I Buried The Don And Took His Throne Chapter 03
The Slap Heard Through the Compound
That same night, I saw through the chains with a wire cutter and walk Dante out through the tunnel my grandfather dug back in the seventies.
I stash him at an old Crestwell safehouse across the river, with two of my most loyal soldiers watching the door.
Then I pull a body from county lockup — a junkie doing time for armed robbery, roughly the right build, roughly the right face.
I stage it so it looks like Dante bashed his own head into the wall until his face was pulp.
Nobody’s going to look twice.
Morning comes. Word reaches Marco. I hear from a maid that he actually smiled at breakfast.
By afternoon, a runner shows up at my door with a gift box.
I open it.
It’s a dress. The kind of dress a made man’s mistress wears to a christening.
Cheap fabric, cheap stitching, no designer label. Less than what he pays his cleaning staff.
There’s a note folded on top, in Marco’s handwriting.
“Sloane — don’t get greedy. This is already more than you deserve. — M”
My knuckles go white on the card.
“Sloane, my dear.”
The voice comes from my doorway. Bianca. Trailing that little rat of a maid Camille behind her.
“Aww, did you get your present?” She swans in, eyes going straight to the dress on the bed.
Her mouth curls up. “Oh honey. That’s what a mistress wears. Not even a good one.”
She giggles, then leans in like we’re sharing gossip at brunch.
“Don’t take it personal though. Marco told me last night — while he was inside me, actually — he said you were just a rabid dog he kept on a leash while he took the throne.”
“Some knuckle-dragger who’s good with a gun. Not the kind of woman you make Donna of a Family.”
She’s laughing, like really laughing, throwing her head back and all that.
I let out one short breath through my nose. A laugh of my own.
Her laughter stops cold.
I look at her pretty little painted face. “A dog built this throne. And you’re gonna sit on it and pretend your ass belongs there.”
Bianca’s face freezes.
Then she snatches the dress off the bed, throws it on the floor, and slaps me across the face.
“Get it through your thick skull, Sloane. I’m the Donna now. This house runs on my word. You think you’re still the golden girl from the Crestwell mansion? You’re nothing. You’re a—”
She doesn’t finish.
I bring my hand up. Full weight behind it. Everything I’ve been swallowing for three lives.
She goes flying. Actually flying. Cracks the back of her head against the doorframe and drops like someone cut her strings. Out cold.
Camille just stands there, mouth open, staring at her Donna on the floor.
Then she screams, drops to her knees, tries to shake Bianca awake.
“You bitch! You crazy bitch! You put your hands on the Donna! Just wait — just wait till Marco hears—”
She half-drags, half-carries Bianca out the door, shrieking the whole way down the hall.
I shake out my hand. My knuckles are already turning red.
I bend down, pick up the trampled dress, and toss it into the fireplace. I watch the polyester curl and melt, filling the air with a foul smell.
That was for slapping me.
The other two lives — my family in the driveway, Nora with her cereal bowl, the wire — that bill hasn’t even been opened yet.
I don’t even get to sit down before I hear it.
Boots. Fast. Down the hallway.
The bedroom door explodes off its hinges.