Page 4 of The Devil's Touch
Chapter Two
Silvana
“I told you everything was going to be fine.”I murmured, stroking her hair.
Her face looked pale, her lips slightly chapped, and her eyes shut.It tugged at my heart that she didn’t look like her normal, vibrant self.But what mattered more was that she was finally going to be okay.
“You are all I have left.”I exhaled, pushing back the tears that built up at the back of my eyes.
The past few weeks since I found out that Adele, my little sister, needed heart bypass surgery, had been hell.I spent most of the time spiraling because I didn’t know where I was supposed to come up with thirty thousand dollars.Worse, I had to show up at work because I wasn’t allowed to miss five consecutive days.Marco didn’t care if your house was on fire.You had no reason to leave his business unattended or you’d spend a long time paying for it.
It had been nearly a week since the surgery, and she was recuperating, but she had not woken up yet.Nearly a week since I stole from Domenico Romano and never looked back.Nearly a week since I stopped showing up at the club.
At first, I had believed that I wouldn’t even get past the club security before he’d find out, but I made it to the jewelry store with ease and pawned it off so easily, I had no cause for alarm and the storekeeper didn’t give me any weird looks.
I waited for someone to show up out of the blue—to stalk me or probably pull a gun on me in an alley like in the books—for stealing from the Domenico Romano but nothing like that happened.It was like the world—he—had moved on from my trying to outsmart him.
It was a good thing, right?It meant that I had gotten away with something that should have ended up with me getting my head on a spike.I got away with the impossible—stealing from a ruthless, vindictive bastard.But then, it wasn’t like stealing was something I did regularly.I was desperate and couldn’t let my sister die.Logically, he should be able to let it go because he had way more money than that.
For the first two days, I was a paranoid mess.I wore hoodies to cover my face.I barely went anywhere, and even when I came to the hospital, I spent most of my time looking over my shoulder incessantly.I had the strongest feeling that someone was out to get me and I barely slept.
But now, I was slowly learning to let go, even though I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that my cozy little life was likely to shatter some time soon.
If he wanted to kill me, I’d have been dead the first night I stole from him.
That was how I often consoled myself.
Adele and I only had each other ever since our parents died when I was eighteen.Although they loved us, they never had much to begin with.I couldn’t get into college because I had to work multiple jobs to keep food on our table and clothes on our back.I had to be a parent and look after my little sister.At twenty-two, I soon realized that I needed something more—stripping was the only better income I could get.Besides, when men often tried to fuck you whenever you needed a job, you tend to grow exhausted.
I had been stripping for three years now, and while it might cover the bills and sponsor Adele’s academic life, it barely covered other things.I promised myself that I was going to make sure that Adele didn’t end up like myself.
Even if it meant stealing and hiding from a Don.
I leaned in, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, unable to fight back a smile.My sister was okay now, and everything else could slowly fall back in place.
I couldn’t stay home alone tonight.Not like I was scared or something, but I just felt more comfortable sleeping at the hospital.I knew I still had to head back home to pick up some things that I’d be needing.
I spared her one last glance and headed out of her ward.
****
Something felt offthe minute I got to the front porch.
It wasn’t like a gut feeling of someone watching me from the shadows or that there was a strange car in the neighborhood following me.This was just a pure, twisted feeling that was nagging like a pit in my gut.I wanted to shrink back and leave, but my resolve to prove to myself that I wasn’t crazy won.
My hands trembled as I reached for my keys in my bag.I sucked in a deep breath, pushing it into the keyhole and unlocking the door.Everything was just as dark as I had left it since I left home a few days ago.That was what made this more sinister.
My blood became ice cold, freezing me from the inside out.The hair on my nape flared like some reaction to an allergy.My breathing slowed as my eyes wandered the dark, looking for something that seemed off.
