“So how does it feel… knowing that the man you spread your legs for killed your cousin?”

 

Kelli Picerno had been listening to her father ask questions like that for the last 29 days. The exact amount of days that her beloved Argo had been killed. There was no reason to try to explain that her; she didn’t really have a title for him. It didn’t help that Carson had been the hit man that was sent to kill Argo and met her by trying to pump her for information. They’d ended up doing a whole lot of pumping, but of another kind.

 

“Just eat a little more, princess, and then he’ll let you go.” Her mother whispered to her looking like a ventriloquist. She never knew how her mother could talk without looking like she was talking while she was doing something else. Kelli knew that her mother had been married to the head of the local mafia for over 42 years, so she guessed she shouldn’t have been that surprised that the woman had a few tricks up her sleeve. She wondered if she’d be able to help her not want to kill the man in her sleep.

 

“Thanks, Mama,” she said to her mother not even knowing what she was thanking her for. Looking down at her plate, she decided to try eating a bit of food, but the hostility in the air and her anxiety had made eating impossible. She’d lost 23 pounds since the day her world had darkened, and although at any other time she’d have been throwing a ticker tape parade, now she just didn’t give a damn about anything.

 

“You have no answer for me, princess?” How her father made that pet name sound like profanity she didn’t know, but it turned her stomach. It wasn’t until recently that she’d even liked that title even though people had called her that her entire life. That was just another thing that Carson had made special for her.

 

“I’ve been here, in this house, for almost a month practically on house arrest.” Kelli had taken about as much as she planned to from this man. He could have sat at the end of the table with his plate of lasagna and glass of red wine, enjoying the meal and sitting with all 5 of his children peacefully, but that would be too much for Angelo Picerno. “I’ve listened to your mean words and your hateful glares because maybe in some way I felt I deserved them, but it ends today.”

 

“Oh, is that so?” Her father wiped his mouth on the fine linen napkin, and he piped up in his chair. It looked like he’d been waiting for a fight, and that was fine because she was about to bring it.

 

“Yes. You’ve locked me out of my home, closed my boutique, and kept me in this high priced pumpkin shell you call a home.” Kelli heard the gasps around the table where her four brothers and mother sat staring at the two of them like they knew that this conversation was about to get heated.

 

“A high priced pumpkin shell? That’s a good one. I allow a daughter of mine who snuck off to be with a killer the generosity of my house, and this is what I get?” Her father loved to get himself worked up over injustices that he’d made up in his mind, and the laughing he did as he was speaking sounded like mocking. “Not only snuck off with him but warned him about family business. Let him be free so he could then kill your cousin.”

 

Her father was standing up and yelling now, and the ‘Alright Pop’ that everyone was saying from around the table sounded like the murmuring of a crowd. The red face and the bulging veins at his temple made her fear his death if he didn’t settle down.

 

“It wasn’t like that, Papa.” Kelli tried to keep her voice at a respectable level. “You’ve never listened to what I’ve had to say. You’ve made up your mind about what I did and why I did it, and then you closed the case. I’m 27 years old and I’ve made some mistakes, but I didn’t have anything to do with killing Argo. No one loved him more than me.”

 

She was looking down at her lap, so she heard more than saw her father sit back down in his seat. When she took a chance to scan the table, she noticed that everyone was looking down into their plates like it took an advanced degree to clean their plate. Her Papa was looking at her like he didn’t know who she was. Kelli understood that. She had changed in the few weeks she’d known Carson.

 

“May I be excused,” Kelli asked her mother because if she asked her father and he said no, it was debatable if she would end up in jail or a mental facility.

 

“Yes, honey.” Her mother was a sweet woman who only wanted peace for her family. It was probably where Kelli had gotten her desire for clean living and nonviolent tendencies.

 

She went up to her room and closed the door longing for the two bedroom home she had before this whole fiasco started. It was bad enough she had nothing to do with her days, but her nights were long, lonely, and boring as well. This is the reason why she wanted to have her own shit. Her father wouldn’t have been able to lock her out of her own home and business if it was actually hers. She was such a hypocrite in saying she didn’t want to be a part of her father’s business, but she didn’t mind accepting the fruits of his criminal labor. His money paid for everything and was probably a money laundering facility.

 

Falling on her bed, her mind went to where it normally went when she had a few minutes to herself… Carson Hale. That black haired, green eyed devil had given her more experience in three weeks than anyone else in her whole life. The talks they had when they finally opened up to each other made her feel close to him. From his life in foster care feeling alone and abandoned to his life with this club that seemed to fill that void. He was working hard to find a way around the Argo situation, but if her father was telling the truth, Carson had shot Argo in cold blood as soon as he met with him at their warehouse.

 

It didn’t make any sense to her. Carson had told her that there was another man there that had followed him from a tracker his club put on his bike. Was that a lie? She knew that he made up tales about where he’d been and who he was when she met him, but she only recognized it because she, the eldest daughter of the local mob boss, was well versed in making up a new story for her existence. A lie, was a lie, was a lie… she knew that, but she felt like they were too close for him to do that to her, especially since he knew how much Argo meant to her.

 

She was so wired up. There was no way she was going to be able to calm herself down if she didn’t stop beating herself up about loving a man who’d killed her greatest protector and friend Argo. All her life she thought she had intuition on her side. She knew things about people… sometimes it was just a feeling, and other times it was just as clear as if the person yelled out their personality type. Carson was a lover she knew that for sure and whomever else he’d killed, it didn’t touch his desire to do good when he thought it was the right thing to do. But somehow she’d missed something or maybe he was such a psychopath that believed his own lies he’d fooled her.

 

The bracelet that Carson had taken to give to Argo as proof that she still lived hadn’t shown up anywhere, and she’d found surveillance that her father had done on Carson that said he was living it up fucking every available piece of ass in sight and spending money like he’d won the lottery. That one piece of jewelry was worth over a million dollars, so if he could find someone to give him even half of that he’d be able to live like a rock star… for a few minutes at least. When she looked down, she saw what she usually saw when she thought about her bracelet: her one hand cradling and rubbing the spot where her sparkler used to be.

 

The biggest complaint she had with herself was how aroused she got when she thought of the man. It wasn’t enough that he killed her cousin and stole her million dollar sparkler, but she still lay in the bed with her nipples hard and her pussy wet wanting nothing more than to be filled with the cock of a killer. That was humiliating. Had she no shame? He was good at what he did; this was true. He was a dirty talking, nipple biting, clit sucking, ass slapping, hair pulling, throat grabbing god, and her body missed him fiercely.

 

Was it true that she played with her pussy as she replayed the hottest sex she’d ever been unfortunate to have? Did she cry out his name when she came only to cry real tears of disgust and anger in herself only a few minutes later? Were there times she just wanted him back to hold and talk to in the dark knowing that she’d listen to his lies if only she could get a few moments of comfort? All of these things were true. She had thought she was a strong woman with her morals in check and her compass set on all the good things in life, but she was wrong. She was a fraud all the way around, and for that she could barely look at herself in the mirror. Only a loser would have the phone number of the man who was tormenting her mind. He’d given it to her when she was on her way out, and she’d looked at it every day as she battled the desired to curse his ass out or beg him to come and get her.

 

It was early in the evening, but she took out the rose flavored tequila that she’d confiscated from her Papa’s liquor cabinet. There were only 10 bottles left of the prize possession as the man had ruined the business and the owner when he couldn’t collect on the money the man owed him. There wasn’t a time when her father hadn’t drank a shot of the pink liquid and cursed his hot head. ‘I should have let him live and forever make this for me.’ That is was what he said with every sip, but her dad would forever regret this like she’d forever regret the biggest love of her life.

 

***

 

Was she dead? Kelli felt like she’d been thrown in the back of a trunk and driven around in circles. Opening her eyes to the overly bright room, she saw the reason she had been jarred.

 

“Jeezus.” Leo, her 20 year old brother, said in a voice that was way too loud. “What the fuck are you doing in here?”

 

Kelli tried to remember what she’d been doing before she blacked out, but her mind wouldn’t recollect what had happened. She sat up and discovered that wasn’t a good idea as the room spun like she was on a broken amusement ride that was going full speed uncontrollably.

 

“What do you want?” She attempted to get up and get some water from her bathroom when she saw her room. It looked like someone had ransacked it. All of her clothes were on the floor and her bedding was all over the place. There was a pillow near the floor lamp that was broken, and her favorite Chelsea lamp that was usually by her bed had been shattered. “Who did this?”

 

“Oh my god, Kelli. You did this. We all went outside and when we came in we could hear you up here moving around with a thump here and there, but no one wanted to disturb you. No one knew you were doing all this. You are the quiet, peaceful one. I was sent up here to check on you since you’ve been quiet for a good while.” Leo was one of her favorite people, so it didn’t surprise her that he was the one to check up on her.

 

She made it to the bathroom and bowed to the porcelain god until it seemed like her stomach was going to turn itself inside out. There was nothing left in there, and she felt a bit better. She took her time wiping her face with cold water and then patting her cheeks because she didn’t want to go out there and see her younger brother. Her siblings used to look up to her, and now she was a disappointment to them all.

 

“I don’t know what came over me,” she said as the room had slowed down a little, but all was still not right in the world. Kelli sat on the couch that hadn’t been touched by whatever she’d used to make this mess.

 

“Damn, girl. This is what came over you,” he said as he held up the rose tequila and turned the bottle in his hands as he inspected the contents inside. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

 

She looked at the 250 oz bottle and was amazed herself at how much was missing. “That wasn’t my plan, no.”

 

“It’s a wonder you didn’t die with all that in your stomach.” Leo looked like he was ashamed, and that made her want to cry even more. What in the world was happening to her?

 

“I won’t do this again. Sometimes it’s hard with how much my life has changed, but I don’t want to let you guys down again.”

 

If anything, he looked worse. She decided that looking somewhere other than at the brother who used to think so much of her would be a better idea than kicking herself when she was down and damn near out.

 

“Hold on,” Leo said as he walked out the door.

 

She wondered what he was going to get. He was the sneaky one of the bunch. If anyone wanted to know anything, he was the person to go to. She didn’t know how he did it… maybe he had a calming way about him that made people want to confide in him or maybe he just looked through people’s shit until he dug up the information. It was probably a bit of both, but he was everyone’s keeper of secrets, and that was definitely the way he liked it.

 

He came in the door and sat on the couch next to her. “I know you’ve been beating yourself up about the whole Argo thing.”

 

“Leo, I don’t want to talk about this with you.” It was enough that the room hadn’t really stopped spinning, and now she had to deal with the disappointment that was clearly in her brother’s eyes. She wanted to be left alone to deal with the betrayal of the man she was coming to have strong feelings for, but that was at war with the guilt she felt. Top that big bowl of confusion with the grief of losing her favorite cousin that was her protector, sound board, and friend, and she was ready to crack.

 

“You’ve got to talk about it with someone. Tonight at dinner was the first time I’ve seen you stand up for yourself since you got here a month ago. You’ve always been the gentle one, but you’ve never been a doormat. The problem is you feel guilty.” Her brother was not the shee shee woo woo person in any circumstance; he was more like the guy who told you how it was straight up with no chaser. Usually she loved that about him, but right now it felt like slivers of glass on a third degree burn, and she wasn’t as emotionally equipped to deal with that kind of pain.

 

“Leo, stop it,” she whispered because his words felt like physical punches and she didn’t know if she could take him beating her from the outside while she did the same thing to her insides.

 

“Okay, look. I know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows this other guy who is blackmailing Pop. I wouldn’t have even given it a second thought, but Pop’s been acting weird. Not his usual weird, but it’s deeper, and something wasn’t sitting right with me.” He pulled out a DVD and handed it to her. “I paid a lot of money to get this DVD, and what’s on there isn’t pretty. It’s damn near horrifying, but I want you to see it.”

 

She took the disc and turned it over in her hands. Could she handle anything horrifying? No. The thought of there being baby kittens that just couldn’t reach the milk bowl was too stressful for her to deal with. If she could just get herself to tell Leo that she didn’t want to see it. He was right; she had always been the one to stand up for what she thought was right, and she was the squeaky wheel that would crank up the noise until she was heard and the problem was solved. That person was on vacation she hoped because she liked that person and hoped she was going to see her again eventually.

 

“It’s going to change your life. It changed the way I see a lot of things. It’s disappointing, and when I look at you and what you’ve been through, it breaks my heart. Someone has been feeding you a line of horse shit, and I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you who it is. Look at me.” Leo was hardly ever this serious, so she looked at him just so she could see what he was talking about, and hopefully he’d just go away and leave her sit in her funk and cry.

 

“You haven’t done anything wrong. So pick that head up and bring me back my sister. It’s hard on all of us losing Argo, but losing you while you’re still here is more than I could take sitting down. I pulled a lot of strings to bring you back to the land of the living, so now you have to do your part.”

 

Leo stood up and kissed her on the forehead before he walked over to her phone.

 

“Hey, he texted you back,” he said scrolling through her phone.

 

“What are you doing looking at my texts?” She got up and walked over to him gingerly. You would think that he would be kind knowing how much she’d had to drink, but he wasn’t that concerned about that, apparently.

 

“I’ve fucking told you to put a lock on your fucking phone. You live in a house full of criminals for god’s sake.” Leo’s trademark grin was back. He loved to give people shit, and normally she loved to take it. He was such a character.

 

“Who texted back? I didn’t text anyone.” She got up to retrieve her phone from her brother’s hand as he scrolled and read through her text messages.

 

“Yes you did. You are rough with your drunk text. You really let him have it.” Leo was playing keep away with her phone, and that wasn’t really fair because she was practically handicapped with her drunkenness.

 

“Stop reading that.” She stretched and tried to get her phone, but he was easily keeping it away from her.

 

He threw her phone on the bed, and although the smile remained on his face, he looked a bit more somber when he looked at her. “Look at the DVD before you look at your texts. Okay?”

 

She gave him a semi shrug because she wanted him to leave not really because she was going to do what he said. How was it fair that he’d read the messages and she couldn’t? Damn was she so lame that her baby brother could tell her what to do? She’d do whatever the hell she wanted to do while she was locked up in maximum security.

 

“I mean it. You are the only person that I would actually trust to keep her word.” He looked so sincere, and she knew that she’d always been very good with her word before and wouldn’t break the trust her brother had in her. It was the least she could do. Damn it, she wanted to see who had texted her back, and she wanted to see what she’d said, but she gave her word and that had always meant a lot to her.

 

“I promise to look at the video before I read the text, but I have to tell you that I don’t have a lot of reserve. Is this going to hurt me?” The fear crept into her just thinking about what could be on the DVD waiting to devastate her even more than she already was.

 

“Yes… but it’s going to help you too.” Leo left, and she stared at the disc in her hands like it had the weight of the world on it. Knowing who had given it to her and what it was about, it probably did.