by Nicole Fox
“I have a family,” George says, his voice shaking. “A wife and children.”
“I don’t care.”
George looks up at me, his eyes wide. His face is wrinkled, and he looks tired. “My wife wanted to leave town as soon as I testified. She wanted to change our names, but I told her I wanted to stay.”
“That was your mistake,” I say coldly.
“Was it?” he asks. “If your father had still been in charge, I never would have dared.”
Just as I thought. I ready my finger on the trigger. Enough people have told me I’m too weak to be a boss; I don’t want to hear it from an overweight liquor store owner too. I’ll kill him before he gets the chance.
“But you’re fair,” he says, surprising me.
I let the gun slip slightly as he talks.
“At least, I believed you to be a fair man,” he says. “It’s the only reason I kept my family here. Because I didn’t think you would kill me for telling the truth.”
He meets my eyes for another second before looking back down at the floor, and I’m glad. I don’t want him to see what I’m going to do next.
As I walk back into the parking lot, a man is idling in front of the store, squinting towards the store hours. That sign says it should be open, but the neon one is dark. He rolls down his window. “Are you open?”
If he’d gotten out and tried the door, he would have found it unlocked, but he didn’t. He asked me. So, I shake my head. “Nope.”
The man curses under his breath. “Update your hours!” he yells as he screeches out of the parking lot, in search of another place to quench his late-night thirst.
I just cost George some business, but he isn’t in any state to care.
Molly
I bend over and wrap the towel around my hair. The towel is still damp from drying my son off after his shower, but it should help dry my hair a little bit before we have to head out into the cold. Walking around with frozen, crunchy hair all morning is not my idea of a good start to the day. Though, neither is showering in a gym locker room, when I really think about it.
My jeans feel sticky against my skin, and I make a mental note to set aside some of my tip money to make a laundromat run. My shirt also sticks to my skin, but that’s because the towel was too wet to do much good drying me off. I pinch the thin material and try to pull it away from my breasts, but when I let go, it resumes clinging to my every curve.
I look up and scan the shower area again. There are no partitions or even curtains. Just one long row of showerheads protruding from a white tile wall. Even though we’ve been coming to this same gym for months, I can’t seem to grow comfortable with the arrangement. I always feel like I’m being watched. It’s why Theo and I shower so early in the mornings. The first arrivals of the day are still in the middle of their workouts when we show up. It gives us fifteen or so uninterrupted minutes to shower before any of the other members can complain to the front desk about a child being in the showers.
If they’re so worried about children seeing a bunch of naked adults, perhaps they should spring for stalls, I think. That would probably require a higher membership fee, however, which we don’t have the money for. And showering in full view of other women beats smelling like body odor and diner grease, so I’ll take what I can get. Though, I’ll have to find another solution before Theo gets much older. At this age, he’s too busy playing to pay any mind, but that won’t last much longer.
Theo makes a loud roaring sound, pulling me from my thoughts. I turn around just in time to see his little face squished in fury as he squeezes a bottle with all his might, squirting shampoo up into the air in a tall arc.
“No, no, no!” I blurt out, rushing forward to yank the bottle out of his hands. I squeeze the sides of the bottle lightly, trying to assess how much shampoo we lost. I’d be annoyed even if it was the cheap dollar store shampoo, but I found this bottle in one of the showers last week. It’s a salon-grade shampoo, way out of our price range and probably left behind by one of the stay-at-home moms after a private Pilates class. Probably one of the same moms who glower whenever they see me waiting in the lobby with Theo for the bus. I didn’t mind taking the bottle because whoever left it probably wouldn’t even notice. Things like shampoo are easy enough for them to come by that they don’t worry much about it.
“It’s a volcano,” Theo says playfully, rounding his lips around the final “O,” emphasizing it in a way that makes it hard to be angry. The little sucker is cute when he wants to be.
“This volcano is dormant from now on,” I say, tucking the bottle into my stained duffel bag. “We can’t afford to waste shampoo right now, buddy.”
He frowns, both because he got in trouble and because he doesn’t understand why. Theo makes that face whenever I talk about our finances.
I kneel in front of him and pat his clean hair. Even in the terrible fluorescent bathroom lighting, I can see the gold streaks in it, the lightness that didn’t come from my mostly Dominican roots. The shape of his face isn’t like mine either. His is sharp—always has been, even when he had a layer of baby fat covering his cheeks—whereas mine is oval. I run my hand from his hair, down his cheek, and lift his chin until we’re looking into each other’s matching brown eyes.
“That was a cool volcano, though.”
His eyebrows rise, and he smiles. “Really?”
“Really. I loved it, but next time, you need to ask Mama if it’s okay, okay?”
“Okay,” he repeats, still smiling at my compliment.
I Velcro his shoes on, pressing my thumb down over his toes to see how much longer this pair will last before I need to buy new ones. They fit for now, but he grew out of the last pair almost overnight, so I know I’ll need to allocate the money sooner or later.
Then, I slip into my white sneakers, stained with oil splatters, and pull on my coat. Theo is proud of himself for putting his on without my assistance, but he still needs help with the zipper. I zip it up to his neck and then kiss his cheek. He pretends to be grossed out, but when I hold my arms out, he wraps his skinny legs around my waist and hugs me, forcing me to carry him out of the bathroom and into the hall. It doesn’t take much convincing. I’ve been working a lot of overtime lately, and we don’t get as much time together as I’d like. I’m happy to make the most of every minute I can.
I see a figure in a gym employee’s uniform dart around the corner ahead of us towards the front desk and thank my lucky stars they weren’t standing just outside the door as I came out. Kids aren’t allowed in the locker rooms. If you do bring a child, you either need to skip your post-workout shower or check them into the in-house gym day care. It costs five dollars per hour, which I can’t afford. Plus, Theo needs to bathe. Early-morning showers mean everyone who might care is usually still waking up for the day and too tired to pay attention to me or whatever rules I might be breaking. I pray our luck in that department continues.
When we get into the lobby, Theo wriggles out of my hold and runs across the lobby to press his face against the steamy gym windows. He likes drawing pictures in the condensation, and I spend so much time telling him “no” for other things that I can’t bear to take this little pleasure away from him.
Our bus still hasn’t arrived, but Shonda drives on Monday mornings, and she usually runs ten minutes later than the other drivers, so I figure we have another five minutes before she shows up.
I’m walking towards the tables and chairs closest to the doors to wait when my path is suddenly blocked. I pull up short, surprised. “I’m sorry,” I say out of instinct.
“Apology not necessary,” the front desk employee says. “I cut you off.”
I smile and glance at his name tag—Ted. When I look back up at his face, his eyes are scanning my chest as though also looking for a name tag. Except, I don’t have one. What I do have, however, is a thin T-shirt clinging to a slightly damp chest, and I have a gross feeling Ted is admiring the view. I cross my arms. “Why?”
&
nbsp; He looks up like he’s just remembered boobs are usually attached to a human being and pulls one side of his mouth up into a confident smirk. “I’ve seen you coming in here pretty regularly the last few months.”
“I have a membership,” I say, reaching into my pocket to pull out the membership card. If he reads it closely, he’ll see it’s a solo membership, not a family membership. The solo membership is cheaper, and the woman who usually mans the desk and scans my card as we enter either hasn’t noticed Theo isn’t on my plan or she’s guessed at our situation and takes pity on us. Whichever one it is, I don’t want to ruin a good thing, but I also don’t want to be kicked out by an employee who is okay with openly ogling women’s bodies while on duty.
Ted waves his hand. “I know. I’m just saying … I’ve seen you.”
I slide my hand deeper into my pocket, clutching the membership card even though he doesn’t want to see it. Something in the way he says the words sends a chill down my back like some innate instinct from long ago, warning me of a predator. I look over towards Theo. He’s drawing the outline of a Christmas tree in the glass, oblivious to our conversation.
“Oh,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Yeah, I’ve seen you too. Working at the desk.”
“Is that your son?” he asks, nodding towards Theo.
“Yes.” I don’t know why, but I feel like my answers are very important. Like I’m in a job interview.
Ted’s eyes narrow and then drift down my body again. “You look too young to have a kid that old.”
I cross my arms tighter, covering my chest. He’s probably thinking exactly what everyone else thinks when they find out I have a four-year-old son. Teen mom, slut, another statistic. I’ve heard it all before, and I’m not about to hear it from Ted the Gym Pervert.
“Well, I’m not,” I say coldly.
I try to walk past him, but he steps to the side, blocking my path again.
“Listen,” I say, holding up a hand to warn him to keep his distance. “Whatever this is, I’m not interested in—”
“I see you come in every day, but you don’t workout.” He glances behind him to check that the desk is still empty and his fellow employee hasn’t joined him yet. “You just come in, go straight to the showers, and leave.”
I swear his pupils are larger than they were a second ago. His face is familiar in the way all predators seem familiar. There is hunger there, and I resist the urge to turn and run in the opposite direction. I stand taller, broadening my shoulders to look as big as possible, as though I’m trying to scare away a bear. “There are no rules against that.”
He raises a brow, surprised by my fight, perhaps. Then, he nods towards where Theo is drawing a misshapen snowman. “There are rules against him, though. He isn’t supposed to be in the showers with you.”
I respond without glancing back. “He wasn’t.”
Ted’s smile widens, and his white teeth glimmer in the yellow lighting. “Don’t lie. Remember? I’ve seen you.”
The same cold-egg-yolk-moving-down-my-spine feeling I had in the shower this morning returns, and I suddenly know without a doubt that Ted has been watching me bathe.
I’ve had the same feeling every time I’ve showered in the gym, and I thought it was just my own self-consciousness at being in the open, but now I realize my instincts picked up on the presence of a predator.
Suddenly, I remember all the footsteps I’ve heard over the months we’ve been coming here. There were times where the locker room door would beep like someone had opened the door, but then no one ever came in. Only, now I realize, they did. He did. And he watched me—naked and vulnerable—without my consent.
My stomach turns. I know this feeling all too well. The violation. I want to throw up, and when Ted’s eyes assess me again, I know he doesn’t need me to take off my coat to get an idea of what I’m hiding under it. He has already seen it.
“What do you want?” I ask, my voice low and icy. I glance back towards the doors and see the bus pulling into the parking lot. Theo sees it too.
“The bus is here,” he calls, dragging his coat sleeve through his condensation drawing to erase it and moving towards the doors. “Come on, Mama.”
“Nothing,” Ted says with an innocent shrug that I recognize as a farce. Then, his face sharpens, and he looks down at me over the long slope of his nose. “I just thought maybe you could reward me for keeping your secret.”
“I don’t have any money.”
He shakes his head and looks down the length of my body, his tongue darting out over his lower lip like a snake. “I don’t want your money.”
I fight back a shiver.
Ted leans in, whispering, “I’ll pay the five dollars for the day care. No one will ever have to know.”
He lays a hand on my shoulder, dragging it down my arm. “It’s your choice, Molly.”
He knows my name, and something about that feels like the worst thing of all. That this man knows me and has seen me. That he’s threatening me, blackmailing me with the ability to shower for sex. It’s repulsive, and I clench my fingers into a fist, prepared to break his nose and make a run for the bus. I don’t give a damn if I’m banned from the gym for life.
Before I can follow through with my plan, Ted moves away from me suddenly and heads back for the desk. He looks back over his shoulder one more time, smiling wickedly. “You better go. You don’t want to miss your bus.”
Theo asks once on the ride to his day care who I was talking to at the gym, but when I distract him by pointing out the Dalmatian being walked down the sidewalk, he forgets about the incident entirely. I wish I could do the same.
We get off at our stop and have to jog three blocks to Theo’s daycare provider’s house. Krista lives on the second floor of an apartment building that is way nicer than anything I could ever afford, but would still be considered lower class by many standards. She has a box of dead flowers hanging from her narrow balcony, and I can see paper snowflakes and snowmen taped to the window, made by Theo and the other kids she watches.
Her daycare is not official. I tried to find a place registered with the state, but they were all too expensive. Krista seems nice. Her place is clean, Theo always tells me he has fun at her house, and I have no other options. So, I take Theo to her every day, hoping she takes care of him and doesn’t eventually get shut down by her apartment complex or the city.
Krista lets us in when we buzz and has the door open when we walk up the stairs. Two other kids, both younger than Theo, are sitting at a table eating oatmeal. Krista’s hair is pinned back with a clip at the base of her neck, and she is in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt. Theo gives me a quick hug and darts past Krista to take his place at the table.
“We’ll probably go to the park down the block, if that’s okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, that’s fine. Have fun.” I wave to Theo. “I’m running behind, so I better get going. Thanks again, Krista.”
“Molly?” she says, moving towards the door. Her lips are pressed in a nervous line.
“Yeah?” I prepare myself for bad news. Devastating news. Years of life kicking me while I’m down has taught me to keep my expectations low. If I imagine the worst possibility, I can’t be caught off guard.
“You’re behind in payments,” she says, voice low so Theo won’t hear. “You said you’d pay me last week, but—”
“Shit.” I squeeze my eyes shut for a second and shake my head. “Theo got a cold, and I had to take him to the urgent care center. The appointment cost almost one hundred dollars, and I just—”
“I can manage for another week,” she says, sympathy written in the lines of her face. “But beyond that, I can’t make any promises. He’s a growing boy, and he eats a lot. Twice what the other kids do. I just—”
“I understand,” I say, holding up a hand to stop her. “I’ll get you the money. Thanks for being patient.”
Krista gives me a tight smile, and I run down the stairs and jog five blocks
to the diner where I will slave away for eight hours, making only enough money to wake up and scrape by all over again.
Click here to keep reading MARRIED TO THE DON.
Also by Nicole Fox
Kornilov Bratva Duet
Married to the Don
Til Death Do Us Part
Heirs to the Bratva Empire
*Can be read in any order
Kostya
Maksim
Andrei
Tsezar Bratva Duet
Nightfall (Book 1)
Daybreak (Book 2)
Russian Crime Brotherhood
*Can be read in any order
Owned by the Mob Boss
Unprotected with the Mob Boss
Knocked Up by the Mob Boss
Sold to the Mob Boss
Stolen by the Mob Boss
Trapped with the Mob Boss
Volkov Bratva Duet
Broken Vows (Book 1)
Broken Hope (Book 2)
Other Standalones
Vin: A Mafia Romance
Mailing List
Sign up to my mailing list!
New subscribers receive a FREE steamy bad boy romance novel.
Click the link below to join.
http://bit.ly/NicoleFoxNewsletter
