Page 18 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
With that in mind, I push the door to Scarlet Thorn's wish room open and step inside.
The warmth cocoons me first. After all that cold marble the heat from the candles melts through the chill I didn't realize I'd been carrying since the elevator, loosening the tension across my shoulders. The walls are painted black with scarlet swirls that shift in the candlelight, and a velvet pedestal stands in the center of the small room with the wish box on top. Dark wood and gold filigree, ornate and heavy. Red envelopes and a fountain pen rest beside it on a narrow table, alongside note cards stacked at the edge.
My toes curl into the black carpet, soft and warm against my frozen feet. His scent still clings to my skin, mixing with melted wax and old roses, and if anyone walked in right now they'd know exactly what I did tonight just from the smell of me.
I press my palm over my suddenly quivering stomach.
I know there's a chance Massimo will read the words I am about to write and maybe deep down that's why I'm doing this. I'm not blind to the possibility. But I'm also doing it so I don't have to live with my emotions bottled up for the rest of my life. Plus I'm saving Father Augustine from fainting in the confessional. Win-win.
I set the shoe on the floor and pick up the fountain pen. The weight of it is solid in my fingers, heavier than the cheap ballpoints I use at the boutique, and I pull a note card and a red envelope from the stacks. The paper is thick, textured, and unscented.
My hand stills over the paper.
I need to put this feeling somewhere because I can't suppress it, and it's too real to pretend it didn't happen. If I don't write it down and leave it in this room, I'm going to choke on it before the sun comes up.
I uncap the pen, set the nib against the paper, lift it, set it down again. My hand is shaking and the nib leaves a small dot of ink on the surface that bleeds outward in a tiny dark bloom.
"Just write it, Sloane."
I close my eyes. Pull a breath deep into my lungs. Open my eyes.
The scratch of the pen against thick paper and my own unsteady breathing are the only sounds in the room. I write fast because thinking too long will kill my nerve.
I wish the man who touched me tonight could be mine. He made me feel like I was more than a last name, more than my father's plans, more than invisible. I know I can't keep him. But I wish I could. I just needed someone to know this.
I pause.
I put the pen back on the paper and add one last thing.
-SW
A weight lifts from my chest. A tear lands on the red paper before I can catch it, hitting the wet ink and blurring the edges of my words. Then another falls, and another, dropping onto the paper in dark spots that soak through the fibers and warp the surface. I let it happen. The wish is a mess. I'm a mess. At least we match.
The letters slant harder than usual, my hand unsteady, the tail of the W trailing sideways. I press the pen down on the initials and hold it there until the period bleeds a dark circle into the paper.
SW. Sloane Whitmore. Two letters that will mean nothing to whoever reads this, just another wish from another woman who walked into Scarlet Thorn looking for a miracle she knew she couldn't keep.
Unless Massimo reads it. And then those two letters will mean everything.
Worth the risk?
I fold the paper, the crease soft and imprecise because my fingers are still trembling and the tears have made the paper tender. I bring the envelope to my lips and press them together against the seal, the faint taste of adhesive mixing with the ghost of his whiskey still on my mouth.
I hold it over the slot in the box. My fingers grip the edges and for one long second I don't let go. Dropping this wish means admitting I want him. Admitting I have wanted him for years. Admitting that tonight wasn't wine-fueled recklessness or a birthday mistake but the truest thing I have ever done, and I'mabout to leave the only proof of it in a velvet box in a room made of secrets.
I let go. The envelope hits the bottom with a soft thud that sounds final and ridiculous at the same time.
"There." I stare at the box, sniff hard, and wipe my nose with the back of my wrist because glamour is dead and I'm the one who killed it. "Happy birthday to me."
I grab my shoe and leave the wish room before anyone sees me cry any harder. The red door closes behind me with a quiet click and I retrace my steps down the dark corridor.
The service corridor carries me back down. The elevator drops me to the lobby and my bare feet cross cold marble one last time. Nobody stands behind the front desk, which means either someone is getting fired tomorrow or the universe decided I've suffered enough for one evening and threw me a bone. Either way, I'll take it.
The glass doors release me into Chicago. Cold predawn air bites into my bare arms and legs, raising every hair on my body, sinking past my skin and settling into my bones within seconds. The sky is gray-purple above the skyline, caught between night and dawn, and the city smells like exhaust and wet concrete.
A taxi idles at the curb with its roof light glowing.
I climb in. The vinyl seat is cold against my bare thighs and the cab smells like pine air freshener and an old pumpkin latte. I pull the door shut, give the driver my address, and lean my head back against the headrest.
