“She’s Just Bed Practice,” The Mafia Heir Smirked—Unaware The Curvy Girl Understood Italian…

PART 1

PART 1

“She’s just bed practice,” Ethan Luciano said in Italian, laughing while his arm was still around my waist. “By Monday, she’ll be back begging.”

I stared at the graduation gown hanging from his closet door and listened to the boy I had loved for ten years explain why I meant nothing.

The night before, after our senior picnic, Ethan had whispered every promise I wanted.

He said we would go to college together.

He said he would marry me someday.

He said once he inherited the Luciano empire, nobody would make me feel like a foster kid again.

I believed him.

That was the embarrassing part.

Morning light striped the room. It smelled like cologne, cold pizza, and burnt coffee. My graduation heels lay beside my dress.

Then my foster brother, Lucas Seville, leaned against the doorway and switched to Italian.

“So?” Lucas asked, grinning. “How was my little sister?”

Ethan chuckled.

“Sweet face. Better body than I expected.”

Lucas laughed harder.

I didn’t move.

They thought I only spoke English.

They didn’t know I had spent two years learning Italian from podcasts and an elderly woman at Saint Michael’s Church. I had imagined surprising his family at Thanksgiving.

Instead, I understood every word of my own humiliation.

Lucas asked if he should start calling me his future sister-in-law.

Ethan’s hand tightened around my waist, almost tenderly.

Then he sighed.

“Cynthia is safe,” he said. “She’s been following me since we were kids. Sylvia Dawson is the one I actually want. But I wasn’t going to show up clueless with the cheer captain.”

Lucas whistled.

“So Cynthia was practice.”

“Exactly.”

A truck groaned down the street outside. Somewhere downstairs, a spoon hit the kitchen tile.

Inside me, something went completely quiet.

I didn’t scream.

I didn’t slap him.

I didn’t give either of them the satisfaction of watching me break.

I slipped out from under Ethan’s arm and said I needed the bathroom.

Ethan barely looked up.

“Don’t take forever. I have plans.”

I locked myself in the guest bathroom. A damp towel hung beside toothpaste stains and a brown ring under a shaving mug.

My phone buzzed.

Ethan.

Can’t take you to prom tonight. Something came up. Don’t make it dramatic.

A second message followed.

And get the morning-after pill. I forgot protection. Handle it.

That was it.

No apology. Just an order, like I was one more problem his family could pay to remove.

I pressed my fist against my mouth until the shaking stopped.

Then I opened the voice-memo app.

I had accidentally started recording twenty minutes earlier when I reached for my phone in the sheets. The red timer was still moving.

Their Italian conversation was there.

Every laugh.

Every insult.

Every word.

I saved the file under a boring name: Chemistry Notes.

Then I washed my face, fixed my hair, and walked out.

Ethan was buttoning his shirt.

He smiled at me like nothing had happened.

“See you after graduation, Cyn.”

I looked at him for one long second.

He mistook my silence for devotion.

That mistake would cost him more than he knew.

I still thought the worst thing he could steal was my dignity. I had not looked inside my mother’s fireproof box yet.

At noon, I crossed the stage in Bellweather High’s stadium. The band missed half its notes. An American flag snapped above the scoreboard. Diane cried when they called my name.

Lucas cheered louder than anyone.

I almost laughed.

Afterward, families crowded the parking lot with balloons and grocery-store flowers. Ethan found me near our SUV.

He kissed my forehead.

Not my mouth.

Never my mouth.

“Be ready at seven,” he said. “I might stop by after my other plans.”

I watched him walk away in his navy suit, confident that I would remain exactly where he left me.

At seven-thirty, I was sitting on my bedroom floor in sweatpants when my best friend Ava video-called.

“Cynthia,” she said, breathing hard over the music. “You need to see this.”

She turned her camera.

Ethan stood beneath silver balloons in the school gym with Sylvia Dawson wrapped around his neck. He kissed her like he had been starving.

The crowd screamed.

My stomach folded in on itself.

The night before, when I had tried to kiss him, he had turned his face away.

“I hate kissing,” he had murmured. “It’s gross.”

Apparently, he only hated kissing me.

Ava turned the camera back.

“I’m coming over.”

“No.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

I looked at the laptop on my desk.

For years, I had planned my future around Ethan. He had average grades and a guaranteed place at Caltech through a donor connection. I had an early application ready there because he once said he didn’t want us separated.

MIT had been my dream.

Caltech had been my compromise.

I opened the admissions portal.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Ava watched me through the screen.

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

I withdrew my Caltech application.

Then I completed the final MIT submission I had been too afraid to send.

When the confirmation page appeared, I felt something crack open in my chest.

Not grief.

Space.

At 11:48 p.m., Ethan texted.

You awake?

Then:

Don’t sulk. Sylvia needed a date.

Then:

Good night, troublemaker.

For ten years, we had never gone to sleep without saying good night.

I turned off read receipts.

I blocked his number.

Downstairs, the refrigerator clicked on. A police siren faded beyond Main Street.

I replayed the Italian recording once.

Ethan’s laugh filled my room.

“She’ll be back begging.”

I transferred the file to a flash drive, sealed it inside an envelope, and wrote one sentence across the front.

For the day he lies.