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  Sucks to Be Me

  When 49-year-old Belladonna Barrone’s mobbed up husband does her the favor of dying in a car accident, she thinks she’s finally free of the crime family she unwittingly married into. Then the boss tells her that she has to complete her husband’s last job before that freedom is truly hers.

  No big deal, she figures. Until things go south in ways she never imagined. Suddenly she’s thrust into a whole new world that makes the mob look like kindergarten. Vampires and werewolves are real? How is that freaking possible?

  Her dreams of a new life disappear faster than wine at book club as more problems arise from her husband’s dark dealings and the unbelievable complications caused by her supernatural entanglements. Only her strength and determination (and some wild new friends) will see her through this next chapter, but the odds are against her.

  How much more can her life suck? She’s about to find out…

  Sucks to Be Me:

  A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel

  First Fangs Club, Book One

  Copyright © 2020 Kristen Painter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-1-941695-52-4

  Want to know when Kristen’s next book is coming out? Join her mailing list for release news, fun giveaways, insider scoop and more! NEWSLETTER.

  Table of Contents

  SUCKS TO BE ME

  About the Book

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  About the Author

  Other Books by Kristen Painter

  Many thanks to…

  Chapter One

  Twenty-seven years of being married to the mob had taught Belladonna Barrone a lot of things. Firstly, she hated the life. That one had come first and fast.

  Secondly, getting out meant being willing to risk your life. And possibly the life of a loved one.

  Thirdly, the police at your door was never a good thing, unless they were there to finally arrest your low-life, criminal husband.

  She opened the door, praying that was the case. She was bleary-eyed but awake from the knocking and the shock of seeing a couple of uniforms standing there. She rubbed at her eyes. “Evening, Officers.”

  “Evening, ma’am. Are you Mrs. Barrone?”

  “I am, and if you’re looking for Joe, he’s not here. Unfortunately, I have no idea where he is.”

  His arrest had been bound to happen sooner or later. She just wished it had been sooner. A lot sooner. In fact, she’d prayed for it.

  The officer closest to her, his solemn expression unchanging, was young and earnest. “Mrs. Barrone?”

  “Please, Donna is fine.” Unlike the rest of the Villachi family, she had no problem with police.

  “Yes, ma’am. Your husband was in a car accident this evening.”

  She hadn’t thought much about him not being home, even at one in the morning. Joe did what he wanted, when he wanted, and nothing she could ever say would change that. “Is he hurt? What hospital is he in?”

  The officer’s gaze looked past her just a little bit, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. “I’m sorry, ma’am. He didn’t make it.”

  She stared at the officers, the words rattling around in her head but failing to process. “He didn’t make what?”

  “He didn’t survive the crash.”

  A numbness came over her. “You mean…he’s dead.”

  The officer at the back nodded. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”

  She nodded, reaching out for the support of the doorframe. She’d imagined this, imagined how simple it would make things, but it had also seemed so cut and dried in her fantasies. The easy way out of this life. But now that it had actually happened, none of that felt true.

  Only a monster could be happy about a thing like this. And at worst, she considered herself a desperate woman. Or maybe she was a monster, because she wasn’t instantly overcome with grief. She wasn’t joyous either, though. Joe had been a good man once. Hadn’t he? At least she liked to think that.

  She took a breath. “Do you need me to…identify the body?”

  “No, ma’am. There was…” He cleared his throat and seemed to be searching for words.

  The second officer stepped up. “The vehicle was engulfed in flames for quite some time before we arrived on scene. We won’t have dental confirmation for a few days, but—”

  Her knees buckled at the awful image. The closest officer caught her elbow. “Can we call someone to come stay with you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’ll…I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  They nodded and left.

  She closed the door, then turned and pressed her back to it. Joe was gone. It was terrible. But it also wasn’t. She leaned against the door for a long while, waiting for tears, but they never came. Not for the man she’d been trying to escape for most of her married life.

  * Five days later *

  One funeral mass down, one graveside interment ceremony to go. Donna was just watching the clock now, counting down the seconds until she was completely and finally free, and really hoping she didn’t have a hot flash before the funeral ended.

  “Joseph Barrone was a good man…”

  She barely managed not to roll her eyes at that opening line. The priest had to know that wasn’t true, didn’t he? But then, she understood that Father Leonardo couldn’t very well tell the truth. Just like she couldn’t very well leave.

  This was her husband’s funeral, after all. Even if a man-sized lump of charcoal was the only thing in that box. Dental records had confirmed it was him.

  So until she could leave, she retreated into her head until it was over. In this crowd, it was the only truly safe place to be.

  She put her hands flat against her stomach, against the soft knit of her dress, and took a breath. She looked as good as could be expected today. That was something, she supposed. But then, it was hard to go wrong with classic black from Dolce & Gabbana. And she’d always looked great in black. But retaining this figure at age forty-nine? That took work, as any woman knew. Maintaining a size four was a full-time job. At least she imagined it was.

  After two kids, the best she could manage was an eight, and that was with Pilates, Saturday yoga at the park, jogging, some free weights, and general carb avoidance, which was hellaciously hard to do with the amount of pasta and
bread consumed in this community. Because of that, she also had to fast occasionally on top of the rest of the standard stuff. Beauty meant sacrifice and pain.

  And she wasn’t even including the other things. The more invasive things. The med spa things.

  She glanced at the other women in attendance at her husband’s funeral. They were all going through the same routine she was to stay in shape and hold on to their looks. Some with better results than others. It was expected of the wives. After all, none of them had jobs outside the home. And the assumption was that the better a woman looked, the better her husband must be doing.

  The Mafia was old-fashioned like that.

  So the women worked hard at being their best selves and looking as close to a million dollars as they could. Because, really, that was part of the job of a mob wife.

  All except for Lucinda Villachi, Joe’s sister. Donna was pretty sure Lucinda had never seen the inside of a Pilates studio and never would. At best, she’d had a few units of Botox. But not lately, that was for sure. Not with those major-league elevens furrowed like two freshly dug ditches between her under-groomed brows.

  But Lucinda wasn’t just Donna’s sister-in-law. She was also the wife of Big Tony, aka Anthony Villachi, the boss, and she lorded that over the rest of the wives with the kind of head-tilted, nose-in-the-air arrogance that spoke volumes about how she perceived herself. And where the other wives rated on her status scale.

  Whatever. Donna almost rolled her eyes again. She was done with this life, these people, this family-by-marriage. Done with these manufactured levels of respect. Done with these criminal men and their shady business. Done with all of it.

  And not just because her husband had died in a car accident. She’d already been planning to divorce him. His being burned beyond all recognition just saved her the paperwork.

  FBI agent Rico Medina wasn’t as pleased as she was about Joe’s demise, however, seeing as how she’d also been planning on turning state’s evidence and nailing this whole crew to the wall. But with Joe dead…she had second thoughts about becoming a key witness for the prosecution.

  Christina, her college junior daughter, sniffed and wrapped her arm around Donna’s. Donna patted Christina’s hand. Christina knew what was what. She’d flat out told her father it was time to go straight the last time they’d argued, which had barely been a month ago.

  On Donna’s left, Joe Jr. looked straight ahead with military precision, stoic and unblinking in the face of all this mortality. He’d gone into the Air Force because it was as far away from his father and the family as he could get. At least that’s what he’d told Donna, and she believed him.

  The kids were going to be fine. They’d figured out a long time ago their father was not a good man.

  But their presence underlined why she was reconsidering her agreement with the FBI.

  They were phenomenal kids. Christina was about to enter her last year of college, and Joe Jr. had just pinned on first lieutenant. Now that Joe was gone, Donna wasn’t about to go into WITSEC and leave them behind, which meant that if she still went through with providing the FBI with the kind of testimony necessary to take the Villachi family down, she would put herself—and the kids—in serious danger.

  Big Tony hadn’t gotten where he’d been by being the forgiving sort.

  Then again, if the main players of the Villachi syndicate were all behind bars, she figured her life expectancy would be better. She hoped, anyway. Plus, she planned to move out of Jersey and relocate to the Florida Panhandle.

  Joe Jr. was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, and she knew Christina wouldn’t have a problem visiting her mom at a beachfront condo. Donna would bleach her hair, change her name, and blend in. She’d also make sure her building had good security. With the life insurance money, she’d be able to afford it. Good thing, too, because her marketable skills were pretty minimal. But that wasn’t about to stop her.

  Like for everything else in life, she had a plan.

  What she hadn’t planned on was standing graveside for quite so long. Her Louboutins were killing her. Granted, they were beautiful shoes, and good shoes were part of the mob-wife uniform, but forty-nine-year-old feet had only so many hours of stiletto time in them.

  The priest droned on about what a loss Joe’s death was to the community, and she went back to checking out the other wives.

  Maria Zapatti was the only other woman besides Donna in a veil. It was a nice touch, and she appreciated it. But then, Maria tried harder. Her husband had only just been made, and she wanted to be liked. She looked up to Donna too. Or had. Now that Joe was gone, Maria might not care what Donna thought.

  Donna didn’t blame her. Joe could have helped Maria’s husband’s mobility in the family. Donna, not so much. Joe had been the second-in-command, after all.

  Teresa DePalma’s forehead looked especially smooth. And the crow’s-feet around her eyes were gone. A recent peel? Or she was upping her injectables. Good for her. Donna was doing only a little Botox between the brows at the moment, but she was fully prepared to go broader when it became necessary.

  Which was going to be very soon. Time was no friend to any of them.

  Just like she was no friend to any of these women. Sure, she was chummy on the surface, doing all the required things. Lunches, spin class, family dinners, shopping trips, the occasional girls’ weekend in Atlantic City, but she wasn’t that close to any of the wives on purpose. She wanted distance. Thankfully, after twenty-seven years, she was about to get some.

  Why had it taken so long?

  Lots of reasons. But why not start with the big one? Fear.

  She’d been six years into this marriage before she realized what was really going on. Call her naïve, but she’d actually believed her husband was in the construction business. Yes, she’d thought her brother-in-law was shady, but not her husband.

  Once she figured out that Joe was in as deep as Big Tony, fear set in. Especially when she started putting two and two together and understood that some of the people who moved away over the years didn’t really move away so much as they were done away with.

  These guys her husband associated with were real-life, flesh-and-blood bad guys. Gangsters. Mafioso. Killers when necessary. So was her husband. Now, she wasn’t sure he’d killed anyone. But her eyes had been opened a long time ago. Joe was an ambitious man. She had no problem believing he’d do whatever Big Tony told him to. Including murder.

  In those early days of revelation, the knowledge of who her husband really was made her skin crawl when she lay in bed next to him at night.

  Over time, she learned to compartmentalize some of that as a way of coping. But that didn’t mean she was any less disgusted by him. Or the entire Villachi crew.

  She swallowed and lifted her chin as the memories swamped her with old emotions. She was glad for her veil and the little bit of separation it gave her from those around her.

  Anyone who thought the mob was romantic was an idiot.

  So that was the answer. Fear. That was why she stayed with Joe. Not because she was afraid for her own life, but because she was afraid for her kids. What would happen to them? If she left with them, there was no way Joe wouldn’t hunt her down, hurt her, and take them back. Maybe he’d let her go with Christina, but Joe Jr.? Not a chance.

  And what if something happened to her? Accidentally or otherwise. Who would raise her kids? Some chirpy little trophy wife who thought life as a Soprano was super cool?

  Donna wasn’t going to lie. On the surface, things looked good because they were good. They had more money than they could spend. The kids wanted for nothing. Still didn’t. Her closet looked like a Neiman’s pop-up event. They had the big house, the flashy cars, and a weird kind of respect from the rest of the community, which treated them like benevolent dictators. For example, they never waited for a table at a local restaurant. She called for a hair or nail or spa appointment and always got one at the exact time she wanted it.

  And t
hey got a lot of stuff gratis. Gifts for no reason other than to curry favor with Joe. Flowers sometimes. But food, mostly. Turkeys and hams at Christmas and Easter, always. But then all throughout the year, things arrived. Imported sausages. Boxes of Italian cookies and pastries. Cases of wine. Once, a six-month lease on a Land Rover, which Joe sent back because he thought the car might be bugged. Another time, handblown wineglasses with the initial B etched on them. Even a basket of toys, treats, and catnip for Lucky, their cat.

  But none of the reverence and graft erased the dirty underbelly of who her husband was or what he was involved with. If anything, it just made the depths of his involvement that much clearer.

  At first, she didn’t ask questions. She didn’t want to know more than she’d already figured out. Not knowing felt safer somehow. Head-in-the-sand syndrome, she guessed.

  Then she’d shaken the sand out of her ears and decided she needed some kind of protection.

  Some kind of exit strategy.

  She didn’t want to be married to the mob. Her hand went to the crucifix she always wore, a gift from her sister’s trip to the Vatican. Donna was a good Catholic girl who knew the difference between right and wrong.

  Heaven and hell.