Page 85 of Vows of a Mobster

“Love you too, baby.”

And off she left me again. She loved her little hugs and attention but only in moderations. She loved to play in abundance.

“She missed you last night,” Marissa spoke softly. “She missed your bedtime kiss. She said Daphne and I don’t do it right.”

“I’m scared, Mar,” I whispered. “I’m so scared of losing-” My throat choked on a sob and my hand went to my mouth to stop it. Taking several calming breaths, “We all know I’m not much for having sex and staying detached. It is one of the reasons I never hooked up. But I can survive Mateo being done with me. I will survive that.” Another calming breath although my heart raced. “I can’t lose her. That I won’t survive.”

“You won’t,” both Marissa and Daphne spoke at the same time. “We will do this together and nobody will stop us,” Marissa continued.

“Mateo could stop us,” I whispered low. She knew he could too. The punishment Giovanni had gotten because of us was harsh, but it would be nothing compared to what would happen to us if the truth came out. We had done a lot worse than Giovanni.

“I have to tell you two something,” Marissa spoke slowly. Daphne’s surprise was evident. She had been with her for the past few days non-stop. So why would Daphne be surprised?

“Okay,” I urged her on.

She took a breath and the look she gave us, I knew it was bad even before she said the words.

“A skull washed up on the shore, north of here. It has been identified.” There was a sharp inhale, but I wasn’t sure whether it was mine or Daphne’s.

“No,” I whispered in fear. This was what we have been dreading since that fatal night. God, there were nights it seemed like it just happened. Those lifeless eyes staring up at us, blood all around.

“It can’t be him,” Daphne’s voice shook.

“Teeth,” Marissa choked it out. “They identified the skull by the teeth.”

Daphne whimpered. I didn’t but I still cringed at the thought.

It was pointless to say now she was right. Marissa kept saying we should pull his teeth out but Daphne and I were so freaked out. In our shaken-up state, we couldn’t stomach it. I didn’t even want to know how she knew about it. And what she was doing with the gun in her purse. After everything that had happened that night, all three of us just wanted to forget it all.

To this day, I still had a hard time understanding how it happened. The whole thing was a blur. One moment he was there, and the next moment, he was shot dead, lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

“Anything about the sailboat?” I gulped. It was as if everything hit us at once. It had been brewing for years waiting for the perfect storm to strike us back, vengeance at its best.

Marissa shook her head. “No mention of it. We sank it miles away from the location where we dumped the body. It should never be connected.”

And here I was worrying about Mateo getting rid of me. In the grand scheme of things, I should hope he got tired of me. I should hope he lost interest and was ready to move on to conquering the next thing. I wouldn’t even be a page in his book but that would be good.

I pushed my hand through my hair, fear and desperation a dangerous mix.

“Do you think the police will reopen the case?” Daphne questioned in a whisper.

Would there be anything leading them to me? To us?

“Just promise me,” my voice and my hands trembled, “you’ll take care of Emma if-” I pressed my hands together to stop them from shaking. “If-”

I couldn’t even finish the sentence. It was hard to even think about Emma growing up without me. I didn’t want to grow old and not see her grow up.

Oh my God! Life couldn’t be so cruel to let me get pregnant now.

That would be the last straw.

“What are you bambinas doing looking so gloomy?” Antonio’s voice had all three of us jumping out of our skin and one of us whimpered in fear or maybe it was all three of us.

My eyes darted to Mateo’s right-hand man. I was surprised to see him here. I assumed, wrongly apparently, that he would have gone into the city with Mateo. He was smiling but it didn’t reach his eyes. Could he have heard us talking? We kept our voices very low, so unless he was right behind us, there wouldn’t be a way for him to hear us.

“We are not,” all three of us mumbled our answer, avoiding his eyes.

This was literally what it must feel like when the world crashes down on you. All those dramatic moments I have written into my stories were nothing compared to this. This was a real catastrophe. It started that night we killed Kyle and had been brewing ever since. We have been living on borrowed time. Or I have been living on borrowed time.