He could, and I wondered why he hadn’t just done that.
“What if I said you were going to help me out or—”
“Angelo, what the fuck are you doing? You know what Lucien said.”
Angelo pushed off the lockers and stepped back, scowling at his cousin.
I never expected Devil to be the one to come to my rescue. Most times he was worse than Angelo, or Angel as most people called him.
Lucien was Angelo’s brother, the one he’d apparently made some kind of bargain with.
“Are you going to class?” Angelo asked his cousin.
Devil looked at him like he was crazy. “Fuck no.”
I took the opportunity to scurry off while Angelo was distracted, and I made it to math just as the bell finished ringing.
I took my usual seat at the front. Would it be easier to just give in to Angelo? No, I couldn’t risk my scholarship. Maybe I’d get lucky and whatever he had going on with his brother would save me.
Angelo glared at me when he walked in, but he didn’t say anything, not that he really could with the teacher eyeing him. If he had, she would have kicked him out, and that would mean a zero on the test. Surely, he could do better than that by actually taking it.
I finished my test well before the class ended. As soon as the teacher dismissed us, I raced from the room, praying Angelo wouldn’t follow me.
That night was one of the rare occasions when my dad was sober and talkative at the dinner table. “Those Marchesi boys go to your school, don’t they?”
I froze, the food I’d eaten forming a knot in my stomach. “Yes, sir. Why?”
“I heard their father had Old Man Romano knocked off.”
“What? Why?” Benny Romano was a regular at my grandparents’ bakery. While it was true I didn’t know much about him, he was always nice. He left good tips and flirted adorably with my grandma. As far as I knew, all he did was run a shoe repair shop and play with his grandchildren.
“Pop said he heard the guy owed them and refused to pay. All I know is they found him shot through the head in his back room.”
My mom crossed herself feverishly and brought her hands together in prayer. “Holy Father protect us. What is this world coming to that someone would kill a nice old man like that?”
“Julia, you don’t know if he was nice,” my father said. “Just because he’s nice when he comes into the shop, that doesn’t mean a fucking thing.”
My mother shook her head. “I just can’t believe it.”
The next day, Angelo wasn’t at school, and I had to stay late at the bakery to clean up. I stepped into the back alley to toss the trash into the dumpster, and someone grabbed me. I started to scream, but a hand clamped over my mouth.
“It’s me,” Angelo said against my ear.
Knowing it was him did nothing to slow my pulse. Why was he here? And why did it feel so fucking good to have him pressed against me. He let me go, and I turned to face him. “What—”
“You’re never going to let me cheat off you, are you?”
I shook my head, not trusting my voice to work.
He paced back and forth in front of me. I held my breath as I waited for him to decide my fate. As scared as I was, I couldn’t help noticing how wide his shoulders were, how his muscles stretched his button-down, how tan his skin was against the stark white of his shirt where he’d rolled his sleeves up. Heat filled my face as I remembered obsessing about him as I lay in bed the night before. I’d been torn between horror that he might have been involved in Mr. Romano’s death and the heat that always rushed through me when I saw him.
Why did I want Angelo when he was an asshole and likely a criminal? Why did I fantasize about how good it would feel to truly be in his control, under his protection?
Today, he didn’t seem as in control as usual. He seemed… nervous, and that confused the hell out of me. Why didn’t he just beat me up and get it over with or whatever the hell he was going to do to me for daring to refuse his demands?
“Fine. How about this then? You can tutor me.”
“I don’t—”
“I’ll pay you and everything. You got something against taking a job?”
His family had killed Mr. Romano, shot him in the head. Even if Angelo had nothing to do with it, I couldn’t take blood money. It wasn’t worth it. I didn’t want to get mixed up with anyone in the Marchesi family. “I already have a job. I have to work at the bakery after school.”
That wasn’t really true. My grandparents insisted I put studying ahead of everything else, but it was the best excuse I could come up with.