Page 18 of I Would Die For You

“You are free to leave, though I hope you might wish to stay in my employ, as Demos’ hostess?”

He proceeds to give me a salary amount that makes my eyes widen. At this rate, for just five to six hours of work six times a week at this club, I’d be making in one month what would take me at least six with great tips as a diner waitress in the US. Put like that, it’s hard to say no. Yet, I don’t want to stay in Italy any longer than I have to, which is really any minute I spend here from this moment forward, but someone in my position can’t afford to turn her back on such good money either.

“I won’t stay forever,” I tell him quietly.

He smiles. “Stay for now. Get a taste for life here, on your terms. That’s all I’m asking.”

What would it hurt to try this for a few months? I can stay until the end of the year, which will have earned me a sizeable buffer I can use to secure a good apartment back home in Portland and keep me afloat until I find a nice job. No idea what I’d want to do when that time comes, but now’s not the time to be thinking of all this.

“Thank you, Don Giacomo.”

Does such a thing as a fairy godfather exist? I can’t help the smile making it onto my face at the thought.

“What’s so funny?” the Don asks me.

I shake my head. “Just thinking how good you’ve been to me.”

His face grows sad all of a sudden. “Stefano can be good to you, too.”

I wonder what brought on the dark thoughts clouding over his features.

“I…” With no answer forthcoming, I shrug. “I should go stow this away safely.”

He nods. “Yes. Go.”

I acknowledge the permission and get up, making my way to the door. Once out, I go back down to the lounge floor then toward the door at the side near the bar which opens onto the service corridors and the stairs leading to the rooms upstairs.

Inside my studio, it’s all I can do but slam my back to the door panel once it’s closed and silently squeal my joy while jumping in place so happy I am to be free. Such sweet release. This is something I didn’t think I’d ever taste when I found myself being passed across large, rough men’s hands when my employer took me to a shady part of Turin and thrust me at the goons who would take me into servitude to the Albanian. Daku is the only name I have for him, and a shiver courses through me when I remember coming up face to face with him. Short, swarthy, with a glint of pure evil in his eyes which had gleamed when he’d palmed my sex over my clothes and told his men something in Albanian which made them laugh and turned my blood to ice.

I came to find out girls aren’t put out to work for him before they’ve been marked as his property. DAKU is branded with a hot iron across their nether lips, a D carved for good measure with a blade on their mons. I was on my period, which proved my saving grace—the branding wouldn’t take with all that blood flowing out. The other girls in the brothel I was dumped into didn’t have such luck.

Then that same night, bangs resounded, bullets whizzed, doors were battened down. We thought it was the police, which wasn’t such a joyful prospect since most of the girls would face the idea of deportation, and many feared their families who would kill them in the name of honor. Plus with their mutilation, life outside of prostitution now looked dire for them.

And then we found the men were Don Rossi’s, and the Don wasn’t a sadistic bastard intent on enslaving women to earn him a quick buck. Thank God for that. He really has been a fairy godfather of sorts for me. I even met Stefano thanks to him.

Stefano. Would our paths have crossed had I not been sent to him that fateful night? Everyone knew and respected the fact I was Don Rossi’s girl, even Stefano. I’d seen him gazing at me in the club a few times. By now, I’m used to men watching me everywhere I go; it’s something a tall, slender blonde with a half-decent face has to contend with everywhere on this planet. But would he have made the first move, stepping deliberately on his Don and godfather’s turf? No, he would never.

My hand closes around the passport. To think this is the key to my future. I’m going back to the States in a few months. I’m free.

Stefano will stay here, because this is where his future lies. He’s the Don’s next enforcer, the one sworn in as his left hand who does all his dirty work. There’s no scope for him outside of this country, or even outside of Torino, for that matter, for this is Don Giacomo’s territory.

Either way, our paths would’ve diverged at some point. We’re having fun, but how long would this have lasted? A man like Stefano can have any woman he wants. I’m not one to put myself down, yet I do have to reckon I am sloppy seconds for him, coming from under the body of a man he sees as a father figure. If that isn’t fucked up, I wonder what would be. Sleeping with an actual biological father then his son, I suppose. Eww.

And these men are Mafia. I do see what happens at Demos, even though sex work in a club setting is illegal, as are brothels, but it doesn’t stop such Mafia-run business from happening under the very nose of the police. The one raid I witnessed on Albanian Daku’s place showed me bodies dropping down like flies when hit by bullets. It’s like watching it on TV, except the smell of blood doesn’t permeate your nose when you’re seeing it all across the screen. I burned my nostrils on purpose with menthol vapor sticks so the reek of coppery blood and burnt and already decomposing flesh wouldn’t assail me every time I inhaled for a week straight afterwards.

So no, that’s not a life I see anyone choosing willingly. You have to be thrust into such a world to feel like you belong, and oftentimes, the people in such rings have no way out. I do, and by God, I’m going to take it. My life awaits me in Portland. I just have to hold on here for a few more months and then I can start afresh once back home.

I can almost taste it as I clutch the passport to my chest. A new life. I’ll look for an apartment Downtown. It shouldn’t be hard to find a place that’s not too expensive near Chinatown. There are also tons of clubs in that area. I may find a job as a hostess at one of them. Maybe Don Giacomo could even have contacts in the entertainment network there and knows someone who can give me a job, with no sexual strings attached, of course. I’m never doing that again. After knowing what it's like to be with a man who wants me and cherishes me as much as he desires me—

My mind halts upon this thought. Stefano…what is he feeling in this whole thing? What is this for him? I hope it’s just a fling. He has this bubbly, almost naively innocent energy about him when he’s with me, it’s almost like seeing a teenager rather than a grown man.

I know what I was like as a teen. A crush could develop at the drop of a hat.

Is this what’s happening here? Does Stefano have a crush on me? Can he, even?

The question stays with me like a soft veil of uncertainty as I safely stow the passport away in a drawer under a pile of underwear. I don’t have any money yet beyond a small stipend that gets used up every week, but I’m thinking this is also where I’ll stash my income now when I next get paid.

It’s a bit of a dizzy feeling going back down to the club and entering the lounge as Demos’ full-fledged hostess now and not just someone paying off her debt in indenture here anymore. There’s a feeling of spaciousness, of liberation, of having been trusted to do a job because I’m worth it, not just because there’s a slot to fill.

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