And so, that’s how it began. My time with Maria. The tension that I felt on our first meeting leaked over into the first day I spent with her, even though I knew I was doing a good job and delivered her back safely to her father at the end of the day. She thanked me politely when it was all over, but I could see that she was still pissed over my attitude earlier in the day.

 

As I went home that evening, I had to remind myself to keep a hold of this job no matter what. The Raw Riders group…yeah, they’d been good for me, but I didn’t want to be with them forever. Fuck, if things had turned out differently, I wasn’t sure I’d have joined up with them at all—they just weren’t my kind of people, and that became more and more clear as I became more established in this craft.

 

I heated myself up some microwave meal and grabbed a beer once I got in, throwing myself down on the couch with a small groan. It had been a while since I’d been on my feet like that for almost the entire day, and I was out of practice—my soles ached, my thighs burned, and I had been dreaming of getting home almost as soon as we finished lunch.

 

We didn’t talk much—in fact, Maria spent most of her time on her phone. I spent most of the day bored out of my skull, trying to find something to entertain myself with—she would act as though I wasn’t there most of the time, and I couldn’t exactly pull out a book or phone to keep myself busy as it would distract my attention from her. So I had to spend a whole lot more time than I would have liked focused in on this girl, and I felt like I had a pretty good read on her by now.

 

If there’s one thing I could tell for certain, it was that she didn’t take shit from people like me. That’s probably how she had been raised—after all, someone related to Lucca was unlikely to have had to want for anything like the normal people out here in the real world. I wondered what age she was when she realized what her father did, when she figured out that she could use the influence he had for her own purposes. What would she be doing if she didn’t have Daddy to rely on? Maybe actually making something of herself instead of spending her time traipsing around town with a bodyguard to make sure she didn’t get snatched or shot.

 

I showered and fell into bed gratefully that evening, but sleep didn’t come too easy for me. In fact, I found myself wide awake, staring at the ceiling as I tried to figure Maria out. What did I actually know about this woman? Well, I knew that she relied on her father’s fortune and influence to get what she wanted, but that she seemed to be a prime negotiator in her own right—my mind flashed back to our first meeting, when she had laid down the law, and later in the restaurant when she cussed me out for having such an attitude. Yeah, that frame of mind probably came from what a spoiled brat she’d likely grown up being, but she was in control at all times, even when it seemed like she wasn’t. That was a formidable task to pull off, especially when your father was Lucca D’Orazio and more than likely controlled every second of every minute of your day.

 

I wondered how long it had been since she left that house. She seemed pretty keen to get me on side and working for her—maybe her father refused to let her leave the place without someone by her side, even just to go out with her friends or see other members of her family. She did seem particularly…I don’t know, bouncy, when we were out. Maybe that was because she hadn’t made it out of that enormous mansion in so long. Even with the sprawling gardens and dozens of rooms, a place like that could get claustrophobic pretty quickly. I should know.

 

Just like that, I found myself back before I joined up with the Stiches—sixteen, living at home, trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing with my life. How trapped I felt then—how it felt as if there was no way out, and never would be. That was why I was constantly ending up in scraps and fights and petty this and that—I was hoping someone would turn up to show me something different, whether it was the cops or the bad guys who prowled around our neighborhood at night. Anything would have been better than what I was going through. Anything.

 

I supposed that, in very different ways, we had grown up around the same kind of community, just at complete opposite ends of the spectrum. She’d been around everything I had growing up, hell, maybe even closer than me. She’d been born into this world whereas I had theoretically walked myself into it, even if it often felt like I didn’t have a choice.

 

I wondered if she’d have chosen a different route if she could have, or if she’d have stuck with the life she was given. I know that, given a way for me to live my life differently and never get involved with this stuff in the first place, I would take it. If I was being honest with myself—an endeavor I found pretty worthless—I would still take that way out now, if only I could find it.

 

Sleep took far too long to come to me that night as I went over everything in my head, my brain spinning around and around the story of how I had ended up in my situation and whether or not I would ever find a way out—whether they would let me. When I eventually drifted off into unconsciousness, my dreams were filled with images of her. Which was even more galling—not only did I have to spend my days with her, but my brain seemed determined to fill my nights with her too. But then, my brain had always been somewhat of an asshole.

 

I dragged myself out of bed as early as I could manage the next morning, and fixed myself a coffee—the last thing I needed was to be dealing with this entitled little princess on a non-caffeinated brain. I managed to choke down some cereal before I left the house, and threw on jeans and a t-shirt—most people seemed convinced that bodyguards strutted around the place in full suits and ties all the time, but nothing would have been more conspicuous and I preferred a look that slid easily under the radar. I made it to my car with plenty of time to spare, and drove slowly to the mansion as if I could put off seeing her again.

 

The morning was warmer this time around, and I could hear a few birds singing as I drew up outside her house. It was just coming up on eight in the morning, giving me a little bit of time to sit in the car, stare out at the garden, and psych myself up for another day in her company.

 

Why was she getting to me so much? I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about her that rubbed me up the wrong way. After all, as I’d reasoned in the early hours of last night, we probably weren’t all that different. But she was so…lucky. And she didn’t even seem to know it. If she’d wanted, if she’d really wanted, her father could have built her any life that she wanted—and she’d chosen to be a perfectly-maintained Barbie doll instead of doing anything worthwhile with her time. Yes, it was petty of me to think that about her, but I was allowed to. After everything I’d seen and done, coming across a woman who was so thoroughly ingrained in privilege was hard to see and not hate even a little bit.

 

I let out a loud sigh and got out of the car, inhaling a big lungful of the morning air as I made my way towards the house. Before I could even lift my finger to place it on the buzzer, I heard the distant front door slam shut with a booming crash. My head snapped up, and a jolt of fear lanced through my body. Old habits die hard, I guess.

 

Maria was coming down the drive towards me, and I leaned up against the gate and watched as she made her way down. Another day, another dollar. That was all I had to keep reminding myself.