Somehow, in the span of a little more than thirty minutes, Violet’s night had turned to shit in the worst way. This was supposed to be her night, the one where she could be free, forget about the carefully controlled life she lived, but not anymore.
Not when she was about to climb into a car with the one person she knew she really shouldn’t be around. But what other choice did she have? It was only a matter of time before her father found out where she had been, especially with Nicole on her way to the hospital.
The man who’d walked right in and taken charge was leading the way out the back and around the side of the building toward a monstrosity of a car that was parked there. While she might not have known much about cars, she could tell that this one was expensive just off the brand alone.
She might not have liked him, but his car was another story.
The lights flashed as he unlocked the door, and though she had expected him to climb into the driver’s seat, he surprised her as he came to her side first and opened the door, gesturing for her to climb in with a tilt of his head. It was unexpected because she hadn’t thought of him as a gentleman, not in the slightest.
When she was safely inside, and he’d closed the door, rounding the front of his side, she took in the sleek interior. All black leather, chrome detailing, and while it was only a two-seater, there was plenty of space to stretch her legs out.
There was a moment as he climbed in—inserting the key and starting it up, the blue lights of the dash cutting through the darkness—that she became all too aware just who she was seated beside.
And that she didn’t really know him at all.
“It’s a good hour and a half, maybe a little more, of a drive back to Manhattan,” he said, his tone gruff. “Settle in.”
Violet tossed him a look from the side, admiring his profile. “You seem to know a lot about me, but I don’t know a thing about you.”
He flashed a smile—white teeth and sinful in a blink.
“Shouldn’t that be something you learn before you get into a car with a man?” he asked.
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“You had a choice.”
Violet’s brow furrowed. “I don’t think so.”
Not the way it played out, anyway.
“You did,” he assured, never taking his gaze off the windshield as he pulled the vehicle out onto the road. “That choice, Violet, came for you when you came this deep into Brooklyn and made your way to Coney.”
Well, then …
Violet looked away when he cut her with a hard look. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“Yes, you were.”
“No, I—”
“How old are you now, about twenty-one, yes?”
Violet blinked.
He knew her name.
Her age.
That she lived in Manhattan without even asking.
He knew.
She ignored the drip of panic slicing through her middle. Despite the darkness that colored up his aura, he didn’t scream entirely bad to her.
And Violet knew bad.
“Turned twenty-one today,” she admitted.
His hands tightened around the steering wheel, drawing her attention to his tattoos again. It was only when he spoke that she finally tore her gaze away from the spider and its intricate web.
“I am sure there are far more places in Manhattan or Brooklyn for you to enjoy your birthday, other than my brother’s club,” he said. “No doubt, your father has made it perfectly clear where you are and are not allowed to go in New York, Violet.”
She liked the sound of his voice, and the way his r’s rolled a little harder than his brother’s had back at the club.
But she really liked the way he said her name. It came out a little differently than how most people said it. Instead of just the “i” following the “v” in her name, he said with a hard “o” following the “v”.
She shouldn’t have liked it at all, but she did.
Violet chewed on her inner cheek. “It’s not fair that you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“You know it,” he said, smiling in that way of his again. “But I’ll remind you.”
He held out a hand, palm up, while keeping his other hand firmly on the wheel. Violet glanced between his hand and his face, unsure of what he wanted her to do.
“Shake politely like you’ve been taught,” he urged.
She glowered at him. “No, thanks. Only civilized people shake hands.”
He cocked a brow. “And what does that make me, a savage?”
Violet couldn’t have missed the heat in his tone even if she tried. Deciding she had pushed her luck enough for one night, she slid her smaller hand into his waiting palm, and ignored the way the heat of his rougher skin seemed to siphon straight into her smoother flesh.
His fingers circled around her hand before she thought better of touching the man, and squeezed just hard enough to make her look up at him.
“A savage man—one not like me—wouldn’t have bothered to get you inside a car, krasivaya,” he said, his timber dropping to a lower note. “He would have done what he wanted when he had you alone in an office.”
Violet tried to tug her hand out of his grasp, but he held tight.
“Kazimir Markovic,” he said, squeezing her fingers once more. “But I prefer Kaz. It’s very nice to meet you again, Violet Gallucci.”
Finally, he released her hand. Violet sat back in the seat fast, confused.
“Again?” she asked.
Kazimir—Kaz, he’d said—resumed driving like nothing had happened. “We met once, a long time ago.”
Violet didn’t remember that at all.
“When?”
“A long time ago,” Kaz repeated quietly. “You were helping me to find the sun that day, if I remember correctly.”
He was talking in gibberish.
Violet was sure of it.
Then, she had a more pressing realization. It settled hard in her gut, thick and heavy. She knew the surname Kaz mentioned only because of who she was, and who she was supposed to stay away from. Occasionally, that name was whispered between men at her father’s dinner table, but never discussed for very long.
“Markovic?” she asked. “Like the … Brighton Beach Markovic family?”
She thought better of saying Russian mafia, but just barely.
Kaz didn’t take his gaze off the road as he chuckled. “Ah, she finally understands.”
“Answer my damn question.”
“We prefer to call it Little Odessa,” he said. “But yes, one and the same.”
Oh, God.
Violet went from being pretty sure she had fucked up, to knowing she was in such deep shit there would be no digging her way out of it.
“Drop me off at the next intersection,” she said quietly.
Kaz laughed. “What?”
“I can’t be in this car. So you need to let me out so I can call a cab and go home.”
“No,” he said simply.
Violet’s mouth popped open. “No?”
“That’s what I said, Violet. No. You made your way down to Coney, knowing that you shouldn’t be there, and now I’m going to make sure you make your way back to Manhattan and you stay there.”
Her father was going to kill her.
Violet’s frustration boiled over in a slew of words. “How do you even know where I live? Do you realize how creepy that is?”
Were the Russians watching her or something?
Her family?
Did her father know?
For a brief moment, Kaz’s indifferent, handsome mask cracked and he frowned. “I am not so different from you, Violet, despite the culture shock.”
“Can you stop talking me in circles for five fucking seconds?”
“You’re awfully combative for a woman who grew up in the house of an Italian mafia boss,” he said.
Violet glared. “My father didn’t raise a doormat.”
“But I suspect he did raise a lady.”
Ouch.
Point taken.
Violet tampered her rudeness for a second. “What did you mean when you said that you’re not so different from me?”
Kaz tipped his head in her direction, and a small smile played at the corner of his lips. “I know where I should and should not be going, Violet. I grew up being told where it was safe to play, so to speak. I don’t suspect your raising was much different, which is why finding you on Coney Island was such a shock.”
“I know what they say about Coney,” she mumbled. “It’s nobody’s land.”
“Maybe so, but the fact remains, it’s too close to Odessa.”
Violet didn’t bother to argue. She knew he was right.
“But that still doesn’t explain why you know where I live,” she pointed out.
“Quick girl,” he murmured.
Violet ignored the way that sounded like he was praising her. “So explain.”
“If there are places I am not allowed to go being who I am, then there are reasons for those rules.”
Reasons being people.
She understood his unspoken words.
“It took me a second to recognize you,” Kaz added, “but you can’t exactly hide who you are to someone who makes it his business to know all that he can about a certain family that doesn’t like us all that much.”
“What, like safety?” she asked.
“If you want to look at it like that. Let’s put it this way, Violet. There are places that I can go, but I know I’m toeing a line. Then there are places I can go and while it’s probably safe, I still shouldn’t be there. And then there are other places, like Manhattan, where it’s a goddamn death sentence.”
Oh.
The territory lines had never quite been explained to her in that way before.
Maybe if they had, she wouldn’t have went down to Coney Island.
“I still think you should drop me off and let me grab a cab,” she said. “To be safe and all that.”
Kaz smirked, shaking his head. “No.”
Violet just stared at him. “Even after what you just said?”
“Even after that,” he confirmed.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not that bad of a guy, even for a Russian,” he said with a grin, “and I was taught that every lady deserves to be treated like one. Even if she isn’t being a very nice lady.”
Violet decided after that statement to sit still, be quiet, and hope the rest of the hour-and–a-half-long drive went by as smoothly as possible. It was probably unlikely that her father wouldn’t somehow find out where she had been, but maybe—just maybe—she could keep Kaz and the fact that he drove her home a secret.
Maybe.
When they finally did get into Manhattan, Violet didn’t have to say a thing about where she lived. Kaz navigated the streets like he had done it a hundred times before.
If she had to guess, she would say he had spent time where he wasn’t supposed to.
Just like her.
Park Avenue was a great deal quieter in the middle of the night than it was during the day. There was still traffic, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it usually was. Besides the occasional passerby, the street was practically empty.
Violet didn’t say a thing when the car rolled to a stop in front of the apartment building that belonged to her father. The fifteen-level complex held several condos of varying size and expense. It was older, the exterior lending credence to a time when gold detailing and warm shades were all the rage. Hers was one of the biggest and most costly, and at the very top. Her parents had used it on and off for years, but once she starting taking classes at Columbia, they handed the keys over to her to make travel easier.
“Thank you,” Violet said.
Kaz smiled. “Don’t say a thing about it.”
“Quite literally, huh?”
His laughter came out dark and rich.
Violet chose that moment to get out of the car before her errant, half-drunk thoughts might notice something else about the man she found attractive.
Wasn’t his appearance, attitude, and charm enough?
“Until the next time,” Kaz murmured from inside the vehicle.
Violet’s hand tightened around the passenger door. “There won’t be a next time.”
She heard the smirk in his tone when he replied, “There wasn’t supposed to be a next time after the first time we met, and look how well that turned out for us both.”
Violet blinked awake at the hard hammering coming from her left side. At first, she thought it was the throbbing in her head that was making all the noise, but she quickly figured out it wasn’t.
Right about the time her brother cursed from outside her bedroom door.
“Cazzo Cristo. Violet, I swear to Dio. Get your ass out of that bed before I come in there and force you out of it.”
Violet pushed up from her pillow using one hand, but everything swam in her vision and the massive beating her head seemed to be taking increased enough to make her sick. She dropped right back down to the bed with a groan, burying her face into the pillow.
“Go away, Carmine,” Violet grumbled.
“Oh, good. You’re up.”
Her brother’s snarky, arrogant self was not what Violet wanted to deal with first thing in the fucking morning. Wait—was it even morning? She couldn’t tell what with the way the light coming in from the window seemed to burn the eyeballs right out of her skull.
Hangovers were the devil.
“Violet, stop making me stand out here like a fool,” Carmine barked.
Violet glared at the bedroom door, willing her brother away. She turned over in the bed, hoping her silence and lack of response would make him think she had gone back to sleep.
It didn’t work.
He started banging again.
Louder.
“Oh, my God,” Violet mumbled. “Stop, Carmine.”
“I will if you get up.”
But getting up meant being sick and dizzy.
The bed was better.
“No deal,” she said loud enough for her brother to hear. “And no one said you could just come into my condo whenever the hell you wanted, asshole. That’s not why Daddy gave you a key.”
Carmine scoffed. “That is exactly why he gave me a key, princess. Get up, or I will open this door up myself. You have exactly three minutes, Violet. Don’t test me. I will break it down.”
Violet briefly considered ignoring her brother. Carmine was a lot more mouth than he was action, and he wasn’t allowed to be a dick without some kind of good reason. She wondered why he was even there at her place as she crawled out of bed with enough slowness to rival a snail.
Her mouth was dry, but she quickly found the glass of water and two Tylenol tablets she had left sitting on her bedside table the night before. Popping the pills back, she chugged half of the room-temperature water before setting it back down.
Maybe it was the placebo effect of having taken something, but her headache lessened almost instantly. Glancing down at herself, Violet realized she had managed to put something appropriate on before falling into bed.
Her brother started pounding on the door again.
“Are you up?” he asked loudly.
Violet’s irritation shot up another few notches. Enough to make her stomp over to the bedroom door, unlock it, and swing it open regardless of her very hungover, less-than-perfect appearance.
“Listen, you stupid ass. You don’t get to come into my place this early in the damn morning demanding that I—”
Carmine cocked a brow, shutting Violet’s rant up instantly. The fact that there wasn’t even a hint of amusement on his features only made Violet’s stomach roll a little more.
And it wasn’t from the alcohol she drank the night before.
Her brother was pissed. She could see it in the way his familiar brown eyes darkened as he looked her over.
“You look like shit,” Carmine said.
Violet balled her hands into fists. “I went out last night for my birthday.”
Her makeup was probably a mess, and she was scared to touch her hair for fear she might feel a rat’s nest going on up there.
“How much did you drink?” he asked.
“A bit, Carmine. Why, is that a problem? Because you drink yourself nearly to death every damned weekend.”
Carmine’s gaze narrowed. “Maybe I do, but I sure as fuck don’t go down to Coney Island when I do it.”
Fuck.
The events from the night before flooded Violet’s memories. Her friends, their stupid choice to go to the hottest new club in a place where they shouldn’t be, and the events that followed.
Kaz.
More than anything else, she thought about Kaz.
Violet realized her silence was not what her brother was looking for, so she tried a different approach. “How mad is Daddy at me?”
Carmine sneered. “He’s spitting bullets.”
Shit.
“I just wanted to have a little fun,” she tried to say. “I didn’t go into Brighton Beach, I promise.”
“No, but you did leave your friends with a bunch of Russians to take them home, and then skipped out with another Russian yourself,” Carmine said.
How did her brother know all of that?
“And both Nicole’s and Amelia’s fathers are ready to …” Carmine trailed off, scowling. “Never mind, let’s go. Dad wants you in Amityville before nine.”
Violet’s throat felt like someone was squeezing it. “Just let me take a shower and get dressed.”
“No, you can come like that.”
She glanced down at her sleep pants and too-large sweater ensemble. Not to mention, she knew her face and hair was a mess.
“Carmine, I am not going out on Park Avenue looking like—”
“You spent the whole night partying?” her brother interrupted.
So this was how he wanted to play that game, huh?
“Daddy will have a fit if I show up to the mansion looking like this,” Violet warned.
Her father was a stickler for appearances. From very young in her teenaged years, Violet had been taught what foundation was for and just how to use a makeup brush. Clothing had to be the latest styles, and she needed to look the part of her father’s daughter each and every time she stepped out of her condo.
No matter what.
“Actually,” Carmine drawled, still sneering, “he thought this might be a good lesson for you.”
“What?”
“A good lesson. Shaming him with your behavior also means you’re shaming yourself, after all. Get your coat, sis.”
The Gallucci mansion had never felt quite as foreboding to Violet as it did when her brother parked his Mercedes in the driveway. She recognized the other vehicles in the circular driveway as belonging to her parents, and another white Lexus that belonged to Nicole’s father, Christian, who was also her father’s consigliere and his personal doctor.
Her nerves picked up a notch when her brother turned off the car and stepped out without a word, slamming the driver’s door behind him. He likely knew that Violet would follow behind when she was ready to face the music. After all, with a protective iron gate behind them closing, there was no where she could go unless her father let her back out.
Violet pulled down the visor and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Embarrassment bubbled through her as she took in her messy, disheveled appearance. Her makeup was smeared, she needed a fucking toothbrush, and her hair looked like it had been put through more than one round of …
She shook her head, wanting to get away from all that.
As quickly as she could, with nothing but her fingertips to work with, she tried to soothe the waves of her hair enough to be presentable and wipe the bits of smeared makeup away from under her eyes and around her mouth. It didn’t help all that much.
Fuck Carmine for not letting her make her face and hair more presentable.
Maybe she finally understood her father’s goal when he demanded she feel the shame she had caused him by her reckless actions. It still pissed her off.
Getting out of the car, Violet hugged her bomber jacket a little tighter to keep out the chill of the wind. She kept her head down as she walked across the large driveway and up the intricate marble entryway of her parents’ four-level, two-wing mansion.
The front door was already open.
Inviting, almost.
Violet just wanted to turn around and bolt.
The cold air forced her inside where she knew was warm. Violet was greeted by a long, empty hallway that led into spiral staircase wrapping around the entrance of the mansion. The stairs separated off into one of two wings. She thought for sure that her father would be waiting to meet her, but not even her mother was there.
And her brother had already disappeared.
Violet took her time to remove her shoes and coat, before putting them away in the large closet with the rest of the outerwear. She walked slowly through the ground level of the mansion, finding the large kitchen and dining room empty, as well as the entertainment room and living room.
If her father wasn’t waiting for her in one of those rooms, then she knew exactly where he was.
His office.
That didn’t bode well for her at all.
Violet decided not to put seeing her father off for any longer than was necessary. It was only drawing out the inevitable bitch-fest he was sure to level on her. Better to get it done and over with so she could get back to her condo and sleep this awful day off.
It was only when Violet was up onto the third floor of the second wing and standing outside of the large oak doors that led into her father’s office did she realize how much trouble she was really in.
His office was closed.
Which meant closed to her.
Alberto, in all of her twenty-one years, had never once closed his office doors to her when he called upon Violet for something. A thick lump lodged in her throat as she stared at the doors, knowing what her father wanted her to do.
Knock.
Wait.
Enter only at his will and direction.
Not like she was his daughter, who could come in any time and was always welcome, but instead, like one of his men who had to be deemed worthy enough to be seen.
It was like a punch to her gut.
Violet had always been her father’s little girl, even when she was an unruly child. Alberto often proclaimed her to be his favorite between his two children, even if he did so in a joking manner. He spoiled her with anything and everything she asked for.
He had never shunned her.
Not like this.
Violet took a deep breath, hoping it would calm her nerves. She again smoothed out her hair and swiped her thumbs under her eyes. Stepping forward, she raised her hand and knocked on the oak doors hard enough that she knew it would be heard within.
Silence answered her knock.
She didn’t knock again. Instead, she waited like she knew her father expected her to do. Her back straightened a little more as minutes ticked by, and tears started to well in the corners of her eyes when yet another couple minutes passed in total silence.
Alberto’s message was clear: she was not worthy of his time or attention, not yet.
Her father’s lesson was being learned, if the shame compounding in her heart was any indication.
By the time the doors finally opened to expose her mother, Andrea, standing behind them, Violet had been left waiting for fifteen long minutes.
Yeah, she had counted.
“Ma,” she greeted quietly.
Andrea raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow as she took in her daughter’s appearance. Wearing one of her signature blue dresses that she personally designed, her mother was the picture of beauty and grace. If only Andrea’s inner self reflected what she portrayed on the outside. Violet refused to let her mother’s silent disapproval add to the shame she was already feeling.
“Violet,” Andrea said smoothly. “Your father is waiting inside.”
Not saying anything else, Andrea moved gracefully out of the office, leaving the doors opened behind her. She didn’t even glance over her shoulder back at Violet as she glided down the hallway toward her own private office.
Violet hesitated at the entrance of her father’s office, unsure and wary in her heart.
Alberto quickly remedied that when he boomed, “Do not keep me waiting a second longer, Violet.”
She took the three steps needed to enter the office, trying to hold her head high at the same time. Inside, she found her father sitting behind the large, cherry oak desk that dominated the room. He sat in his high-back, black leather office chair. Behind him, a painting of her grandfather rested proudly. In the painting, Alberto Sr. drank from a glass of cognac, barely an emotion on his face, as he stared the person painting him down.
He looked exactly like her father did at that very moment while Alberto stared her down.
Alberto’s spacious office was decorated in warm, earthy tones with bookshelves lining one entire wall from floor to ceiling. A sitting area with a leather loveseat and matching chairs sat in front of a floor to ceiling window that nearly covered another wall and overlooked the entire front of the property.
As a child, her father’s office had always been a safe place for Violet. She would hide under his desk as he made phone calls or shuffled through papers. She remembered being about six and finding him counting stacks of money; he gave her one so she could count, too.
The office did not feel like that safe place today.
Sitting on the loveseat were her brother and her father’s consigliere, Christian. While her brother was looking over his phone in his hand, Christian was scowling into his glass of whiskey.
“How do you feel?” her father asked.
Violet found her father’s brown stare to be cold and hard as he looked her up and down, taking in the mess she clearly was. Swallowing hard, she felt the wetness prickle at her eyes again, and she dropped her father’s stare.
“Awful,” she admitted.
“Fifteen minutes was long enough, I suspect,” Alberto noted. “You have another five to explain exactly what happened last night that led you, Nicole, and Amelia down to Coney Island where you are well aware you are not permitted to go.”
Violet didn’t even hesitate to start talking like her father wanted. Alberto’s tone brokered no room for argument, and when he was in that sort of mood, it was not time to start testing her father’s limits. As it was, she had pushed them enough.
“After we had dinner here for my birthday, we went back to my place,” Violet said.
“And?” her father pressed.
“Amelia—”
Alberto held up a hand, stopping her.
“What?” she dared to ask.
“Do not put blame on one of those girls, Violet. Do not tell me that they convinced you to do something you already knew was wrong. Years, ragazza. I have explicitly forbade you for years from entering the lower part of Brooklyn. And if, for one second, you say it was someone else’s fault that you went down there—knowing that you could have refused and chosen a venue I approved of—then we’re going to have a problem.”
Violet corrected herself immediately. This was not the man she was used to. Only a handful of times in her life had she come face to face with this man.
He wasn’t Alberto Gallucci, her father.
No, he was Alberto Gallucci, Cosa Nostra Don.
“We decided to go to the club in Coney,” Violet said quietly. “It’s a new place. Everyone is talking about it. We didn’t know it was owned by the Russians. I swear, Daddy—”
Again, Alberto held up a hand. This time, he stood slowly from his desk, keeping his sharp, cold brown eyes on her all the while. Violet flinched away from her father when he walked around his desk and came a little closer to her. Even when she was an unruly child, he never raised a hand to her.
She shouldn’t be afraid of him.
But right then? Yeah, she was.
“Violet,” Alberto said harshly, coming close enough to grab her chin and force her head up. “You will look at me right now while we’re speaking. Do you understand that?”
She nodded.
“Continue,” he ordered.
“We took a cab because we knew we were going to be drinking. And after we had been there a while, something happened with Amelia. Like, somebody spiked her drink and we were trying to get out to come home.”
Alberto pursed his lips, clearly unhappy. He released her chin, and Violet immediately put her head back down. “I already know what came after that, thanks to both Nicole and Amelia.”
“She’s okay?” Violet asked.
She hadn’t even gotten the chance to call her friend that morning, and all of her calls from the night before had gone completely unanswered.
“Do you care?” Alberto asked, seemingly calm. “Because when you allowed your friends to be toted off by strange men—”
“I wasn’t exactly given a choice,” she interrupted softly.
Alberto scowled. “Get out of my office right now.”
Violet’s head snapped up. “What?”
Her father wasn’t looking at her. He was waving at the two men sitting on the loveseat. “Out, I said! Adesso, stoltos!”
Carmine and Christian discarded their glasses on the black coffee table and left the office without needing to be told again. Once Violet was alone with her father, the sickness in her stomach only seemed to increase even more.
“I am so sorry, Daddy,” she said.
“You are a mess,” Alberto murmured.
Violet cringed. “I know.”
“I have never been so disappointed or more embarrassed by you than I am today, Violet.”
“I’m sorry. We didn’t know, Daddy.”
Alberto tipped her chin up again with a softer touch than the first time. “You didn’t need to know, dolcezza. You shouldn’t have been down there in the first place. As you already know.”
“You’re right.”
“Of course I am.” Alberto sighed, eyeing her smeared makeup. His thumb swept the corner of her mouth like he wanted to will the smudge of lipstick there away. “And now, because of your actions, I have to answer to men who are beneath me for their daughters’ injuries and other problems.”
Violet’s brow furrowed. “But Nicole and Amelia wanted to go. I didn’t force them.”
Alberto shrugged. “You seem to forget your place in my life, Violet. You’re my daughter, and when you are with other daughters of made men, their behavior is reflected from yours. Not the other way around. You will always be the one responsible because you, above anyone else, were raised far better.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“I don’t doubt that.” Alberto let go of her, taking a step back. “The Russian just dropped you off and nothing else, right?”
“Sì.”
“Such a shame,” he muttered low.
Violet blinked away more prickling tears caused by the disappointment she knew her father felt.
“It won’t happen again,” she said.
“I should hope not.” Alberto flicked a wrist at the oak doors. “Go to your old room and find something suitable to wear. Fix your face and your hair before you leave this house again. Apologize to your mother for your appearance and behavior.”
“Okay.”
Was he finally done?
While it might not seem like her father had done a lot to punish her, it was the emotional impact that hurt Violet the most.
“You’re forgiven,” Alberto murmured softly. “But I won’t forget this, topina.”
Violet sucked in a hard breath, not knowing what to say.
“You have never given me a reason to distrust you before,” her father continued sadly. “And this was not a good way to start testing my limits with you. I overlook your weekends at the clubs, and your sometimes boyfriends that I don’t approve of because I knew you are too smart to end up in a bad situation or one that might shame our family and my legacy.”
God.
“It won’t happen again,” Violet repeated, stronger the second time.
Her voice was still fucking weak.
“You’ve never given me a reason,” Alberto said, “until last night.”