Highest Bidder Collection - Lauren Landish Page 0,184

to take the fall for it and I was eager to leave. I don’t want to be a monster. I don’t want a life of corruption and pain. It’s a ruthless lifestyle. One I was born into.

I stare down at the worn journal in my lap. I’m writing every memory down as they come to me. Partly for documenting it, partly to relive it. It’s fucked up that I’m trapped by the memory of a world I was so eager to leave, but the sins of my past refuse to let me move on. And I don’t know why yet.

I close the leather journal and run my finger along the inscribed name on the front. Passerotto. Little Sparrow.

But that’s not my name. It’s what my mother called me. And this journal is all I have left from her, save a few dark memories.

Joe Levi. Murderer. Villain.

That’s the only name I go by now.

I’m sure this wasn’t what my mother imagined this journal would be used for, but she’s six feet under the cold hard dirt. I down the whiskey at the thought.

I was raised to be ruthless and cold, brought up in an environment that breeds sick fucks, like my own father.

They think I’m corrupt or maybe even a snitch cause the charges got dropped. The ones I was meant to take the fall for, but they don’t know how or why they got dropped. Some think I have more power than I do, which is helpful at times. I’m still feared, which is better than having a target on my back, but it leaves me lonely.

The fire crackles in the large den. I stare at the logs, the fire spilling from the splits between the logs. The back of the brick (fireplace thingy) black with soot.

I enjoy their fear. I need it to continue to survive. What’s worse is that it breathes life into me.

I didn’t have a choice.

Lies! The voices in my head sneer at me. They hiss that I could have done more.

They all should have died. My father, my brother.

I shouldn’t have stopped at just the Romanos.

I set the empty glass down and lean forward, my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees.

I’ve done horrible things. I didn’t have to. I chose to so I could survive. So I didn’t have to run my entire life with the threat of death hanging over my head. But I still didn’t have to do it. And now the memories haunt me.

My phone pings on the end table, drawing my attention and breaking the repetitive thoughts that I can never escape.

I slowly reach for it. There are only three people it could be. I dread the ones from my familia. They can all go fuck off. But they don’t seem to get the message. I read the name on the lit screen and relief and something else flows through me. Comfortability.

Kiersten. Or Madam Lynn as she likes to be called nowadays.

She reminds me of the one good thing I ever did. The whiskey pales in comparison to the warmth that memory brings to my chest.

They left her for dead. But I helped him save her.

It wasn’t enough for all my sins to be forgiven, for all my wrongs to be righted, but I’m proud that she’s still here, even if he isn’t.

She’s a close friend and nothing more. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to leave this house, and it’s because of her. She’s always talking about how she owes me; she has no idea. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m the one who owes her.

She wants to help me, but she can’t. I’m beyond repair and there’s nothing I want from her. It’s a sweet gesture that she tries to fill my dark days with something.

I rub the sleep from my eyes, it feels late in the dim-lit room with the thick drapes closed, but the darkness is just setting in beyond the walls of this house. This prison I keep myself in.

Are you coming tonight?

I read her text message and debate on my answer.

I have sinful fantasies, some a product of the way I was raised, but others I’ve grown to desire on my own accord. I’ve yet to give in to the impulse driving me to keep going to Club X. It’s alluring and intoxicating in it’s nature. The atmosphere a mix of sex and power, so intense, it alone is a drug.

Just last week I bid on a slave at