Page 18 of Sinful Bargains

The thought of either one was enough to drive me insane.

“What’s on your mind, kid?”

I shrugged, fidgeting with my baseball glove. “Just some stuff. It’s nothing.” There we go, the lie. I guess I had trained myself well. Don’t acknowledge. If you pretend long enough, you might start to believe the lies you tell yourself.

“Stuff, huh?” he asked. “Stuff’s a big category.”

I hesitated, staring at my glove. After a moment, I let out a sigh and glanced at him. “Do you go to church? Do you believe in God?”

He took a moment to answer. “I believe in karma. What goes around comes around. If there is a God, sometimes he doesn’t deliver fast enough. Why?”

“So you believe if someone bad hurts you, they deserve whatever comes their way?” I asked him.

His eyes searched mine for answers. “How badly did they hurt someone?”

I sighed, shaking my head as if the act could knock the memories of the violence and blood out of my mind. “Badly.”

“Then I believe whatever happens is justified.”

“Even murder?” My eyes met his again.

His face nearly went white. “What are you not telling me? What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you.” I sighed, letting my head fall. My body rocked side to side in some strange effort to ease my mind. I felt his arm draped over my shoulders, and he pulled me into his side. There was something about the warmth he offered. Was this how a father was with their son?

“Look, kid. You’ve got a good thing going here. You’ve got your mom, you’ve got me—and hey, you’re not bad at baseball, either.”

I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. It didn’t want to escape, but Joey just had this way about him. “You really think I’m good?”

“Better than good.” He grinned. “We need to work on your swing, but with some practice, you’ll be the nextJoe DiMaggio.”

I smiled widely. “Yeah, okay. As long as I get to marry someone likeMarilyn Monroe.”

He threw his head back, howling in laughter, and I couldn’t help but mirror him when he did it. “You and every guy with a pair of eyes,” he teased. “But hey, if you can hit a ball like DiMaggio, maybe you’ll have a shot. Just don’t forget who taught you.”

ADRIANA

Angela and I sat at the small dinner table in my cramped kitchen. Lucy was running late, as usual. Lucy always said she preferred to be “fashionably late,” which somehow excused the fact that Angela and I had been waiting for her for half an hour now. Angela leaned across the table, wearing a mischievous grin. “Have you ever been to a speakeasy before?” she asked.

“No, do they still exist?”

“Well, of course! And it’s Friday night, so you should come with me tomyspeakeasy,” Angela declared.

“Yourspeakeasy? What are you talking about?”

“I own one, it’s calledThe Wise Guy. Have you ever gone into the supply closet at Davidson’s during one of your shifts?”

“Yeah, plenty of times. Why?”

“That’s where it’s at. It’s hidden, and you’d need a password to get in if you find the door. But lucky for you, I own the place. We can bring Michael, Enzo, and Antonio over to hang out at my place. Val can babysit while we’re out, and it’ll be fun,” Angela said. “Plus, I think you could use a night out.”

“I’m not sure if I should be impressed or concerned,” I said,eyeing her. She mentioned she’d owned a bar, but I had no idea she ran a speakeasy hidden in the same place I worked. But with Angela—bar, speakeasy—they were the same difference.

“Anyway, you, me, and Lucy are going tonight. You’re coming, no arguments,” she said with finality.

“I don’t know, Angela,” I said, anxiety gnawing at my chest. That familiar tightness began to consume my chest.

I had been struggling with nightmares, vivid horrors pulling me from sleep at all hours of the night. Each one felt like an omen, a reminder of the danger we were in, of how close we were to being discovered. The thought of someone finding us paralyzed me with fear every day. I had become an award-winning actress, working my shift at Davidson’s, being a mother to Antonio, and harboring a sinful secret that only Antonio and I knew. But it was at night that the act slipped away. I was left with myself and the things I had done. Whether they were out of protection for my son or not, I had still done them. I had pulled the trigger, causing a man's death. An act that was still a crime, even if he were a bad man.

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