CHAPTER 5
the spawn of satan
Rosie
“Good evening, Miss Garcia.” My parent’s latest maid answers the door to their New York penthouse. I smile politely, taking a deep breath to steel my nerves as I enter.I am a boss bitch and I take shit from no one.
I’m a boss, I take shit from no one.
I’m the baddest bitch. I’ve got this.
I pump myself up, rolling my shoulders and neck to loosen the tension headache forming in my head. I have nothing to sweat. Another appeasing dinner to keep the parentals happy. Plus, there are other ways I can fuck with them while still being the obedient daughter. My parents have always known I have an unfiltered mouth, this won’t be news to them.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” The sound of that gravelly voice makes my skin crawl and heat with rage.
Boss bitch. Boss bitch,I internally chant and try my best to hide my cringe. Spinning to greet our guest, I plaster on my fakest smile and head in his direction, stopping long enough to pat him on the shoulder. “Hey, Mickey, catch any STDsrecently?” I smile sweetly at the way his sneer gives way to the nerve I hit, with both the nickname and calling him out on his inability to keep his dick in his pants at every strip club in the city.
“Why are you always a brat,” he growls.
“Maybe because you’re always a cu?—”
“Rosita.” My father makes his grand entrance at the perfect time and cuts off the insult I was dying to finish. Mickey—because I refuse to use his real name and acknowledge him as a real person—smiles maliciously, deceiving everyone around him. But I know who he is to his core. That’s what happens when you grow up surrounded by Satan’s helpers.
“Padré.” I greet my father with a polite nod and he returns the same.
“Your mother is asking for you in the kitchen.”
Doubtful, that’s his way of telling me to make myself scarce, to leave men to discuss the important things. I drop my smile as I walk past the devil and head in the direction of the kitchen. On the way down the hall, I stop long enough to make sure no one is watching and swipe a stack of coasters from the table lining the hall.
“Hola, Mama,” I greet as I enter. Of course, my mother wouldn’t be caught dead slaving away over a stove, instead she sits at a cute table by the window with a glass of wine, looking out over the city. The kitchen is less of a domestic kitchen and more of a chef’s kitchen, which is currently staffed with two chefs in preparation for tonight’s dinner.
“Hola, Rosita.” She sighs as I make my way to a cupboard for a glass, replacing it with the stack of coasters, and join her at the table. It’s always weird having these little moments with the woman who birthed me. They are increasingly rare, perhaps a few times a year. Despite the fact she provided half my DNA, I don’t really have a whole lot to do with her.
“You ready for tonight?” she asks, nursing her wine. I take a seat and pour my own glass.
“What’s another dinner withPadrébeing overbearing. Nothing I’m not used to,” I respond, masking my frustration with sarcasm.
“One of these days, Rosita, you’re going to need to drop the attitude and grow up. No man of a good family is going to want a wife who doesn’t know when to keep her mouth closed.” My mother delivers the sharp words like a slap, except my tenderness toward her all but died when I was a kid, so they barely scratch the surface.
“Good thing I wasn’t planning on taking a husband,” I mutter while downing the entire glass of wine and pouring another one.
“I don’t know where I went wrong in raising you.” She leans forward on the table and I omit the retort that she hadn’t raised me at all. She sends me an intense look, her large brown eyes—my eyes—glaring back at me. “Why can’t you be the good, amenable wife? I don’t understand why you fight it when it could just make your life easier.” I know she continues to belittle me in the hopes I’ll submit, but the thing is, she doesn’t know me at all. Hasn’t the slightest idea that the armor surrounding me is impenetrable.
“Because,mother, you are utterly delusional if you think being traded like a commodity is any way to live a life. If you said you were happy, I’d laugh in your face. I don’t aspire to be miserable and pathetic like you for the rest of my life. Also, thanks”—I down the rest of my wine, finishing with a smile—“for the verbal lashing, I feel inspired for thisamazingdinner party we’re about to have.” I grin with as much feigned sincerity as I can and revel in the beet-red color that breaks out across her face. As I head for the door to the kitchen, I discreetly swipe a salad server, holding it against my forearm, when I hear a chair scrape and the clip of my mother’s heels as she storms in mydirection. My heart rate picks up and I try to make it to the door in time, but she reaches me first, a grip on my arm. She spins me and has her face in mine.
“If you make this dinner hell for me, you will regret it,” she says under her breath, nothing but hatred in her stare.
“Why do you stay with him when you so clearly despise him?”I spit at her as I yank my arm from her grasp.
“What other option do I have?” she spits, straightening her posture, and that cool Garcia façade slips right back into place.
“Uh, to leave him?” I raise a brow, crossing my arms over my chest and trying to work out when this woman decided to let a man control her entire life. But then I’m really not that different from her, am I? We’re both stuck under the very same man.
“He is a husband, Rosita. I am the wife.” She flattens her dress and tucks her hair. “In your effort to ruin your own life, leave me out of it.” She pushes past me and into the main dining area.
I forced a sharp breath through my nose, resisting the urge to say something that would be regrettable, and instead, I mutter to myself, “Welcome home, Rosita.”
“Mr. Castillo,” I greet with a feminine handshake and a little bow of my head in respect. I am the good daughter, after all. “Lovely to see you again.”
