Chapter Sixteen

MAXIMO

A gruff curse escaped my lips as I stood up from my bed. I've been tossing and turning on my bed, unable to sleep. I need a smoke.

Opening my nightstand drawer, I took out a packet of cigarettes and the lighter beside it. I slipped out a stick and lit it, before dropping the lighter back in the nightstand drawer with the rest of the pack.

"Cazzo,” I cursed again as I tried to disperse the thick smoke that filled my room from the lit stick. For some odd reason, the smoke felt suffocating.

Standing up, I walked to my balcony to get some fresh night air. I stood there and took a deep huff from my cigarettes.

If Mama saw me right now, she would lose her mind. She hated that Papa smoked. She would tell him that he would die of cancer or suffer a terrible disease that would leave him frail and weak. The first and only day she saw me smoking a cigar I’d stolen from Papa’s office, she cursed me out loud and told me that I would become one of the sbandato who stood on the road and be