Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I walk over to the mask and pick it up.
The game doesn’t have to be over—it’s just the rules that have changed.
Chapter 24
Laura
The camera stares at me with a dead black eye. Cables dangle from its back, raw and shorn through.
I might’ve gone a bit overboard and cut them with my chisel when I got back from Marco’s place.
But fuck it, whatever. I don’t want him watching me. I don’t even want him messaging me, which is why I haven’t reached out the few times his name appeared on my screen.
No, not his name.
Jackal’s name.
They’re the same person. Marco Vitale is Jackal. Marco Vitale is also dating Valentina Santoro, the daughter of my family’s mortal enemy. Or if they’re not dating, then at least they’re friends of some sort. Assuming I can believe anything that man says.
I spend five days trying to lose myself in work. Sometimes, I manage to pull it off, and the flow takes me as the simple motions of hammering and chiseling and sculpting drag me out of my body for a while. But mostly I’m stuck thinking about that morning, about seeing Jackal’s face for the first time, about wanting to kiss him and getting so close, about seeing Valentina standing in his doorway and hearing the pain in his voice as I left him behind.
No, I don’t regret what happened. I took my shot and it didn’t work out. He says I ruined the game, and that’s fine. I ruined the game. But he’s the one that kept something so enormous and important from me, and that’s a pretty big deal, too.
Except I didn’t want to know. I could’ve known—and chose not to. I’m as complicit in our situation as he is.
No, no, we don’t even have a situation anymore.
I miss him. I hate that about myself. It’s weakness, and I don’t do weakness, but it’s true. Every message that came through took immense willpower to ignore. I want to drive back to his place and throw myself at his feet. I want to beg him to meet me on Cage’s roof again, or in that weird warehouse, or anywhere he wants, if only to spend a little time with him again.
There’s nothing else in my life anymore.
I just have my hands, my sculptures, the basement, my silence.
“Laura? You alive?”
My silence, damn it. I grimace and look over at the stairs. The door to the basement is open, and Angelo’s voice rings down the steps.
“What do you want?”
“Good to know you’re still with us.” My brother comes down and looks at me with a smirk. “God, you look like shit.”
“Thanks.” I lean against the jackal ear I’ve been working on these last five days. He stares at it, frowning.
“Is that mangled or something?”
“Ripped in half.” I gesture vaguely at the half-formed ear with the ugly, bloody tear down the center. “What do you want?”
“You haven’t come up for air in days. We were getting worried.”
I frown at him and look around. “I do this all the time.”
“Not recently, you haven’t. You were coming up for air, and I guess we were starting to think—” He stops himself, probably at the look on my face. He’s pissing me off. “Alright, fine, you’re all good. Then this is a good time to talk about the art dealer that got in touch with me through Cage.”
“Not interested.” I turn back to my work, yanking the respirator back down over my face.
“This could be serious, Laura.” Angelo comes over and watches me from my workbench. I catch him giving the camera a strange look, but he doesn’t mention it. I’m Laura, weirdo Laura, after all. I have freaky shit like disconnected mangled cameras in my basement. No reason to worry.
“And I’m serious when I say that I’m not interested.” My words come out muffled by the mask.
“His name is Etienne Chacal and he’s got serious bona fides. The man’s a legitimate dealer selling out of New York, and he’s talking about setting up a show for you to meet his more important top-tier clients.”
I hesitate for a moment, my chisel hanging above the stone. Something about that name bugs me. Etienne Chacal… no, I’ve never heard it before. I turn to Angelo and he’s giving me an appraising look.
Annoyed, I push my mask off again. “What do I have to say to get you to leave me alone?”
“Promise to take the meeting. If you don’t like him and want to tell him to fuck off, fine with me. Go for it. But at least meet with the guy.”
I glance away. “I don’t do meetings.”
“You didn’t do meetings, but you have a car now, which means you have the means to travel. Come on, Laura, you’ve been making great progress. I don’t want to see you backslide.”
I look up at the ceiling. I know where this is going. If I don’t play along, Angelo, Elena, and my mother are going to gang up on me and start pestering me about therapy, about going through crisis, about depressive episodes and the like. They’ll be all over my ass for weeks, if not months, and it’s not like I can just explain to them that I found out the masked man I’ve been having a sexual affair with is the former Capo of our most hated enemy.