Read Hush 2: Slow Burn for Free Online Page A

bitch that ruined our family. Honestly, I don’t blame Papa. There are way too many memories there.
    I love New York; I have made so many friends here. Maybe I should find a place here and even take Nico up on his offer to take me out on a date. I snicker at my drunken thoughts. I have a friend that moved here to Harlem after high school. Sinclair was one of my few friends in high school, but that bitch never approved of my friend. Maybe I can find a place close to Sinclair.
    “I hope you are not going crazy on me,” Rita chuckles, drawing me from my thoughts.
    “Nope, not going crazy, I think I am finally thinking straight. I plan to make some changes in my life. First, one being finding my own place. I hate staying at Luca’s place and I think it is time I leave Valentina’s,” I say nodding my head at my own thoughts.
    Rita gives me the side eye. “Listen, I don’t get what is going on with you and Luca. Like I said, I don’t know him, but maybe you should sleep the alcohol off first before making any real decisions. You never know what could happen that will make you change your mind,” Rita shrugs and bites her lip.
    I have come to know her well. That look tells me she is trying to tell me something without really telling me much. I study her face processing her words. Rita glances away from me and winces.
    “I have to pee. I should have gone before we left. Ugh, what was I thinking,” Rita mutters. “Petey, can you pull over. I have to go. I’m so sorry. I’m not going to make it.”
    I call bullshit in my head, but I need the space as much as she does as I try to process her last words. Maybe she is right and I need to clear my head of the alcohol rolling through my system. However, knowing Rita as I have come to know her she knows something I don’t.
    My head hurts from trying to think too much through my wine induce fog. Perhaps I am just making things up. So I won’t decide on the move right now, but as the car door closes behind Rita, I do make a decision on something else.
    As confused as I feel inside about who I am and where I really come from I know one thing. Luca doesn’t get the right to make me feel like shit. I snort because those were the last words my sister had said to me before she and her husband took off on a trip yesterday.
    I almost asked to tag along with them, but when I realized they were only taking Vita, I decided against it. They need time alone as a family. I pull out my phone and squint at the screen before I find the right number. Or at least, I hope I am dialing the right number. It is a little late to be dialing random people.
    It would be just my luck that I would call one of the clients Valentina has entrusted me with since she hired me to help with her business. I was so proud when she gave me the job with her bag and shoe company. It is her baby, but she has given me so much responsibility with it lately as she has been taking on some work with Nate and Rita.
    I snicker to myself as I think of the bad ass women in my life. When I found out Rita is a part of Briggs Security’s elite bodyguards a shiver ran through me. It was something in the look I saw in her eyes. It was the same look that you notice in the eyes of the men in her family. It is a look I see when I look in Valentina and Uri’s eyes. I never put a finger on it until having them all in the same room and seeing it for what it was.
    I had been totally floored when Valentina told me everything about our past and what she does for the family. Everything clicked into place that day. She didn’t go into the gory details, but I have heard things despite what Valentina thinks and I know my sister is one scary …
    The voice I have longed to hear pulls me from my thoughts. I hate that just his voice can make my heart speed up and melt at its sound. “Hello,” he answers the phone. It is the first time he has answered one of my calls in months, which serves to piss me off more and slaps me out of my moment