I open my mouth. I clamp it shut again.
I thought I could do this, but maybe I was wrong.
Last night, I felt like a different person. With Maxim, I could be sexy and free and exciting.
But now, here, this morning, in this office with my family, I know what I really am.
Nothing.
A bug. A roach.
A worthless piece of trash.
Always in the way. Always taking up space.
And maybe they’ve been right this whole time. Maybe I really am just a stupid little girl with an empty head where my brain should be.
Self-hate spikes, but I manage to nod my head.
“Yes, Papa.”
Santo groans. “Siena, why?”
“It doesn’t matter why,” Enzo says, his tone dripping with rage. “She betrayed the family.”
“It was just a whore,” Santo says, shrugging. He speaks quietly and doesn’t look at Papa.
“She betrayed us,” Enzo says louder. “She knows our rules. The girls that work our houses are our property. Helping one to escape is tantamount to theft. It puts us all in danger and it got good people arrested. One of our brothels was raided, and three of our workers are behind bars. If they talk, if one of those girls says something, we’re at risk. You understand that, don’t you?”
The office is dead silence in the wake of his speech.
“Answer him, Siena,” Papa says. “You understand all that, yes?”
I nod my head.
“I understand.”
How can I explain that it wasn’t supposed to go down this way?
Yes, I helped Tianna escape. She was just an eighteen-year-old girl that wanted to get back to her family and I took pity on her. She was nice to me, and whenever Papa let me visit the brothel to help with the girls, I spent time talking to her. I learned about her family in Mexico, and how she came across the border hoping her uncle would take her in, and how the uncle sold her to my father instead for drugs. It was such a sad story, and I wanted to help her.
So I came up with a plan. I contacted a coyote that would bring her back into Mexico. That way, she wouldn’t go through any legal ports of entry, and she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone with authority. She could disappear back to her home and her old life and be free. No more working in the brothel. No more fucking for money.
I don’t know what happened. She was supposed to disappear—but she didn’t. Instead, she must’ve talked to the cops, because they descended on Papa’s cat house and nearly arrested everyone. Most of them managed to escape, but three of Papa’s loyal workers were hauled off to prison. We lost revenue and good people, and everything’s a mess, all because of me.
Tianna wasn’t supposed to call the cops. If she’d just left and never come back, everything would be okay.
But that isn’t what happened.
I betrayed my family to help a stranger, and now I will pay the price.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” I say, looking at my hands. The hands that stroked Maxim’s cock the night before. I focus on these good memories. My last good memories.
“You’re sorry.” Papa’s voice is flat. “That is all you say? You sneak out because you know you’re guilty, and now you say you’re sorry. You know what happens when you betray the family.”
“Betrayal is death,” Santo says. It’s one of the vows the men take when they join the family. The family is life, the family is loyalty. Betrayal is death.
“You can’t be serious,” Santo says. Even Franco looks uncomfortable.
“It’s the law, brother,” Enzo says. I feel his big hand grab my shoulder and squeeze hard. “Right, little sister?”
I say nothing. My heart’s racing and I’m trying not to cry. I can’t show weakness now, even if this is breaking my heart.
These are my brothers. I love them, even if they can be assholes sometimes. I know I made a huge mistake helping that girl, but now they’re going to kill me, their only sister. I’ve always been an afterthought, a nuisance, a “mouthy little brat” as Papa so eloquently put it on many occasions, but to really hear it from Enzo’s mouth, to really hear him say those words—it breaks my heart to pieces.
“Papa,” Santo says, looking at the old man. The Don of the family Bastone. “I understand Siena did something awful. I agree she needs to be punished. Surely there are other ways?”
“Betrayal is death,” Papa says. “Should we treat our own family any differently than we treat our men? If one of them did what she did, would they be spared?”
“No,” Franco says. The word is hardly a whisper. He stares at the floor and can’t meet my eye.
“This is insane,” Santo says, looking around. “Enzo, come on. It’s Siena. We all know she’s difficult, but it’s our sister. She’s your baby sister.”