Chapter 29 Miyori was dressed like Polly Pocket, in a bright pink, flowery sundress and apron, playing in her flowers when I pulled up.I took my time getting out, making a show of adjusting my new sunglasses before leaning against the doorframe. The metal was warm against my back. She got up, brushing her dirty hands on the apron she was wearing. "Whose car is that, Maya?" Her voice was tight, the way it gets when she's trying to be the adult in the room. "Mine," I said, "Like it?" "Whose car, Maya?" she repeated. I pushed the sunglasses onto my head. "Relax, sis. It's not stolen." I had stolen a car before, so I couldn't even blame her. I paused and let it hang just long enough to see her anxiety spike. "Raziel's father bought it for me." The shift in her face was almost comical. First, slack-jawed disbelief, then a hardening into pure, unadulterated anger. "You can't keep it." "The hell I can't. It's in my name," I said, lifting my chin. She shook her head. "Just last week you hated Raziel! You said he was an unfeeling motherfucker!" Her voice was rising, getting that shrill edge that meant a full-blown Miyori Meltdown was incoming. "Okay?" I shot back, my tone sharp enough to cut glass. "I like him now. And that has nothing to do with the car. His daddy felt generous. I felt like accepting. End of story." She just stared at me. Then, without another word, she yanked her phone out and stabbed a button. She held my defiant gaze as she put it on speaker. "Priest." Her voice was clipped. "Your friend. Raziel. Tell her. Tell her exactly who his family is again because she's hardheaded, and tell her why she can't keep that goddamn car his father gave her." Priest's gravelly voice filled the air. "He's old school. Like, Sicilian-mama-stirring-the-gravy-while-he's-in-the-back-cutting-fingers-off kind of old school. He doesn't raise his voice. Doesn't threaten. He decides. He'll kiss your cheek one day and have you zipped in a suitcase the next." He got quiet like he was contemplating his next words. "Keep the car, Maya. You don't turn down anything from men like Raffaele Mercier. Because when they give you something, they're not just being generous. They're marking you. Saying 'she's one of mine.' And that? That can save your life one day. Especially your life, since you're always fucking up..." Miyori was so mad her lips were twitching. I laughed in her face. "Exactly. His daddy's on my side. I'm not pissing him off." She hung up on him. "You're being a fool!" "Your husband, the mobster-the one who knows facts about this life-told me I'm not," I countered. I'd had enough of this lecture. I turned, pulled the door open, and slid back into my beautiful, paid-for ride. I rolled down the window. "See you around, Mi." "When his fiancée finds out, then what?" she yelled back. I didn't reply. I didn't care who said what. I was keeping my car. My phone rang. I checked it. It was Matteo. I had texted him a couple of times since the diner and the beach. He had been calling me often, but I was either with Raziel or just didn't feel like answering. In another life. Maybe. The high from my new car lasted the whole drive home. But it curdled the second I turned onto my street. A silver BMW was parked in front of my house. And against it was Alessia. Miyori had jinxed my ass. My blood went from warm to ice-cold in a second. I parked rough behind her car and got out. "Why are you at my house?" I said. I kept my voice low and dangerous. Alessia pushed off the door, a vicious, pretty little smile on her face. She walked over, stopping at the hood of my car. "New car? Raziel buy it?" She continued before I could get a word in or even say no. "Don't bother lying. I know he bought it for you. I know about the bike. I know everything. There are cameras in my father's house, you stupid bitch. You think you're so clever? Man-stealing like your sister. He might have called off the engagement, but it won't last. When he gets bored with you, he'll be back. You're his little project, his trashy distraction." "What you mean he called off the engagement?" Raziel had been at my house nearly every day for a month and two weeks, and he never mentioned it. When did this happen? "He did it because you told him to," she accused. Before I could even form a retort, she turned. And then the sound came before the realization. It was a violent, shocking screech of metal tearing through metal. She dragged her key down the entire length of the driver's side door. The sound caused a physical pain in my chest. "That's what I think of you!" she spat when she finished, her eyes wild with a triumph that made me see red. "You're a cheap, ugly Black mark!" I audibly gasped. Did this bitch just call my Black ass a Black mark? She may not have meant it like I was thinking, but still-this bitch had scratched my beautiful car. Something in me broke. Snapped clean in two. I closed the distance between us in two swift strides. I didn't think. I just swung. My open palm connected with her cheek with a crack that echoed off the brick buildings. The force of it whipped her head to the side, and a perfect, bright red handprint bloomed instantly on her porcelain skin. She stumbled back, clutching her face, her eyes wide with a beautiful mix of shock and real, genuine pain. "You stupid bitch," I seethed, my chest heaving. "You just keyed a car bought for me by Raffaele Mercier. Not your fiancé. Your future father-in-law." The shock in her eyes evaporated, replaced by a dawning, gut-wrenching horror. The color drained from her face, leaving her sheet-white. "You're lying." "Am I?" My smile was all teeth. I pulled out my phone and pointed it at the deep, silver scar gouged into what used to be flawless paint. "I'll be sure to send him pictures of your handiwork. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to see them." The fear on her face was complete. Utter. She looked from the ruined car to my phone, her bravado completely gone. With a choked, pathetic sound, she turned and fled, scrambling into her BMW and peeling away from the curb like the hounds of hell were on her ass. The street was suddenly, eerily quiet. I stood there, the adrenaline receding, leaving a cold, hard knot of dread in my stomach. I looked at the vicious scratch on my beautiful new car. Every instinct screamed that I should have dragged her out of her car and beat her ass. But I knew better. My hands were trembling slightly as I scrolled my phone and hit call. He answered on the second ring. "Maya." "Raziel," I said, my voice surprisingly steady, belying the tremor in my hands. "We have problems. First-your fiancée just keyed the car your father gave me. Second-you called off your engagement and didn't tell me?" Five-year-old Annie, who can understand animals, saved Landon Hawthorne, a wealthy businessman, from suicide. Now she's his whole world and he's her legal cheat-code against every villain fate throws ...