12

Cara
I bury my face in my hands in the alley behind the diner as Ophelia cackles with pure and unbridled delight. “I knew Eros Khazan was into you but I had no clue he was that into you,” she says, and I want to melt into the street and disappear.
“It’s not like that,” I tell her even though it sounds totally hollow, because it’s kind of hard to deny what she saw.
“Oh, it’s not? So you just let random guys go down on you in the break room of my dad’s diner all the time?”
“No!” I say and pull my knees to my chest. “Just Eros. Apparently. And only that one time.”
“Right, well, it sounds like he’s into you.” She sits down next to me, grinning her head off. “Seriously, Cara, he’s been coming into the diner every day since you started and all he does is stare at you. How can you sit there and act like there’s nothing happening between the two of you?”
“Because there’s not,” I say which is almost true. Things with Eros are complicated. He saved my life back at that stupid car rental place, got me an apartment and gave me an advance on my future paychecks, and even made sure I had enough food to keep me comfortable until I started earning my own money. He didn’t need to do any of that-but he did anyway.
He took care of me. And in exchange, I’ve done nothing but ignore him.
Seriously. We’ve barely spoken in the last two weeks.
It’s not that I don’t want to, but more that I’m afraid what’ll happen if I let myself get more involved with him.
Which apparently doesn’t apply to letting him go down on me.
Ophelia’s right though, he shows up every day and he watches me.
I try to pretend like I don’t notice and watch him right back.
I daydream about the night we spent together, and while it was amazing and definitely lives in my head rent free, I accepted that we were never going down that road again.
I’m just his pet project, the pathetic, loser girl he picked up off the street.
I don’t know where I’d be without Eros, and that’s kind of the problem.
There’s too much between us. Too much money, too much obligation. I want to feel his mouth on mine again, but I also don’t want to feel like I owe him anything.
Not after living under the thumb of a controlling, abusive bastard for so long already.
It’s a tricky line to walk and I thought we had it all figured out by just-not.
Not sleeping together. Not even speaking to each other.
And then Eros decides to show up in the break room out of absolutely nowhere, gets down on his knees, and makes me come like I’ve never come before-at least since that first night.
What the hell does he want from me? And what the heck do I need from him?
“All right, look, I’m not going to pretend like I understand whatever crazy weird thing you have going down with Eros freaking Khazan, okay?” Ophelia’s smile is genuine and warm, and it reminds me why I like her. She embraced me from day one and has been so helpful getting me up to speed at the diner and basically helping me learn how to be independent for the first time in my life. “But the thing is, my father basically worships that family, you know? He has this old-school idea about loyalty and all that crap.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Why would he be loyal to Eros anyway? Everyone acts like he’s some kind of king, but I don’t get it. Nobody’s explained to me what he does for a living.”
Ophelia laughs quietly, but her smile fades. “You’re not joking, are you?”
“Not even a little bit. Is he in consulting or something? Was he a local politician?”
“Sort of a combination of the two.” Ophelia chews her lip for a moment. “You’ve seen The Godfather, right?”
I shrug. “Sure. Marlon Brando. Offer you can’t refuse.”
“Exactly. Eros runs a family like that.”
“Like… what?” My eyebrows slowly raise. “The Corleone family?” Ophelia just stares at me as I slowly put the pieces together.
The money. The cars. The big, dangerous-looking men that always seem to hang around him. The way people bow and scrape and act all deferential whenever he’s in the room.
I have to be the dumbest girl alive.
I should’ve seen it right away, and I am utterly mortified that I missed it-probably because I figured the chances of running into another man in a crime family are way too miniscule.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I whisper sharply. “He’s in the freaking mafia?”
“Greek version of it. They don’t call it a mafia, that’s an Italian thing. They’re just the Khazan family, and Eros sits at the head of it. Wow, I seriously can’t believe you don’t know this.”
I shove myself to my feet, heart racing. I pace back and forth, mind doing a million miles an hour as I look back on all our interactions, and suddenly it’s so obvious.
“This can’t be real,” I say softly, more to myself than anyone else, but it all makes sense.
Eros’s that kind of guy. Sharp, intense, demanding, dangerous. I’ve met men like him before, I was married to a man like that, and I should’ve seen it.
But I was blinded by the glamour and the excitement and the heady newness of starting my life over.
And by my overwhelming desperation.
No wonder he thinks he can protect me.
The guy’s got dozens of hired thugs that do his bidding.
“I let a freaking Greek mobster go down on me,” I hiss at Ophelia and she cracks up, head thrown back.
“Yeah, you did,” she says, grinning massively. “I really thought you knew and just-I don’t know, didn’t care? But Eros’s a big deal, hon. The biggest of the big deals, at least in this city.”
I groan and pull at my hair. I ruined a business deal with the dockworkers’ union. I threw money at him. I slept with him, and put my life in his hands, and holy shit, I should be so freaking dead right now.
How can I be this stupid?
“I should go into hiding or something,” I say and sit back down next to Ophelia, feeling jittery and scared.
“Why? He likes you. Yeah, I know, he’s a big terrifying mob boss, but still.”
“Sorry, are you encouraging my freaky weird relationship with Eros right now?”
Ophelia shrugs. “Ever since he started coming here, Dad says business has never been better. All the Greek guys want to do whatever the boss does, you know? Follow him around and gain his favor? Which means we’re busier than ever.”
I give her a flat stare. “Wow, that’s brutal. You want me to get involved with Eros because it helps your dad’s business.”
“Hey, what can I say? I’m a practical girl.”
I lean my head back against the brick wall and sigh. “You and your family have been so good to me. I don’t want to make any trouble for you guys, you know, if things go bad with me and him.”
Ophelia clucks her tongue. “If Eros Khazan’s petty enough to punish us for whatever goes down between you two, then fuck him, we didn’t need him anyway.”
“I don’t know how you can be so flippant about all this.”
“I grew up around these guys. I guess it’s just not a huge deal. Although, please, I am literally begging you, lock the door next time.”
I put my face in my hands. I’m about to start laughing, or maybe start crying, because I am the most brain dead girl in the entire world, when my phone buzzes in the big pocket of my uniform. I take it out and it’s my landlady, Hermia, calling.
“Gotta take this,” I say, and Ophelia waves me on. I stand and walk a few feet away. “Hello? Hermia?”
“Honey, Cara, you’re safe.” She sounds breathless and afraid, and my feet go cold like I’m standing in ice.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is everyone okay?”
“Sweetie, there was a man. I didn’t know what he was doing until-” She clears her throat. “You need to come back here. Your apartment is a mess, and I’m afraid he’s looking for you.”
My fingers go numb and the phone slips from my grip and clatters to the ground.
It’s him.
He found me.