Page 174 of Legacy
The bar is cold beneath my palms as I settle onto a stool. I don’t look back.
A moment later, the guy in the hoodie reappears behind the bar, hauling a clipboard and a stack of papers. His features are young; defined jaw, quick brown eyes that flick over me with mild curiosity.
“I’m Caleb West,” he offers with a half-smile. “Haven’t seen you before.”
“You work for Angelo?”
He shrugs. “Kind of.”
I nod.
Caleb hesitates. “Are youwithhim?”
I meet his gaze. No shame. No flinching.
“I’m his… wife.”
He blinks, clearly not expecting that. “Oh—uh. Sorry, I didn’t see a ring.”
He shuffles awkwardly, hands over the paperwork to the bartender, who I now notice is tucked quietly behind the bar like a ghost, and then nods a quick goodbye.
“Nice meeting you,” he mumbles before disappearing through the side door.
And that’s when she makes her move.
The redhead.
She glides into the seat beside me like silk cut with a knife. Her perfume hits first; suffocating and cheap. The kind of scent that’s too cheap to linger so she must bathe in it. Like she wants to be owned.Remembered.
She crosses one long leg over the other, the hem of her black mini skirt inching higher. Her lips are painted blood red. Her nails match.
She doesn’t speak. Not yet.
But I feel it—the way her attention drapes over me like a threat.
“Wife, huh?”
I turn on the stool to face her fully. “What about it?”
“Strange…” she tilts her head with a faux pout. “First Santo marries the child, and now Angelo buys a cow.”
This bitch.
I don’t think. I just react.
When I was nine, Luciano dunked me into the canal and held me under until I bit him.
Then he dragged me out and wrestled me on the grass until I had gravel in my knees and blood in my mouth. It was my first real fight. The first time I blacked out from rage and woke up with my fists swinging and my vision red.
You get used to the smell of blood.
That metallic tang.
You stop feeling the pain in your knuckles.
You stop caring.
I’ve fought grown men most of my life.
