The Woman in the Trunk - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,25
her lips. "Or are you not done manhandling me yet?" she added, making my hand drop her arm like it'd caught fire, not liking that insinuation. That I would hurt her.
With that, she glared at me for another second, then stormed off, slamming her door as she went.
My gaze shifted to Chris who had moved back into his position in front of the elevator.
"The fuck did I do?" I asked, shaking my head, at a loss.
To that, he shrugged.
"Kids," he said, shaking his head.
Yeah, maybe that was it.
She was just acting her age.
Chapter Six
Giana
"What's your game, sweetheart?" Gio asked as soon as Lorenzo disappeared down the hall, moving in closer, so we could speak privately.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I insisted, but felt my stomach tightening. Because something about this man said he could see right through me.
"You can flutter your eyes and you can play the innocent card. But you and I know you're no kid, Gigi. You're twenty if you're a day. And I just can't figure out why you would play that hand."
On the one hand, I felt like there wasn't a single person in this world I could trust. On the other, something inside me said that this man would only make things worse for me if I lied to him.
So I gave him the most comfortable truth I could.
"I am trying to make it so they won't kill me," I admitted, expecting those words to have some sort of impact on Gio. But nothing crossed his face at them.
"Alright," he said, nodding.
"Alright?" I repeated, spine straightening.
"Your business is your business, sweetheart. I dunno what you did. I don't need to know. Way I see it, you've got a right to use whatever you got to plead for your life. But can I give you a little tip?"
"Sure."
"If that kid card fails, the woman card might get you even further. You're just Lorenzo's type."
"I'm not going to whore myself out to live," I shot back, voice raising.
"Just saying, sweetheart. You got options."
"Are you going to tell Lorenzo?"
"Not if you don't make me."
"How would I make you?"
"Don't know yet."
"That's not exactly helpful."
"Tough shit, kid," he said, smirking, smile just big enough to make his dimple peak through. "Don't like the uncertainty, I recommend not getting yourself involved with the family," he told me.
"I didn't get myself involved in anything. My father did."
"Little tip, babe," he said, giving me a hard look. "Stop being a victim in your own life."
Before I could snap at him that I wasn't a victim, that he didn't know what he was talking about, that Lorenzo and this family were who had turned me into a victim of kidnapping and imprisonment, Lorenzo was moving back into the main space, gaze flicking between the two of us, little vertical lines forming between his brows, making it clear my surprise and uncertainty and indignation must have been clear on my face.
And I maybe took that out on Lorenzo.
I tried to remind myself as I paced my room that it wasn't exactly misplaced, though, since I wouldn't have been put in this position if Lorenzo hadn't taken me, that I wouldn't have been annoyed with Gio, and snapped at Lorenzo. That I wouldn't be having some grandiose existential crisis as Gio's words kept playing across my mind no matter how many times I tried to fight them.
Maybe I had been so pissed because there was a sliver of truth in his words.
I had chosen this life. I had chosen to stand beside my father through all of his screw-ups. And when I was younger, of course, I had no choice. My mother was gone. My father was all I had in the world. And his immediate financial security impacted my life as well. If he didn't keep the bakery running, we would lose it. And the house. And any form of safety I had known.
But as I got older, after I was of-age, especially, staying and dealing with the constant stress, being shit on by a man who didn't appreciate all the work I was putting in to keep his family business running, to keep his head above water, did sort of make me a part of my own victimhood, didn't it?
I chose to go there every day, to be scolded, to have my decisions constantly undermined. I took on the stress that he created.