Heat floods my face. "I never said I was sleeping with anyone."
"You didn't have to," Sarah says smugly. "You have that glow. Plus, your Instagram posts have gotten way less frequent and way more mysterious. Classic signs of being dickmatized."
"Sarah!"
"What? It's a scientific term." She laughs. "Anyway, we'll be there around dinner time. I hope you have wine because Jessica has been practicing her Italian on the flight attendants and it's horrifying."
"Ciao, bella!" Jessica calls out, butchering the pronunciation so badly it makes me wince.
The call ends before I can protest further, leaving me staring at my blank phone screen in absolute panic.
My friends are coming here. To my disaster house. To meet Enzo. Who they think is just a normal businessman instead of whatever the hell he is.
I start pacing around my small kitchen, mentally cataloging all the ways this could go catastrophically wrong.
First, there's the house itself. I've been posting carefully angled photos that make it look charming and rustic rather than structurally questionable and recently without electricity. Sarah and Jessica are expecting some kind of Tuscan villa situation, not a medieval ruin that I'm slowly making habitable.
Second, there's the village. Monte Vento is gorgeous, but it's also clearly poor and isolated. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone's business and strangers are noticed immediately. My friends are going to stick out like blinking neon signs.
Third, and most importantly, there's Enzo.
My friends are smart, observant women who've known me since college. They're going to take one look at him and immediately sense that something's off. The expensive clothes, the way people in the village react to him, the casual authority he carries. None of it's going to add up to being a normal local businessman.
And what if they witness something they shouldn't? What if one of his business meetings with thugs happens while they're here? What if they run into Emilio or his other men, who definitely don't look like tourism consultants?
I need to call Enzo. Right now.
But first, I need to figure out what to tell him. How do I explain that two of my closest friends just decided to surprise visit me without getting my approval first?
"Okay, Maddie," I say out loud to my empty kitchen. "Think this through logically."
The logical thing would be to call Sarah back and tell her not to come. Invent some emergency, claim I'm deathly sick with a contagious virus, something, anything.
But Sarah's been my best friend since freshman year of college, and she'd see right through any excuse I made. Plus, she's already bought plane tickets and made plans. She'd just show up anyway, probably more suspicious than before.
The other logical thing would be to tell them the truth about Enzo. Except I don't actually know what the truth is. Iknow he's potentially dangerous, I know his "business" involves violence, and I know he controls this village in ways that probably aren't entirely legal. But I don't know specifics, and I definitely don't know how to explain any of it in a way that won't make my friends either call the police or stage an intervention.
Which leaves option three: damage control.
I grab my phone and dial Enzo's number, my heart pounding with each ring.
"Madison," he answers, and I can hear the concern in his voice. "Is something wrong?"
"Enzo, we have a problem."
The warmth vanishes instantly. "Where are you?"
"My house. I'm fine. But my friends from America are coming to visit. They're flying into Catania this afternoon."
Silence. Then I hear him speaking rapid Italian to someone else, his voice sharp and commanding.
"How many?" he asks me.
"Two. Sarah and Jessica."
"Full names. Now."
The sudden coldness in his voice alarms me. "Sarah Phillips and Jessica Williams."
