Chapter 4 Experiment

Kat POV

I collapsed into bed beside Giulia, utterly exhausted from the day of picking pockets in one of my favourite tourist spots.

"What a day," I groaned, knowing that I needed to go and bathe but I just didn't have the energy to do so.

Giulia nodded sadly, waves of depression seeming to waft from her general direction.

"What's wrong?" I asked, sitting up abruptly to look my friend directly in her eyes.

She sniffed and seemed downright pathetic as she said softly, "I can't see Fabio for the next few weeks. His boss has just come into town and he's in one hell of a mood."

Enzo Castello, Boss of the Castello family, and the Dark Prince. Even his name sounded as vicious as his reputation.

"He took over from his older brother as the Boss a few years ago," Giulia whispered to me as we lay in our shared bed, "but no one really knows the reason why his brother gave up the position. Fabio did say that it happened shortly after Enzo went missing for a period of time and came back horribly disfigured."

Horribly disfigured? I wouldn't say the scar across his face qualified him as being horribly disfigured, but I didn't see his whole body so maybe he was disfigured in other places.

"Oh gosh, is he disfigured... down there?" I asked her, my eyes wide.

Giulia shrugged, "who knows. Fabio said that he was a jovial guy before he disappeared, but now he's apparently angry all the time. So maybe he is, and that is the reason he is walking around with a cloud over his head. The poor man."

I smacked Giulia lightly with the back of my hand. "We're not meant to feel sorry for the Castello. He's an enemy!"

Giulia bit her lower lip as if she were trying to not say something that was on her mind.

"What?" I probed, but she merely shook her head and turned around to face away from me.

"Go to sleep, Kat. It's late and you have to be up early to have Franky escort you to your spot," she yawned, but I suspected that she was putting it on.

I grumbled under my breath and punched my pillow before settling down.

A familiar sensation gnawed at the pit of my stomach and fought off the feeling of needing to run. I took the pendant which hung on a necklace around my neck into my hand and squeezed it tight as I fought against the claustrophobic feeling.

Just a few more months and I would be able to afford my own "blood price" - the money I owed Mother for keeping me clothed and fed for the past four years. I already had a plan of how I would do it - I would leave the money in an envelope on Mother's kitchen table and run as far and fast as I could until I was out of her cousin's territory. I would then make my way out of Italy, maybe I'd head to Spain or even Greece. I heard it was nice there.

I had tried to convince Giulia to come with me, but she had refused the last time I had told her of my plans. "You're an asset, Kat. Mother will fight to have you remain under her control as her associate."

I would hate to leave Giulia behind, but I couldn't stay. I felt as if I were caged, and I hated the feeling more than anything I had ever experienced. More than anything except the feeling of drowning - even if it was just in my dreams.

And I guess having the run in with the Castello was the last straw.

I lightly pressed my fingertips to my mouth with the memory of his lips touching my own. He had ignited something inside of me, and I felt desperate to experience the feeling again. I fell asleep yearning, and woke up with a determination to feel the same way again.

Although there was no way in hell I was going to track Enzo Castello down to see if another kiss from him would result in the same feeling.

I dressed quickly and silently, leaving the kids and Giulia fast asleep as I snuck out of the bedroom. Franky was already waiting for me in the alley beside the house, whistling a tune from one of the operas that was currently on show at the Opera theatre.

"You ready?" he asked, pushing up from the wall where he had been leaning. "I've just got to stop by the bakery at the corner and collect something." He winked at me and I knew that it was pizzo - protection money.

Like me, Franky was an associate of the Milano family. But unlike me, he was working hard to become a soldier, and that meant doing the dirty work whenever needed. Shaking down a bakery for pizzo was nothing to him.

With a sigh, I walked down the alley with him, listening to him chatter along.

"Franky," I said, halting in the middle of the road. He turned around, looking a bit confused at my sudden stop.

"What's up, Kat? Are you not feeling well?"

I shook my head, fighting the blush which threatened to spread across my cheeks. "Franky, can I ask you a favour?"

He frowned and dug his hands deep into his jeans pockets, "depends. What do you want?"

I breathed in deeply before I let my request out in a rush. "Can you kiss me?"

He looked surprised and I quickly rushed to clarify, "it's an experiment."

Franky looked confused before a knowing look spread across his face, "ah. I get it! You want to know if you're lesbian, right? Well, it makes sense why none of the boys have had any luck with you. But I would be honoured to give you your first kiss."

He bowed slightly before me, like a knight bowing before his Lady, and I didn't have the heart to correct him. I stood still as he puckered up and kissed me, his warm, wet lips pressing against mine.

There was no spark of passion, no yearning to feel his tongue against mine, no instinctual movement of my body against him. Nope. None.

"Anything?" he asked, almost hopefully as he pulled away.

I shook my head and he visibly deflated.

"Those gals out there are lucky to have you," he sighed before he tucked my arm in the crook of his and guided me toward the bakery. "But if you ever change your mind, I'm here."

I didn't correct him. I didn't dare. If anyone knew that I had kissed the Castello Boss and liked it - well, I wouldn't be a "friend" of the Milanos anymore. And that was a dangerous place to be considering the Castellos wouldn't be protecting me either.

Instead, I let him carry on believing that I was - according to his narrative - madly in love with Giulia and torn by the fact that she willingly sold her body to every man willing to pay her price.

But while Franky stormed into the bakery to get the pizzo money, my mind wandered back to Enzo Castello and I wondered what it would be like to spend the night with him.

I just worried that one night would never be enough.