Page 2 of Tempted By the Devil

Nobody except Nonna’s going to give a fuck if some no-name kid gets killed byla cosa nostra. I won’t even care if that’s how I go.

I’m quick sliding behind the wheel of the car that smells like leather and feels like new.

It probably is—Vito Bellucci’s so loaded he could afford a whole fleet of these.

But I don’t have time to ponder if he does. Every second counts when you’re stealing a car on a public street. Not just any car either.

A car that belongs to the devil himself.

The engine whirs once, twice, rumbling to life on the third try.

A broad grin comes to my face. “Easy. I’ll show you, motherfucker. Take our money? Take what we’ve got? I’ll take what you’ve got. The devil’s finally met his match.”

I grip the steering wheel and reach over to shift the manual gears.

Then I realize I’m not so alone anymore.

Someone clicks their tongue from the cobblestone sidewalk. The devil himself has appeared, flanked by two henchmen who look ready to bash my skull in.

“Cosa pensi di fare, ragazzo?” Vito Bellucci asks calmly.

I’m left speechless by his sudden appearance. Something that almost never happens to me.

Don Bellucci nods his head at his men and they step forward to wrench open the door and drag me out of the Fiat. They take an arm each, gripping me tight, and force me to look up at the man who I just tried stealing from.

The most powerful man in Sicily.

The most powerful man in all of Italy.

I might as well be an animal at the zoo by how he stares me up and down. He surveys every detail about me in tense silence, the top lip curling on his ugly face.

“How about we make this boy’s wish come true?” he says. “Come,soldatos. Let’s take him for a ride.”

1

PORTIA

18 YEARS LATER…

Just for fun.

Three little words that describe the next week of my life.

A week that will be full of nothing but what Jayla and I love to call the three S’s: sun, shopping, and splurging… on ourselves.

Jayla nudges me as the plane slips into motion on the runway, quickly gathering speed. “We’re doing it, sissy. We’re finally on our way!”

I can’t keep the smile off my face. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this excited. “Just remember… we find our Airbnb first. Then drinks!”

“Sissy, quit playing. You know we can do both. It’s called multitasking.”

We bust up in laughter as the plane barrels toward the end of the runway. Perched in the window seat, I peek out the window at the exact second the plane leaves the ground. We soar up toward the sky, leaving the airport and the rest of Newport City behind.

It’s crazy to think out of the thousands of people who entered the contest,wewere the ones who won. It started out as a joke on Jayla’s part, but when we heard Queenie Tate, the host of one of our favorite daytime celeb gossip shows, was giving away a week-long vacation to Sicily, we knew we had to enter.

Jayla was coming off a rough year for her career and I was recently divorced.

We both needed the getaway. We both were craving some escapism in our lives.

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