Chapter 3
The first week was the hardest.
I crashed on the couch of a girl I’d gone to high school with. Mia. She worked at a vet clinic, lived in a tiny studio apartment in Somerville, the kind of place where the heat only worked half the time and the fridge hummed so loud you had to yell over it.
She didn’t ask questions.
Just gave me a blanket, a toothbrush, and a stack of her old clothes.
I got a job washing dishes at the diner where the waitress had given me the sneakers. Long shifts, 10 hours a day, minimum wage, my hands raw and pruned by the end of the night. My feet still ached from the blisters I’d gotten walking that night. Every time I lifted a heavy stack of plates, the scar on my left hand where the ring had been pulled tight.
I didn’t tell anyone who I was.
Didn’t tell them my father was Arthur Voss. Didn’t tell them I’d almost been Dominic Rizzo’s wife. Just said I was going through a rough patch. Needed a fresh start.
The other dishwashers were kids half my age. Immigrants working two jobs to send money home. They laughed at me at first. Called me princess because I didn’t know how to scrub a pan without leaving streaks. Because I flinched every time someone dropped a plate.
Slowly, they stopped.
When I showed up every shift on time. When I stayed late to help clean. When I didn’t complain even when the manager yelled at me for things that weren’t my fault.
I ate my meals in the back of the diner.
Scrambled eggs and toast, coffee that tasted like dish soap. It was the first time I’d ever earned the food I put in my mouth. It tasted better than any five-course meal I’d ever had at the penthouse.
I thought about Lila every single day.
I’d see pregnant women on the subway, holding their bellies, laughing with their partners, and my throat would get tight. I’d see girls with long black braids, and I’d have to look away.
I kept replaying that night.
The feel of the shears in my hand. The sound of her scream. The way her hair felt when I grabbed it. Thick, soft, well cared for. She’d probably spent years growing it. Probably braided it every morning because it made her feel close to her mom.
And I’d cut it off in two seconds.
Because I was angry. Because I was hurt. Because I was too much of a coward to be angry at the people who’d actually hurt me.
My father. Dominic. The whole rotten system that had turned me into a weapon.
One Tuesday afternoon, I had an hour off between shifts.
I walked to the grocery store down the street to buy a soda.
And I saw her.
Lila.
She was standing in the produce section, holding a bag of apples, her hair now cut into a neat, short bob that fell just above her chin. It looked good. Soft. Framed her face. But I knew what it had looked like before. I knew the jagged ends she’d had to live with for weeks before she could get it fixed.
She was bigger now.
Almost seven months pregnant. Her sweater stretched tight over her belly, one hand resting on it unconsciously.
Dominic was next to her.
No tailored suit. No gold chain. Just a flannel shirt and jeans, a baseball cap pulled low over his face. He was holding a grocery list, pointing at different fruits, asking her which ones she wanted. He reached down, brushed a strand of hair off her face, kissed the top of her head.
She smiled.
A real, bright smile that lit up her whole face.
I ducked behind a display of cereal boxes.
My heart hammered so hard I thought it would beat out of my chest. I wanted to run. To get out of there before they saw me. But I couldn’t move. I just stood there, watching them.
They looked normal.
Happy.
Like they didn’t have the weight of the entire Rizzo empire on their shoulders. Like they were just two regular people picking out apples for their baby.
Dominic reached for a bag of oranges.
Winced.
I saw it then.
A bandage wrapped around his left knuckles, peeking out from under his sleeve. Fresh. Dark red seeping through the white gauze.
I knew exactly what had happened.
My father.
He’d sent men to threaten Dominic. To try to force him to go through with the engagement. To hurt Lila if he didn’t. Dominic had fought them off. Gotten hurt protecting her.
It was all my fault.
If I hadn’t cut her hair, if I hadn’t humiliated her in front of all those people, my father never would’ve known how much she meant to him. Never would’ve figured out she was the leverage he needed.
I watched them walk toward the checkout.
Dominic carried all the bags in one hand. Held Lila’s hand with the other. Slow, careful, matching his steps to hers.
They didn’t see me.
They walked out the door, got into an old pickup truck parked out front, and drove away.
I stayed behind the cereal boxes for a long time.
Tears burning my eyes. I didn’t let them fall. I didn’t deserve to cry. Not after what I’d done.
I walked back to the diner.
Picked up my sponge. Went back to scrubbing dishes.
But something had shifted.
The shame I’d been carrying wasn’t just sitting heavy in my chest anymore. It was pushing me. Making me think. Making me want to do something.
I couldn’t take back what I’d done.
I couldn’t glue her hair back on. I couldn’t erase the night I’d hurt her. I couldn’t fix the fact that my father was now hunting her and her baby.
But I could try to make it right.
I didn’t know how.
I didn’t have money, or power, or connections. All I had was a minimum wage job, a couch to sleep on, and the fact that I knew my father better than anyone.
Knew how he thought.
Knew who he talked to.
Knew what he was capable of when he was cornered.
That night, after my shift, I sat on Mia’s couch with a notebook and a pen.
I started writing down every name I could remember.
Every official my father had bribed. Every bookie he owed money to. Every made man who’d come to the house with envelopes full of cash. Every deal he’d made that was less than legal.
I wrote until my hand cramped.
Until the sun came up.
May you like
It wasn’t much.
But it was a start.
