Page 11 of The Mafia's Bride
Even though I’ve always felt like the outcast, have always felt neglected, did questionable things just for attention and to feel alive, I don’t want to lose the one thing I have left.
“I accept,” I say, scratching my name into the stack of papers. It feels surreal, an out of body experience as the ink glides across the page, melting into the white with a finality that hangs in the air.
A rush of anger comes over me, the fresh wave of heat causing me to throw the pen into the wall beside my sister’s head. It indents, the tip piercing the plaster with a dart’s precision.
She nods once. “Good choice.”
4
SLOANE
Iwallowed for four days.
That’s all I gave to the numbness, allowed it to submerge me into the cold apathy and drown in my despair. It’s all I allowed before I took action.
Then, I plotted.
Maeve thinks if she marries me off, I’ll be my new husband’s problem. No longer her issue. Her liability.
I just need to feel something other than abandonment from my sister. Something that makes me feel loved, pushes away that sorrow and bleakness at what my life is going to be when I’m married to a killer.
Will I survive? Will he kill me too?
Not like it matters now, my fate is sealed.
Regardless, I knew what I had to do.
“Sloane! This way, Sloane! Let’s see that smile!” a reporter yells, drawing my attention his way. Lips pouting, I push away the melancholy, and give the report the best doe eye gaze I have. One that looks innocent, but everyone knows is the furthest from who I am.
Danica shifts on my arm, her bright pink dress like a second skin to her rail-thin body. The scrap of material barely covers her breasts,her dyed blonde hair hanging in soft curls along her boney shoulders. She smiles with me, letting the camera flash into our eyes until we see black dots swimming in our vision.
This is what I needed. The attention, the spotlight, the need to be seen by someone—anyone in a world that avoids me, neglects me.
Danica juts a hip, wide mouth grinning as we turn toward the long line of club-goers. She’s enjoying this, like she always does. Half the reason I invite her is because of the way she laps up the attention and eggs on my bad decisions. Most of them with her.
We enter the club, the bouncer nodding at us as we pass without stopping. My name has pull in this city, even if I don’t want it to. O’Briens get into places and are given the best wherever they go.
The press will follow us or if the club’s halfway decent, they’ll stop them before entering, and the people around us will sell pictures to their papers for top dollar. It’s happened before.
Our steps are loud with every clink of heels on the metal stairs, the thumping music bubbling up from the darkened staircase, and I mentally pray my Versace safety pin heels don’t get stuck and snap.
That’d be just my luck.
We make it to the bottom, the loud music beating against my chest, rattling my teeth. It overtakes my senses, fills my lungs and veins with the kind of energy I need. The kind of energy that hides the numbness, makes me feel at ease and feral with need. Need to move, to explode, to do something that burns away this out-of-control sensation caused by my decree.
Grabbing my hand, Danica pulls me into the dance room, weaving along the sweating bodies. It’s tight, warm, and suffocating. The kind of pressure I can enjoy, submerge myself in, and hopefully never come up for air.
“We need drinks,” Danica yells though it’s a whisper in my ear. The thumping of the bass is a constant buzz and it drums steadily inside my skull. Nodding, I move us to the large silky, black bar, the sides packed with people all waving the three bartenders down. Lights above make the entire floor red, the haze causing my feet to stumble, depth perception completely gone.
When I signal to the bartender for a bottle of champagne, Danica pulls me back as her hot, demanding lips take over mine in a long kiss.
I give into her, letting the sweet taste of bubblegum and Chanel coax a moan out of my mouth. Her hand snakes into my thick red curls, yanking to move my head into the right angle to deepen the kiss, and I grab her slender hips, red nails digging into her sensitive flesh.
I want what she’s offering, if to lose myself into someone and ignore my reality, but first I want to dance. I need the beat, to expend this energy and move my hips within the beating heart of the dance floor.
Pulling away, my finger swipes my red lipstick from her sprayed tanned chin. “Dancing first.”
She huffs, kohl rimmed blue eyes crinkling with too much makeup, reaching over my shoulder for the cold champagne. “Fine, darling.”
