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Now We're Cooking

Author: Ali Parker
last update Last Updated: 2024-01-19 08:18:27

Sera

I fell back asleep after Killian left my room. It wasn’t surprising, considering I’d woken up that morning with a hellish hangover after getting only a few hours of sleep the night before. Then there was the fact that I’d spent my morning fighting with Killian, being pushed down the stairs by his mother, and then fucking him.

So, when I got out of bed hours later, it was nearly dark. My body groaned in protest as I dragged myself to the bathroom and showered. Dark bruises dotted my back and the side of my face. I inspected them in the mirror, and I knew if I compared the spaces between the bruises, they would match the marble stairs I’d fallen down.

I’d cheated death a few times over the last several weeks, but then, I was living with death incarnate.

I dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweater. A knock sounded on my door just as I finished putting on my socks.

“Come in,” I sang, expecting Olivia with a dinner tray, but Mikey stood nervously in my doorway. My eyes widened as I tri
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  • Taken by the Mafia King   Longing For an Old Life

    SeraThe curtains were open, mid-morning sun blinding me as I blinked against it. Beyond the frost-covered windows, I saw what I believed to be snow. I hauled myself out of bed and rushed to the window, looking out over the dark gray morning landscape. Soft tufts of white fell from the sky, not enough to stick but enough to cause a flurry of excitement to swell in my chest.Immediately, my mind went to my students. They’d be so excited. Even middle school students loved a good snow. I should have been excitedly talking about the first snowfall of the season with the kids, but reality crushed into me with a weight I hadn’t been prepared for.I was missing it. They were out there with someone else. Their faces flashed before my eyes, and that ache in my chest I’d been feeling off and on since I’d arrived came back with a vengeance.Would I spend Christmas here in a few months? Thanksgiving?I found it hard to swallow as I backed away from the window and hugged myself tight. How I longed

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  • Taken by the Mafia King   Checking Up

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  • Taken by the Mafia King   Humdrum Excitement

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  • Taken by the Mafia King   Beginning of Forever

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  • Taken by the Mafia King   The Only Ones

    PaigeI sat across from Tom in an empty, stunning restaurant in the middle of the Eiffel Tower with my head spinning like the three sips of wine I’d had with the appetizer were enough to make me drunk. He’d really rented out the Eiffel Tower. And not one floor, the whole thing. We’d ridden an empty elevator, the two-Michelin-star chef kept coming out to tell us why he’d selected particular dishes based on the information Tom had given him about our preferences, and I couldn’t hear anything but the soft classical music over the speakers. It felt like a dream.Tom took my hand. “So?”“So what?” I asked.“Was the surprise worth it?” He grinned.I looked over his suit, a forest green that brought out his eyes, worn without a tie. His dark curls tumbled into his face. I’d never seen him look so perfectly put together and so casual. He looked…well, he looked exactly like the man I’d fallen in love with. Nothing like the one who’d scared me so badly all those months ago in Cairo.“I get the

  • Taken by the Mafia King   Peace Time

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