The Mafia Princess

Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Roommate Listing

Alexa pov

My phone buzzed against my stomach, and I almost threw it across the room before I remembered throwing anything in my room meant possibly breaking the last decent thing I owned.

I cracked one eye open.

The screen glared back at me with three notifications stacked on top of each other. One from my bank, one from the housing office, and one from Sienna.

None of them could possibly be good.

My ceiling had a water stain shaped like Florida, my pillow smelled faintly like the coconut oil I kept forgetting to put the cap back on, and there was an arm hooked around my waist that did not belong to anyone who was going to help me pay rent.

"Mm," Naomi mumbled behind me, pressing her face into the back of my shoulder. "Stop moving."

"I'm not moving."

"You're breathing stressed."

I stared at the phone again. "That's not a thing."

"It is when you do it."

Her fingers slid a little under the hem of my tank top, warm against my skin, lazy like she had all the time in the world and none of the problems. That was the difference between me and Naomi. She lived like nothing could touch her because most things couldn't. Her parents paid for her apartment. Her car was new. Her groceries came from stores where one carton of strawberries cost nine dollars and everyone pretended that was normal.

I lived like every bill had teeth.

I tapped the bank notification first because I liked ruining my own morning in order.

Balance: $42.17.

I closed my eyes.

Naomi's lips brushed the back of my neck, soft and half-asleep. "Don't make that face."

"You can't even see my face."

"I can feel it."

I opened the housing email next.

Dear Alexa Barnett,

Due to your outstanding balance and missed deadline for housing renewal, your campus housing assignment has been released. Please contact Student Accounts regarding payment options. We understand this may be a stressful time—

I stopped reading.

My body went hot, then cold, then weirdly empty, like my insides had stepped away from me for a second. I read the first line again because maybe I had misunderstood it. Maybe released meant something else. Maybe it meant paused. Maybe it meant held. Maybe it meant anything other than what my brain already knew it meant.

Released.

My dorm was gone.

Not my dorm exactly, because it was a room the size of a closet with cinderblock walls and a heater that clicked all night like it had secrets, but it had been mine. It had been a place where my stuff could sit without being shoved into trash bags. It had been a key in my pocket. It had been one door between me and the entire world.

Now it was gone because I couldn't make money stretch past what money was supposed to stretch past.

"Lex?" Naomi's voice was clearer now.

I sat up too fast, her arm sliding off me. The sheet pooled around my lap. My curls fell loose from the messy bun I had shoved them into before we got distracted last night, thick dark strands falling into my face and sticking near my mouth. I pushed them back and tried to breathe like a normal person instead of someone standing on the edge of her own life watching pieces drop.