Chapter 1: Kitty
Playlist recommendation:
Another Innocent Girl - Alkaline Trio
Was I in pain?
Yes.
Was I also furious?
Hell, yes.
Every slap, every grope, every threat lit me up, sending electricity through my veins. Making me a veritable firework ready to explode.
In contrast to the sparks Stan and I made together, this bastardized version filled me with rage that I choked on. That had me craving their blood. That knew it was kill or be killed, and I wasn’t about to waste one of my nine lives on these punks.
Sure, they’d doped me with chloroform that had since worn off—hypermetabolism had its perks. But the drug hadn’t lessened my temper, if they hoped the downer would keep me contained.
Wrath sang inside me. Raging and roaring. My incandescent fury a living, breathing entity.
I knew Custanzu Valentini, the Capo of the Sicilian Famigghia, would come for me. Of course, I knew that.
But when?
An hour? Two?
Tomorrow?
I couldn’t rely on him to get me out of this mess.
A mess that I’d allowed myself to get into.
That infuriated me more than anything.
If my family, relatively low on the rungs of the mob hierarchy, had enemies, then Stan sure as hell did.
In my defense, I hadn’t expected to go to his home and—
No.
There was no defense.
No excuses.
Like a fool, I’d let that rat bastard overwhelm me. I’d been too busy studying
