“Oh, Marco, don’t stop.”

His blue eyes are fixed on mine as he grinds into me, penetrating me deeper with each thrust. He’s smiling at me. Oh, how I love that smile. I close my eyes and imagine the first time I saw it. Sitting in a booth in the corner of the shop. My father’s arm around his shoulders, congratulating him.

“I’ve missed you, Marco.”

I slide my hand behind his neck and pull his mouth against mine. It feels just like our first kiss, only better. We’re older now. Wiser. I work for the department and Marco, he….

What does Marco do for a living?

“I love you, Marco. Tell me you love me.”

He smiles as he kisses the corner of my mouth, but he doesn’t say anything. I rake my fingers over his back and he doesn’t make a sound. Not a hiss of air through his teeth or a soft moan. Nothing.

“Marco, please.”

His cock is so thick, stretching me as he lifts my leg and pierces me slowly. I wrap my other leg around his hip, beckoning him further inside. Gasping, I throw my head back and he kisses the hollow of my throat. Ecstasy. This is pure, ethereal ecstasy. Dream-like. He slides his hand between us to caress my clit and my body quakes beneath him.

“I’m going to come, Marco. I’m coming! I’m coming!”

A soft chuckle wakes me and I find August next to me. The room is dark. I’m holding his hand prisoner between my thighs. A searing heat creeps up my cheeks as I realize I was dreaming about Marco again.

“Did you come?” August says, and I can hear the smug grin in his voice.

I push his hand back then turn around to face away from him. “Sorry.”

He slides his arm around my waist and presses his chest against my back. “Goodnight, Becky.”

“When was the last time you two went on a date?” Lita asks as we cross Vanderbilt.

A jerk in a silver hatchback blares his horn at us. Aren’t hatchback drivers supposed to be stereotypically nice?

Lita and I pause on the corner of 42nd and Vanderbilt, Grand Central Terminal. I make a move to hug her goodbye and she laughs.

“Nuh-uh. Answer my question, Becky. When was the last time you and August went on a date?”

Her light-brown hair is a bit frizzy and her top lip is sweating from the sticky night air. She still manages to look gorgeous, like she just stepped off a photo shoot at an exotic location. Like she’s been spritzed and primped to look exactly this way. Lita hates when people tell her she looks like a model. She actually thinks it’s an insult. She desperately wants to be taken seriously. She gets this from working on Wall Street where her model stature and smooth voice must command notice.

“We’re not dating. We’re in a relationship. Date nights are for married couples trying to revive their relationship. There’s nothing wrong with August and me. We’re solid.”

“Solid as the wall between you. When was the last time you went to his apartment?”

I want to launch into my usual spiel, but I’m actually afraid of how many times I’ve said the words aloud.

August and I have a comfortable relationship. We don’t need to cling to each other every second of every day to feel secure. August loves me. I know that because he remembers my birthday and my favorite ice cream flavor. He knows how many kids I want—two, he wants four. And the biggest plus of all: he’s not afraid to talk about marriage. He loves that I want a big wedding. And as soon as his blog is established enough that he can take more time off, we’re getting married.

This is the part where you begin wondering if I’m actually this naïve. I’m not. I’m far from naïve. I may be a midtown girl now, but I was born and raised in Bensonhurst.

Born and raised in Bensonhurst. Whenever someone hears this phrase, they automatically assume I must be related to a crime family. Some people are brazen enough to come right out and ask me—in a joking manner, as if that makes the question less inappropriate. I just chuckle and say something like, “Wouldn’t that be cool if I was?” That’s what people want to hear.

People don’t want to know the truth. They don’t want to know that I left my entire family behind at the age of eighteen, except for the occasional phone call to my mother. They don’t want to know that I chose a job in law enforcement with the hopes of sending my family a message. That message: I want nothing more to do with them. They especially don’t want to know the things I’ve seen. Because people who idolize the mafia actually think that being the daughter of a crime boss is glamorous.

They imagine me in my fur coat and diamond-encrusted fingernails. Maybe I’m dangling a designer handbag from my arm, stuffed with an adorable teacup Chihuahua. They imagine men who aren’t afraid to get their hands bloody, coming home and using those same hands to rip off my lacy panties and claim me. They imagine a sexy, sinful cocktail of glamor spiked with a large dose of unyielding power.

For the most part, they’re right. But they still haven’t seen what I’ve seen. And what I saw in my living room, at the tender age of thirteen, was my father strangling a man I had come to know as Uncle Frank. A crime for which he was never punished, despite the many times my father has been in and out of jail for pettier crimes. The truth is that I barely know my father. I hope that never changes.

I look into Lita’s wide gray eyes and I lie. “I was at August’s apartment last week.” I clap her arm awkwardly. She shakes her head, so I lean in to hug her goodbye. “Enjoy your trip to Poughkeepsie. I’m sure your mom will have plenty of potato salad and honey-glazed ham to fatten you up.”

“Don’t rub it in.”

She releases me and her fingers glance over my forearm as she walks away. As I watch her set off toward Grand Central Terminal, all I can think is that I am naïve. I am so naïve. I haven’t been to August’s apartment in four months.

I spin around to face the street and flag down the first cab. I’m going to August’s apartment. I’m going to demand to know what is wrong with us. I’m twenty-three years old with a gorgeous twenty-five-year-old boyfriend who never takes me to his apartment. I know what he’s going to say. He’s going to say it’s because I prefer midtown to the lower east side. Avoiding his apartment is just his way of trying to be agreeable. I’m not falling for that.

I throw my arm out angrily, determined to hail a cab and fly to August’s apartment on a wind of fury. But the first car that stops for me is not a taxi. It’s a shiny black SUV. And before I can step aside to try to hail a real cab, a man appears at my side, his fingers discreetly curling around my wrist.

“Your car is here.” His dark eyes are locked on mine, never blinking, not even as the SUV door is flung open. “Your father needs to speak to you.”

That’s all he has to say.

I climb into the SUV and I’m not surprised to find that there’s another man in there waiting to receive me. Both he and the guy who met me on the curb are wearing dark suits and sunglasses. I’m sure if I could get close enough, I’d find earpieces inside their ears.

When all three of us are settled into the backseat, the SUV pulls away from Grand Central Terminal and sets off down 42nd. The bigger guy on my left reaches behind his back and my heart stops. They wouldn’t kill me just like that, would they? I brace myself for whatever he’s about to do, my body tensed and ready to flail about. But when he pulls his hand out, he’s holding a large piece of black cloth. Upon further inspection, I notice it’s a black hood.

I can’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, but the fact that he’s offering it to me instead of putting it on me himself seems to be some show of respect. They’re not going to kill me. They don’t even want to hurt me. They’re too afraid of my father. Which means my father is not as angry with me for abandoning the family as I had imagined. Or… he wants something.

I huff as I snatch the black silk hood out of his hand. I quickly note my surroundings before I pull it over my head. We’re just approaching Fifth Avenue. Everything goes black and I try to keep track of the many turns the vehicle makes. But it doesn’t take long for me to realize they’re probably taking me on a winding route just to confuse me.

When the car finally stops and the engine dies, my stomach vaults. I haven’t seen my father in four years, since the last time I visited Mom at home and he was actually there—a rare occasion. I was nineteen and terribly homesick during Spring Break at Hunter College where I was studying, of all things, creative writing. My visit home was supposed to be soothing and relaxing and familiar. Instead, my father decided to get out of jail three weeks early and I left the house without him uttering a word to me, his eyes watching me as I walked out the door, his lips unable to break a smile or silence for his only child.

The worst part about leaving home is the conversations with my mother. She’s had to endure my father’s grief over the fact that she never gave him more than one child. She’s never admitted it, but I can imagine him calling her useless. My mother is far from useless. Without my mother, I’d probably be traipsing around town with diamond-encrusted fingernails and a designer dog. My mother taught me to want more.

But I must admit that, as they help me out of the SUV and my heart pounds so hard I can barely breathe, it’s not just fear of my father that has me this stressed. I’m also intrigued. For my father to have me essentially kidnapped and forced to meet with him, he must be desperate.

My summer sandals crunch on the gravelly pavement as someone grips my forearm and guides me forward. A door creaks open and I’m blasted with a cool gust of air. The smell of rubber and grease stings the inside of my nostrils as I’m pulled farther inside this new environment.

The whoosh of another door opening.

More walking.

Stop.

Is he here?

Silence.

“Brace yourself, kid.” This warning issued by the guy on my right feels more ominous than it should. It’s just my father in there, isn’t it?

The silk hood is slipped off my head and we’re standing in the middle of a wide garage with hydraulic lifts and tires and an assortment of equipment for repairing cars. But there are no cars in this garage. One person stands about ten feet away from me, facing me.

And it’s not my father.