The Mafia's Racer Bride

Chapter 4

Kelsey Schmidt

Time dissolved into a hollow, agonizing blur. I can’t sleep, and I definitely can’t eat.

I am trapped inside the same oversized sweater and sweatpants from yesterday, wrapped around me like a shroud of old misery. I can’t even shower because the thought of hot water stinging the fresh, weeping welts across my back makes my stomach violently churn. All I did was stand frozen by my bedroom window, staring out into the weeping gray gloom, waiting for Anthony to arrive like a condemned prisoner watching the horizon.

What if he won’t come? The paralyzing panic claws at my throat. He does not even know me that much to help me. He’s close to my grandfather and always like a shadow hovering at all of my childhood birthdays, but we are never really that close. To him, I am probably just a distant obligation, a ghost of a family he used to serve.

If he doesn’t come today, I don’t have any chance of surviving another day. The digital clock on my nightstand blinks mockingly. It’s already five p.m., and there's still no sign of Anthony, no glare of headlights, no sound of salvation. Just the ticking of my own borrowed time.

My bedroom door violently flies open, crashing against the drywall with a bang that makes me jump out of my skin.

“What are you doing?!” Dottie yells, her voice screeching like rusted metal as she sees me still dressed in my soiled sweater, completely unprepared for my scheduled flight to New York at nine p.m. “Are you stupid or what?!”

She stomps into the room, her stilettos clicking sharply against the floorboards, and stops right in front of me. I still remember the first time I saw this woman. I was twelve, and she did not look like this before. Now she’s bottle-blonde, heavy makeup, surgically enhanced, thin and perpetually tanned, dressing in tight, expensive clothing that drips with blood money.

She knows that my father does not have money and is a chronic gambler, but she still stayed and also makes my life miserable. She stays because she would rather wear designer labels and look down on me than go back to being a broke cocktail waitress. She does not want to go back to nothing, so she latched onto my father's side like a parasite.

“What?! Are you just going to stand there staring at the glass like a ghost?! Go get ready! They aren't going to wait for a useless brat!”

“Yes…” I whisper, my voice cracking into a pathetic rasp.

I lower my head and shuffle past her to slip into the bathroom, but before I can cross the threshold, a heavy hand grips my arm. The fingers dig straight into my fresh bruises. I gasp and face her, and her palm violently cracks across my face, the sharp sting echoing in my ears as my head snaps to the side.

“I’m going to miss slapping this face,” she utters with a cruel, satisfied smirk, before winding up and striking me again.

The second blow is harder, sending me stumbling backward over my own feet until my spine crashes hard against my bedroom windowsill. The glass rattles behind me.

I bit down hard on my lower lip, tasting the hot, coppery tang of blood, but I did not say a single word. If I talked back to her, she would just race downstairs to report it to my father, and my father would use me as a punching bag all over again before dragging me to the airport.

Dottie steps close, her acrylic nail digging painfully into my chin as she forces my face up to meet her cold, synthetic gaze. “You are lucky you are pretty, and they want you. Be grateful you're actually good for something.”

She slowly lets go of my chin, wiping her hand on her hip as if I'm unclean, and turns her back on me to storm out of the room. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as hot tears finally breach my lashes. I am losing hope. I don’t think Anthony is coming to save me from this living hell, but at least I tried.

All I want in this life is to have a successful racing career. To slide behind the wheel of a machine and drive cars that are faster than anything, chasing a freedom I’ve only ever found on an asphalt track. But I can’t do any of that once I am trapped in New York. I will lose all my dreams, my freedom, my very soul, because of my father's endless greed.

It’s the end of everything for me.

But then a low, heavy rumble vibrates through the damp night air.

My eyes snap wide open. I scramble to the glass, pressing my face against the cold pane, and look down. My heart starts to hammer like a trapped bird against my ribs. Four massive, obsidian-black sedans are pulling up in a tight, synchronized convoy, blocking the entire driveway! The doors swing open, and the breath catches in my throat when Anthony exits the lead car, his tall, imposing silhouette cutting through the dark like a blade!

I immediately walk out of my room, my bare feet carrying me toward the top of the stairs, where I stand completely silent, holding my breath as the heavy brass doorbell rings.

The sharp ring of the doorbell tears through the tense silence of the house, rattling every nerve in my body.

Downstairs, heavy footsteps echo across the hardwood foyer. I hear Kennedy’s irritated voice muttering coarse, jagged curses under his breath as he stomps across the floor to answer it, likely expecting a late-night courier or another one of Dottie’s endless online deliveries.

I didn't move from my spot at the top of the stairs, my bare feet freezing against the wood, holding my breath so hard my chest ached. He’s here.

The heavy front door swings open. There is a fraction of a second of dead, echoing silence, and then the sound of a violent impact. Flesh slamming hard against drywall, followed by Kennedy choking out a desperate, strangled gasp of pure, unadulterated shock.

"What the! Who the hell do you think you are to come–" Kennedy sputters, his drunken bravado instantly evaporating into thin air.

"Quiet," a voice cuts through the air.

It wasn't raised. It didn't need to be. It was smooth, dark, and saturated with a lethal, terrifying brand of absolute authority that made the hairs on the back of my arms stand straight up. Anthony.