My home was straight out of a movie.
Arches and marble pillars along each long and complicated hallway. Black vintage chandeliers, doorways and candle holders in each room.
It was a beautiful house, with brown marble flooring and a living room that you could look from the indoor balcony upstairs, but it lacked something.
It lacked life.
Maybe because I knew that I had this roof over my head wasn't attained by hard work or a career, but it was attained by bloodshed and distributing drugs.
I spent my life being okay with all of this. I was okay with this, why wouldn't I be when I was conditioned to this lifestyle since birth? But sometimes I just wanted someone to relate to. Nobody else in my family cared where this money came from.
They basked in the wealth, but if you just looked past those french doors and patios, you'd see that our house was a sham covered in security cameras.
Sometimes I'd pretend I could hear children playing outside, or the neighbours mowing the lawn but the iron gates that surrounded our estate made that impossible.
We had neighbours, granted a 1 minute walk away but they were neighbours. The Garcias and their 10 year old boy.
Sighing, I picked up my small silver hoops and started putting them on. There was something me and this house had something in common - we were both facades.
I was a cheat even. I liked to show everyone I was sweet when really my life was the opposite. Especially my past, but I didn't want to think about it right now.
Not when I spent years covering it with dirt.
"More peperoncino rosso in polvere." My mother ordered. I stepped away from the mirror on the kitchen wall and sprinkled some spice into the pot.
"Mama, can I go now? Tony will be here soon from the club to take me."
"Go." She said to me. "And tell your brothers to stop walking on the carpets with their goddamn shoes!"
"Okay." I replied, kind of scared of my Mama and her heavy New Yorker accent. "I'll do that after they put a bullet in my head for missing training."
As I walked through the foyer, I stopped in front of a glass door and took one last look at my outfit in the reflection. I liked to pretend I was going to a teenage party alone.
I wore bootcut jeans and a tight baby blue velour zip up hoodie, very casual. As I slid on my sneakers, the doorbell ran and I headed towards it. It was likely Tony.
"I'll get it." I called out to Mama before swinging the door open, and my pulse came to a halt.
The winter storm.
Black hair, thick and curled. White dress shirt. Muscles.
Cristian Russo stood before me, and I couldn't help but swallow out of fear. This was what I deserved for having an attitude with a hitman - death.
And now I wouldn't be able to complete my career, or learn how to make croissants or to ever see my Nonna again.
"Here to to kill me?" I asked, and I think I forgot how tall he really was because even as my height of 5'7 I could barely reach his nose.
"No." His tone spoke his boredom with me. "I need to have a word with your father."
"Well he's at his base with my brothers." I shrugged and smiled unapologetically as I tried to close the door on him. "Sorry."
YOU ARE READING
His Corruption
Romance"Don't worry. I'll make sure if I do get a wife, she won't be a judgemental little snob like you." My lips parted as his words reached me. "Yeah? Well if I were your wife, I'd poison your wine." The last of my words were bitter, and I was so sure I'...
