I slurped loudly on the hot cup of tea clasped in my hands, staring across the table with unblinking eyes.

Vincenzo and Mr. Filoli had wrangled me into a car kicking and screaming. I was about to piss myself convinced they were taking me to a second location to kill me. Just like they had Paulie. I knew the man for less than a week—I most definitely hated him and the fact I’d die because of him made me irrationally angry.

For an hour I contemplated how I could escape and All Mr. Filoli did was sit on his phone replying to emails while Vincenzo drove. I was watching my life pass me by and they were acting like this was any other Wednesday—well Thursday morning now.

Once we arrived at their family estate I knew there was no going back. It was the end of the line for dear young Rose.

They dragged my dead weight through the house and sat me down in a library. Every wall lined with books and dark mahogany; ladders fastened to brass rails. If I hadn’t been in a state of shock, I would have admired the place better.

Vincenzo had wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and within a few minutes a maid brought a cup of tea.

Now we all sat eerily still—except for Mr. Filoli of course who sat back with a thin look of inconvenience.

I swallowed the tea roughly, finally gaining the courage to ask, “are you going to kill me?”

Mr. Filoli perked a brow, “why? Do we need to kill you?”

Vincenzo laughed nervously and clapped his cousin on the chest. “No! No. We’re not going to kill you—not helping, cugino!”

I took another sip.

Mr. Filoli cracked his neck as he angrily slid back from the table and stood. His thumbs flew across his phone screen. “It’s nearly four a.m. and I’m fucking exhausted. There’s a problem in Pittsburgh I have to deal with—Vincenzo take care of this.”

He didn’t spare me another glance as he put his phone to his ear and stormed out of the library.

We both watched him exit and once he was well and gone, Vincenzo let out a long sigh as he cupped his face. “Oh, Bella Rosa… this is no good.”

I took another sip in leu of responding. If I said nothing then nothing could be used against me.

He slumped down, “do you want to know what happened?”

I vehemently shook my head no.

That warranted me a tired laugh. “That’s the right answer… I’m sure you realize you can tell no one what you saw tonight.”

I nodded then risked opening my mouth, “I… I’m not even sure what I saw. It happened so fast.”

“That’s good enough for me, Bella Rosa—but I am more concerned with convincing mio cugino.”

I downed the rest of the tea, “he… he wants to get rid of me, doesn’t he?”

Vincenzo took far too long to reply, “I don’t pretend to know what Dante wants, Rose… but I promise I will try to help you as much as I can.”

A tear escaped down my cheek and with trembling hands I sat the teacup down. “I… thank you, Vincenzo.”

He stood and walked around the table, putting his hands under my arms to help me stand. “Come, it’s very late. I’ll take you to a guest room.”

The guest room had only one exit and no windows. I laid in bed too afraid to try the doorknob, not wanting to confirm if I was a prisoner or not. The last thing I wanted to do was face reality.

The only reason I slept was because I hadn’t yet become accustomed to my new schedule and exhaustion tore through me like a wildfire.

I passed out still in my little red show dress above the covers; blood on my face streaked from my tears.

I had no idea what time it was when I was awoken with a knock on the door. My lids cracked open, caked with makeup and eye crust.

Waddling back and forth on my hands I sat up in bed, “Yes?”

The door opened and a burly chest filled the frame; it took me a moment to recognize Garner, the family’s head of security. “Mr. Filoli would like to speak with you. Please follow me.”

Scrubbing the side of my hand under my nose, I stumbled out of bed and picked my heels off the floor.

He led me through a series of halls that I was too tired last night to realize were in the basement. My mouth was painfully dry as I ascended the stairs behind Garner and stepped into the daylight. The sun burned my eyes.

He brought me to Mr. Filoli’s office on the second floor where the door was wide open. Inside Mr. Filoli was talking to a teenage boy, Marco, I thought.

Garner rapped his knuckles on the wall and stepped aside. “Here she is, Mr. Filoli.”

Mr. Filoli paused his lecture and let his gaze sweep over me. He looked displeased. He always looked displeased.

“The hell happened to her?” Marco snickered.

“Don’t worry about it.” He crossed his arms and stood imposingly straight. “Ms. LeClair you slept in past breakfast. I’m sure you’re starving so, I’ve decided to take you for lunch.”

Was that a euphemism for something? “Lunch? What time is it?”

He made a show of turning his wrist to check his watch, “1:45.”

I can’t believe I slept that long… “I think I’d prefer to be taken home if that’s alright. I’ve taken up too much of your time.”

“I insist.” Mr. Filoli’s mood was eerily friendly, as if he’d slid on a mask so Marco wouldn’t know he was probably about to kill me. “Why don’t you go get a shower? I’ll meet you at the car.”

Marco pursed his lips and mocked Mr. Filoli’s posture. “Did you two fuck last night?”

My objection retched out of me without hesitation, squawking no like some hideous bird. Mr. Filoli’s eye twitched as if his mask of pleasantry was about to crack. He bobbed his head to the side and glowered at his little brother.

“Marco. Don’t say another word.”

The kid bounced his shoulders up, remaining unthreatened. “Pretty great if you did—it would be a Christmas miracle!”

“It’s May.” I mumbled.

“Even better!” Marco’s smile widened as Mr. Filoli’s neck grew red, “Does Enzo know?”

“Garner,” Mr. Filoli snapped. “Would you show Ms. LeClair here to a bathroom? Seems I’m not done with Marco quite yet.”

“Of course,” the big guy guided me out of the room. “This way.”

After the longest shower I’d ever taken, I found my dress hand been miraculously scrubbed clean of any blood traces.

Garner was waiting for me outside the bathroom to take me to the car port.

A red vintage convertible pulled around, the top down in the mid-day sun. Mr. Filoli was in the driver’s seat. Garner opened the passenger side door.

“Thank you,” I said below my breath as I awkwardly lowered myself onto the leather seat.

He only grunted in reply.

Mr. Filoli remained silent, not even a look in my direction to acknowledge my existence. An existence that I wasn’t sure would exist for much longer.

He left the radio off, which made the experience even more excruciating. I was fairly certain as the drive reached the 45-minute mark, that Mr. Filoli would be finding out what color my blood was by the time this “lunch” was through.

As the car passed the lake harbor, I wondered if he was going to put me in cement shoes. Was that even a real thing? It seemed made up, but yet again, I also thought it would be okay taking a job with this family so… My judgement was useless apparently and my mother was right.

We pulled into an alley way behind a row of buildings. Mr. Filoli cut the ignition, the lack of rumbling from the engine only worsened the pit growing in my stomach.

He cracked his knuckles against the steering wheel, making no move to exit the vehicle.

“Mr. Filoli, I—” He cut me off with the controlled raise of his hand.

A metal door swung open, and an old man dressed in all black stepped outside. He nodded toward Mr. Filoli, then reached into his pocket and retrieved a cigarette.

Mr. Filoli slid out of the car gracefully. “Stay here. I need to take care of some business.”

I watched raptly and with rattled nerves as he approached the smoking man. They shook hands and when the man’s eyes bounced back at me, Mr. Filoli seemed to explain something. Satisfied with whatever was said, the man opened the lapel of his jacket and materialized an envelope. Mr. Filoli didn’t even look at it as he took it and slipped it into his back pocket.

This was some kind of back door deal and for some reason unbeknownst to me, Mr. Filoli wanted me to see. He wanted my witness. Was he trying to bury me deeper?

The old man laughed at words I couldn’t hear, and I was shocked, unable to imagine my boss having any type of sense of humor.

They parted ways, the man returning inside the building and Mr. Filoli back to the car.

However, instead of getting back into the driver’s seat, he casually walked over to my side and opened the door. I stared up at him dumbfounded, making no move to stand.

He patiently waited. “We’re having lunch, Ms. LeClair.”

“But… We’re in an alley,” I said stupidly.

“I always enter restaurants from the rear,” he commented coolly as he offered an arm, helping me out of the car.

Taking his arm begrudgingly, Mr. Filoli led me up a small set of cement stairs to the metal door the man had disappeared into.

We were guided through the kitchen, the rich smell of butter and tomatoes thick in the air, stirring my forgotten hunger.

There weren’t a lot of employees, but I noticed there were a lot of offices and men in suits standing around. None of them looked in our direction. I didn’t know if it was because I was of no consequence or if they were equally afraid of Mr. Filoli.

The question was answered as we entered the dining room… an entirely empty dining room. Even the server made himself scarce and I couldn’t help but feel like I was on the menu. A dish about to be served and discarded.

Mr. Filoli pulled out my chair and then took the seat facing the door.

After ordering for us both, the large dimly lit room filled with aching silence.

He propped his hands on the table, “Do you know why I asked you to join me, Ms. LeClair?”

I had to stop my lip from trembling as I replied, “I think you’re trying to decide if you want to kill me or not.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Ms. LeClair.”

Sweat dripped down my spine, “What?”

“How are you liking the job?”

This was surreal. “I think… I think it went well last night.”

“It went more than well,” He slicked back his curly hair that I finally noticed he hadn’t gelled. “The crowd loved you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Filoli.” I played with the edge of the tablecloth to keep my shaking hands busy. “I’d tried my best.”

“You’ve never been one to slack off, have you? Perfect grades all through college. Honors lists… In fact, you haven’t had a summer off since middle school. Volunteer trips, candy striping, you were even a debutant.”

My eyelids fluttered. “How… how do you know all of that?”

He ran his fingers over the silverware. “I make it my business to know things.”

“And knowing my hobbies is lucrative?” I joked nervously as the server returned to deliver our drinks and an appetizer neither of us moved to touch.

“Knowledge is always lucrative,” he replied once we were alone again. “Have you lived in Chicago your whole life?”

I frowned. “I thought you knew everything.”

“Indulge me.” His calculating expression never changed, never faltered.

What was he playing at?

I picked up my drink, thankful for something to wet my throat. “Sort of.”

“What does sort of mean?” he pried, mimicking my movements as he lifted his own drink.

“I was born here… My home is here… but technically I lived in Pennsylvania for a few years. An all-girls academy outside Pittsburgh,” I explained, staring into the glass of red wine. It didn’t slip my notice that he’d ordered only water for himself.

“Catholic?”

“Why? Does it matter?”

He paused to think for a moment, then said, “To me, yes. To your job, no.”

I didn’t attempt to decipher his meaning. “It wasn’t Catholic… Just an academy for rich parents to send their daughters to make sure they turn out exactly the way they want them to.”

“And did you?” he asked after a pause.

I raised a shoulder and gave him a self-deprecating smile. “No.”

Mr. Filoli didn’t appear to believe me, looking me over with all the scrutiny of a butcher picking out a prized pig. “No?”

Not particularly wanting to discuss my family dynamic, I diverted the conversation. “What about you? Did you turn out like your parents wanted?”

He inhaled deeply and I caught his flinch at the mention of his own parents. His expression grew distant. “I’ve done what is expected of me. Though I greatly doubt our families’ expectations would align.”

He was probably right about that.

The food arrived then, and we once more sat in silence as we ate.

I watched him chew from under my lashes; it was strange seeing him do something as mundane as eating. Though I supposed even he was human. Twirling my fork around, I gathered enough courage to ask him something that had been bothering me since yesterday.

“I have a question of my own,” I said with false confidence, setting my fork down.

He tilted his head to the side, “careful, Ms. LeClair.”

“Did you buy me this dress, Mr. Filoli?”

He actually looked surprised as if that wasn’t what he expected me to ask.

“You needed it.” He said with finality.

“I have clothes.” I wouldn’t let him off that easily. Nothing about this man would lead me to believe he bought me this dress, but it happened anyways.

“Did I offend you, Ms. LeClair?” He asked plainly.

I actually scoffed, “would you care?”

He didn’t answer, instead he said. “It won’t happen again. However, if you find yourself in need there is an old wardrobe in your dressing room.”

I leaned back over my plate to continue to poke at the food. “The last girls stuff?”

“Something like that.” He glanced down at my full plate, “Not to your standards?”

The pasta dish was delicious, but I could feel a guilty nag in the base of my stomach that kept me from finishing it. My gaze dropped to the napkin in my lap. “It was great. I don’t have a large appetite is all.”

He narrowed his eyes but thankfully didn’t press the matter.

After our plates were cleared and my wine remained full, Mr. Filoli finally cut to the chase. “We’ve established that you’re a smart girl, Ms. LeClair…”

I felt like I might be sick.

“But since you’re a smart girl, I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if a few things were explained to you,” he continued, waving a hand to someone behind me. The server reappeared and dropped off a small stack of papers. “I won’t insult you and try to convince you of what you didn’t see last night or that most of what I do is legal. The particulars don’t matter, but what does matter is whether or not you can be trusted. If we can depend on you and your continued silence. Does that make sense?”

I looked over the papers in front of me, not entirely grasping what was written on the page… “What is this?”

“A contract of sorts.” He leaned forward. “One separate from your regular employment at Fiabesco. One part NDA two parts omerta if you will.”

Omerta… it was that weird word Paulie had said. I searched for its meaning when I’d gone home that night. It was a code of silence, something to be taken gravely.

“So, if I sign this, I’m essentially promising to never cross you.”

“Not exactly.” Mr. Filoli produced a pen and held it between us. He ran his tongue along his teeth and thought over what was about to be said very carefully. “I going to extend a courtesy to you that I haven’t for others. I’m giving you a chance to either walk away right now, no hard feelings, and terminate your employment, or…” He placed the pen in front of me. “Or you can sign. But once you’re in, Ms. LeClair, you’ll always be in. Theres no escape from this life. I should know.”

I stared down at the pen, my palms slick. For whatever reason, he was giving me an out. A smart person would thank him for the job and respectfully walk away… but I needed this. I needed to get to Italy and prove my mother wrong… and unfortunately, selling my soul to Dante Filoli seemed the better option.

My mother had kept her promise; all of my contacts had cut the cord. She was socially choking me out and God knows when she’d start ripping away the rest of my safety nets.

It was her claws or his.

I hovered my hand over the pen. “What would you do if you were me?”

He didn’t hesitate. “I’d walk away.”

“Then maybe I’m not as smart as you think I am.” I signed the contract and downed my wine.

Mr. Filoli gathered the papers and pen before standing. Grimly, he said, “Welcome to the family.”

***

Two weeks passed without further incident. Mr. Filoli and I orbited each other around Fiabesco like two opposing magnets. I avoided him at all costs, yet it seemed we were always the last two to leave for the night. It baffled me as to why he spent so much time at the club, he hated everyone here and had a perfectly good office at home. The man had to be a glutton for punishment.

We’d run into each other in the hall on my breaks, bump into one another at the supply closet, and if the rare word was exchanged it was an “excuse me” or “after you”. A building had never felt so small.

Enzo had come with Nonno four times to see me perform and after much insistence I had gone to dinner with them earlier in the week. It was nice to have the semblance of friendship and if you got past Vincenzo’s incessant flirtation, he was actually fun to be around.

Though the days when Enzo would come were always the most nerve wracking because that meant Marco would manage to weasel his way into the club and find himself on my dressing room sofa. If I were to get jump scared one more time by that boy, my nerves would be officially fried.

If Marco were in my dressing room, then that meant I’d been seeing more of Mr. Filoli, which would lead to more than our standard two words every other day. Last time Marco broke in our conversation lasted for a record breaking five minutes straight as I grilled my boss about changing the locks on the dressing room door.

He argued maintaining the original authenticity of the building. I argued that then it wouldn’t be my fault if I cracked his brother with a bat. That conversation unsurprisingly ended without resolution.

Though I hated to admit, the younger Filoli had been growing on me like a mole or wart. Fungus perhaps. When he wasn’t acting the fool trying to replicate his cousin Enzo, the kid wanted to be included. He was dying of boredom as he’d so dramatically told me and the only time he got to do anything besides soccer practice was when he bribed Enzo to let him come to the club.

I understood what he meant as my time at Fiabesco had been the most interesting in my entire life…

I tried not to think about the alleyway, about when I peeked my head outside the day after Paulie was killed there wasn’t a spec of blood to be found. The scene scrubbed as if it had never happened and by the way no one asked where he went, I felt like I’d made the whole thing up in my head.

Time went on and everyone accepted he was gone.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead as I walked into my dressing room after my Saturday night performance. The crowd had been getting rowdier, and more than two patrons had to be tossed out for being too drunk… It was chaos and yet I’d never felt more in control.

I loved this job. It wasn’t glamourous, but I was discovering so much more about myself. Finding out that I can be more than a scared little girl—that maybe just maybe I was a woman.

My stilettos clambered to the floor as I kicked them off and slouched into my vanity chair. My face was a ball of grease by the end of a show so, I searched for a makeup wipe with one hand and my cellphone with the other.

Finding it tucked under a pile of eyeshadow palettes; the battery blinked at fifteen percent and a barrage of missed calls from my mother revealed why.

A pit opened up in my stomach. Why was she up so late?

My phone started to ring, my mother’s name flashed red on the screen. I debated with myself for approximately three seconds before answering the call.

“…Hello?”

“How’s work going?” she started immediately.

I didn’t know how she found out already, but I did know she didn’t actually care. She wanted to know if I was suffering in the real world. Lord if she only knew.

“It’s going well. The Filoli family has been very kind to me,” I lied.

“Oh, I’m sure they have.” Her tone dripped with insinuation.

“What is it you want, Mother?” I seethed, stopping myself before I called her something I’d regret.

“I just thought you should know that little white car of yours has been repossessed,” she said sweetly, and I could practically hear that crooked smile on her face.

The temperature of the room rose. “What? What are you talking about? That’s my car!”

“Yes, well. Your name isn’t on the paperwork, now, is it?”

“Mother, you can’t take my car! I need it to get to work!”

“Well, you’ll need to quit your job now then, don’t you?” She preened like a cat.

My heart started racing, the room swimming, but I refused to give in. I couldn’t, not after what I signed today. “Fine. Keep the car. I don’t care; I won’t be quitting this job.”

“Suit yourself.” She yawned. “But things are only going to get worse from here on out, Rose.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” I gritted between my teeth, feeling at that moment much more like a naughty child than an independent woman.

“Afraid?” She laughed. “You’ve always been so dramatic. I’m not the monster here, Rose. You’re the one misbehaving.”

My knuckles burned in phantom pain. “I’m done with this conversation. Goodnight, Mother.”

I hung up and tossed my phone down on the vanity before pulling my legs up onto the chair. I pressed my eyes to my knees until I saw stars.

How did she do it? How could she keep treating me like that and not lose any sleep at night?

If God was real, then I prayed that I would never be like her. I prayed that I’d never be able to hurt someone like she hurt me.

“It’s better me than someone else,” I reminded myself. “At least I know I can take it.”

But for how much longer… I couldn’t be too sure.

Half past three I emerged from the backrooms, seeing the car I ordered to come pick me up was here. It had taken an hour to get a ride as most of the city’s partiers were heading home for the night.

Striding through the main room of the club, movement came from my peripheral. A scream sat prepared in my throat when I realized Mr. Filoli was behind the bar helping himself.

“Did I startle you?” He asked gruffly, paying me no mind.

“Yes.” I rasped, stooping to pick up the bag I’d dropped. “I didn’t think anyone was still here.”

“No one is. I told them I’d clean up tonight.” He lifted a glass of whiskey to his mouth and finally looked at me. “Want a drink?”

I looked down at the ride app on my phone, “I was on my way out.”

“Sit, Ms. LeClair.” He grabbed another glass off the shelf and popped open a bottle. “Red wine, right?”

With despair of what this would do to my rating, I cancelled the ride and did as I was told. “Right.”

He came around the bar and joined me at the table, sliding my drink across the wood.

There was a strange calm at the end of the night, the club quiet and dimly lit by the muffled glow of candlelight reflected off melted pools of wax. Mr. Filoli sat back in the chair across from me, his black suit jacket tossed on the tabletop, and the sleeves of his wrinkled white shirt rolled past his elbows. It was the most carefree I had ever seen him, with his finger rustled hair and a sweating tumbler of chilled whiskey cradled between his fingers. It felt wrong to see him that way, the man to whom I’d been avoiding at all costs, as if I had been watching him shower or brush his teeth. Lord knew we weren’t close enough to be sitting together after closing while sharing a drink, but there we were anyways. It had been one heck of a day.

As I tiredly sipped wine from the wrong type of glass, Mr. Filoli tilted back on the hind legs of his chair and took a sip of his own. “You know, Ms. LeClair… I get the sense you don’t care for me very much.”

I choked on my wine, eyes bouncing up to meet his amber ones over the candlelight. “What makes you say that, Mr. Filoli?” I asked nervously, wiping the dribbled red from the corner of my mouth.

“I notice things, Ms. LeClair. It’s my job to read people and when I read you, I get back a scathing review.” His words might sound humorous to a lesser man, but one look at Mr. Filoli’s ever stoic face would show the opposite. Even now in the after hours of the day, he was analyzing everything, I was the unlucky recipient.

“Scathing?” I pursed my lips, “I don’t think I’ve ever said a scathing word in my life.”

He shook his head slowly and sat down his tumbler. “Unspoken words are often louder than the spoken, Ms. LeClair… You always leave a room soon after I appear, you can barely look me in the eye when we speak, and when I do manage to corner you—you get this scowling little expression on your face. Look at you—you’re even doing it now.”

I fixed the downturn of my lips, “This is just my listening face.”

He huffed out a laugh like it came to him unwanted, “Either you hate me or you’re in love with me. I wouldn’t blame you for the former, many people do. So, which one is it, Ms. LeClair?”

I would have choked again if I hadn’t downed the rest of my wine. “You must think very highly of yourself for those to be the only options, Mr. Filoli. Did you perhaps think that maybe I don’t think of you at all… That I could possibly be utterly indifferent to your existence as you are to mine?”

He stopped to think then, placing his elbows onto the intimate table and leaning into them. “You think I’m indifferent to you?”

I scoff, “yes. Of course. You’re indifferent to everybody.”

“Here I thought I was the harbinger of joy.” He joked dryly, though he leaned closer to me across the table.

A smile wavered my top lip, “that was almost funny, Mr. Filoli.”

“Despite what Enzo says—I have my moments.” He stands then, swiping both of our glasses and walking over to the vacant bar. “Care for another round?”

“I thought you didn’t drink.” I commented, watching him closely as he poured me another glass of wine.

“I don’t never drink. I only drink on special occasions.” He explains, dropping a perfect round sphere of ice into his tumbler. “Weddings and funerals.”

“Which one is it today?” I ask, trying to hide my curiosity with the tone of sarcasm.

“Funeral,” He pops the decanter top.

It wasn’t what I was expecting him to say, then again, I didn’t know Dante Filoli well enough to anticipate his words. I took in his disheveled appearance once more, reconsidering why he’d commanded I sit and have a drink with him as I was making my way out for the night. Perhaps Mr. Filoli had a terrible day himself and needed someone to sit with him a while… Fair enough, but why did that person have to be me?

I opened my mouth unsure of what to say. There were so many tape lines I wasn’t allowed to cross, that much had been made clear when I was employed by him. “Am I allowed to ask who died?”

“No.” he said simply, coming back around the bar to our table at the center of the room. “But you are allowed to go home after this drink.”

“How gracious of you,” I muttered into my fresh glass. We sat in silence a while longer, the room growing ever darker as tea lights snuffed themselves out like dying stars. I watched Mr. Filoli from the corner of my eye; there was a sadness to him that I didn’t care to admit noticing. I could feel his loneliness like a physical thing, alive and beating like my own heart… Tangible like my hand and reaching like my fingers.

His loneliness ached, that pain caused an echo chamber inside my chest, meeting its companion loneliness there. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get up straight away after finishing my second drink. Maybe that’s why I asked him what I did.

“What if it was the latter?”

He looked jarred out of whatever was claiming his mind, “what? Latter of what?”

“Your question from before. What if I was secretly in love with you, spent my days pining. What would you do?”

He stared me down, trying to gauge whether I was joking or not. “I’d tell you not to play games you’re not prepared for.”

“What kind of game? Monopoly? Is your love that slow and boring?” I teased brazenly, warm from the wine. Sober Rose would be dying of embarrassment in the morning.

“The kind of game where people don’t end up alive.” He plucked the empty glass from my hands, dismissing me for the night.

I dared to hold his gaze, transfixed by the molten hue and slightly shaken by his words. “Well… good thing neither of us feel that way about each other.”

“Good thing.”

I took my queue to leave, standing from the table and slinging my bag over my shoulder. “Goodnight, Mr. Filoli. See you around.”

“Goodnight, Ms. LeClair.”