I woke up to the sound of something crunching underneath my hand arm as I turned over onto my other side, still half asleep. My eyebrows furrowed together in my sleepy state, and I pushed myself into a sitting position.
When my eyes met with another scrunched up piece of paper, I groaned.
I lowered myself to the bed once again rather unceremoniously, with the ball of paper in my hands. My eyes were barely open as my lips pulled down in a permanent scowl as I unfurled the paper and stared at the number written on it in red marker.
I don’t think I even owned a red marker. At least not one with a nub thick enough for the lines on the paper.
This one read a number thirteen.
It was strange as I couldn’t remember writing numbers on these pieces of paper, scrunching them up and throwing them around my room, but it didn’t raise a second eyebrow.
I scrunched up the ball of paper once again, blindly threw it at the bin and then turned over to get another hour of sleep.
Several hours later, the note with the number on it was completely forgotten as I finished with my first, last and only class of the day. But with the amount of work that I had missed, my day was far from over. Thankfully, Rizwan took most of the same classes as me but since he still hand wrote his notes, I needed to type them up. However, my sweet friend stuck around to keep me company at the library while he worked on a report which was due next week, and I was still yet to start.
“How are you doing, Yas?” Rizwan suddenly asked, closing his laptop to turn his undivided attention to me.
“I’m doing good,” I smiled and spared him a glance. “I’m nearly done with your Media notes and then I think I just have one more class to write up.”
“You can take those notes home if you want,” he told me. “I won’t need them anyway so as long as you return them on Monday or something, I should be good.”
“You’re a literal life saver.”
“Maybe I can be more use to you if you tell me what happened,” he chuckled and when I lifted my head to stare at him, he grinned. “I have a sneaking suspicion that some shit went down at the party last weekend.”
“You have no idea,” I groaned. “But if I’m being completely honest with you, things started transpiring from the party but it wasn’t actually just the party.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know that guy?” I asked, my voice trailing off. I cleared my throat before continuing. Not just because Rizwan was a really good friend of mine, but because I wanted to open up to someone. I had skirted around the topic with Tia, and I was glad that she hadn’t asked about it yesterday as I have no idea what I could have said then. Today, I had slept on the thought, and I knew that I couldn’t ignore this. I couldn’t ignore him.
It wasn’t completely his fault, and it wasn’t completely mine either. It was just something that had happened, and I hadn’t taken it that well. He had his faults, and so did I, but I was the one that had spiralled and felt the need to crawl into a cave – return to my parents’ house – and hide from everyone in my life.
I needed space and time away from it all and now that I was back, I was determined to be back fully. And that meant not ignoring what I had done with him, and the effect it had on me after.
Rizwan just happened to be the first one to ask me after I made my mind up.
“Which guy?” Rizwan asked curiously, though the sceptical look on his face told me that he had his suspicions. “That guy that you slept with and then he started ignoring you?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “You’re not going to believe this…” I started, my voice trailing off as I fumbled over my words. When he nodded and sent me an encouraging look, I inhaled sharply before pushing myself. “The man that I slept with his,” I started again, leaning forward to whisper for his ears only. “Was Massimo Mancini.”
“Massimo Mancini?” Rizwan repeated in a sharp whisper, his eyes wide with disbelief. “The mafia boss of the Mancini Mafia?”
I nodded. “I know it sounds crazy, but that day before we were given that assignment on Fabrizio Mancini by Professor Lockhart, Massimo came into the Starbucks at work.”
“I remember that day,” he murmured. “We watched the news that morning when Fabrizio was declared innocent.”
“Yes,” I nodded. “Massimo came back the next day to talk…and that’s when we slept together.”
“This is so hard to wrap my mind around,” Rizwan murmured, a sad expression on his face as he stared at me. “I don’t know what that must feel like. I’m sorry, Yas. You do deserve better.”
“Thanks, Riz,” I offered him a small smile. “And I agree. I do deserve better. But sometimes, I forget.”
“What do you mean?”
“Massimo was at the party on Sunday,” I told him. “Some stuff happened and I got into a bit of trouble with this guy that slipped something into my drink and–“
Rizwan was quick to cut me off, his eyes wide in shock.
“Someone slipped something into your drink?” Rizwan gasped, his face morphing into an expression of horror, and he looked as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. I didn’t blame him. It was still difficult to come to the terms that if the two brothers weren’t there that night, Riccardo would have achieved his despicable goal…and only God knew what kind of state I would have been in right now. Both mentally and physically.
“Yes,” I nodded. “But don’t worry, nothing happened.”
“Did you tell the police about this?”
I shook my head. “I would have, but Massimo and his brother took care of the issue.”
“What do you mean, they took care of the issue?” Rizwan frowned, growing increasingly worried. “You can still call the police, Yas. It’s not too late.”
“They knew the guy. Apparently, he’s from another Mafia family. Anyway, when they found out what he had tried to do to me, they beat him up.”
“He deserves that and so much more,” Rizwan spat, an angry look on his face. “And then men like that wonder why women are scared of them,” he groaned and shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Yas. I feel like you’re not finished talking, but this is already so much for you to deal with.”
“It’s in the past and that’s the most important thing,” I told him, reaching across the table to give his hand a reassuring pat.
“What happened after the party?”
“Massimo dropped by work again the next day to check on me and we fucked again,” my face warmed slightly but I pushed those feelings of shame away. I had already dealt with these issues. I had worked so hard to heal from this and move on, and I refused to fall back into that dark place once again. “This whole time, he’s had a girlfriend. I’ve been the one to kind of suggest that we fuck, but he’s never said no.”
“Oh God!” Rizwan groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Come here, Yas,” Rizwan groaned again as he rounded the table and pulled me into his arms.
Rizwan wasn’t big on hugs or physical touch, so this hug felt special. It was warm, friendly and very brotherly. Even the awkward way he patted my head was very brotherly, but I welcomed the gesture even though it messed up my hair.
“You’re so strong, Yas,” Rizwan told me after we pulled away. “I’m glad that you were able to take yourself out of the situation. Just because he’s a mafia boss doesn’t mean that he can get away treating people like that.”
“I know that now,” I told him in a small voice. “I know that I suddenly disappeared, and you were all worried, so I’m sorry. But I hope you understand that everything became overwhelming, and I just needed to get away.”
“You don’t have to apologise for anything, Yas,” he gave my shoulder another friendly squeeze before returning to his seat. “You and your mental health is the most important thing. Sure, we were worried but as long as you’re fine, then that’s all that matters.”
I didn’t need to look into a mirror to know that my face was lit up like a Christmas tree right now. To know that I had friends like this was so amazing and refreshing, and I was grateful to have each and every one of them in my life.
Rizwan and I continued working for a while but when there was only an hour left until my evening shift at work, we began packing up. But before we left, I needed to use the bathroom.
“I’ll wait for you,” Rizwan told me and since the gesture was sweet, I smiled and nodded.
As Rizwan was there to keep a watch, I left my stuff at the desk we were sitting at as I walked over to the closest bathroom.
To get there and do my business didn’t take more than a few minutes. Returning to Rizwan and grabbed our stuff shouldn’t have taken more than that, but my path back was intercepted.
“Are you avoiding my brother?” Dino asked, his lips tugged down into a small frown.
“Yes,” I said, not looking to beat around the bush.
“Why?” he asked, but I had an inkling that he already knew why.
“I’m sorry, Dino, but that’s none of your business. Now if you don’t mind, my friend is waiting for me so I need to get back,” I told him and moved to walk past him, but he stepped to the side and intercepted me once again.
“It’s strange,” Dino mused aloud.
“What’s strange?” I asked even though I wasn’t supposed to be caring.
“My brother is usually a very serious man, and he doesn’t care much about anything other than work and his family. But ever since he’s met you, he’s been distracted. Or rather, he’s only been distracted these past few days when you’ve been avoiding him. The days before, he’s been happier than I’ve ever seen him before.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked in a small voice, kicking myself for caring.
“Because I can tell that my brother really likes you,” Dino told me, his lips turning up at the corners. “My brother is a lot of things, Yasemin. He’s a good son, a good brother, and a good mafia boss. He’s always good, fair and goes above and beyond for those that he loves, and whether you like it or not, you’re part of that now. In fact, you’re at the centre of it all now. You can’t hide from that sort of thing, Yasemin…and to be frank, I can’t imagine why you would want to hide from something as pure as that. From love.”
I gulped and dropped his gaze.
“I have to get back to my friend,” I told Dino and pushed past him before he could stop me.
-
Please remember to like, comment, REVIEW and follow me if you haven’t already! Check out my PATREON if you would like the read this ENTIRE book, and get EARLY ACCESS to the rest of this series - up to CHAPTER 9 of BOOK 4! :)
PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LaylaKnight
Layla Knight
31.01.2022
