicious rage.

“I have a flight booked in three days. That’s all you get.

You are not here by then, I’m flying to your precious Pāpā.

I thought it would be more fun to watch him keel over and die from the shame when I tell him all about his filthy whore of a daughter. ”

“He won’t believe you.”

“Who cares? I’ll make the rest of Delhi believe me. Who’s going to win then, you think? Your father? Your sister? You?”

And that was the hard truth. My heart pounded. There was no winning against him.

“I’ll come,” a meek voice answered. It must have been me. “Just give me a week.”

“Don’t fucking think so. Where’re you at that you need a week to get here?

You used those legs to run away from me.

Then use them to run back to me. Three days is all you get.

A minute later, and I am cutting those legs of yours and shoving your family’s reputation down Delhi’s drains.

Remember how pretty I painted you the last time?

I’ll make a masterpiece of it this time. Now get the fuck over here.”