“Is it always going to feel like I’m going to have a heart attack?” I asked.
She chuckled. “Yes. Shooting and possibly killing people isn’t necessarily knitting. That kind of thing is always going to affect you. Unless you’re insane.”
“Thanks for doing this,” I said. “I know you didn’t want to.”
“It turned out to be more fun than I thought.”
After I’d gone to Merrick about Milli, I found myself more than a little sketched out. After spending all of the next day constantly looking over my shoulder and feeling like I was being followed around the house, I wanted to take my training with Tamryn to the next level and see how I would do in an actual situation. She procured some rubber bullets that would still hurt if they hit me because, in her words, “Only bullets that actually hurt would teach the lesson,” and then we went into the woods for a training session where I put everything I’d learned to work. Even though she leaned more in Gio’s direction in terms of keeping me in low-risk situations until my body was fully healed, after I’d puked both yesterday morning and this morning from the stress, she decided to fold and help me out.
“So, are you going to tell me what has you so much more freaked out?” she asked. “Or am I going to have to tell you that I already know?”
I stood up straight and looked at her with a fallen jaw. “You know?”
“Merrick told me. Merrick tells me everything,” she said. “You’re suspicious of Milli.”
“Some of the things in that conversation with my brothers just didn’t sit right with me, and it felt like they knew stuff that they’d only know if someone from here was telling them,” I said.
“I’ve never liked him. Even when he was working for Merrick, or my father, his relationships with them were always a little unsettling to me. It always felt like he was trying to benefit from them. I didn’t like it.”
“Do you think he’s doing that with Gio too?” I asked.
“Well, I’ll tell you something that I don’t think even Giovanni knows. Merrick had made Milli the benefactor of his empire should anything happen to him. He knew I wouldn’t want to do it alone, and told Milli if anything happened to him, he wanted him to step into his seat and run the Raines family empire. Milli was, of course, happy to do it, but then when Merrick and I adopted Giovanni, that changed. Merrick turned everything over to Giovanni instead, including his contract with Milli.”
“I’ve heard a version of that story from Milli, but he certainly didn’t tell it in the dark way that you just did,” I said.
“Merrick told me he could think of one reason why Milli would do this, and I bet that’s it, but it doesn’t quite make sense why he would wait until now to act, nor why he would use the Narzand brothers to do something he’d be completely capable of doing on his own.”
“Soyoubelieve me?” I said.
“If anyone had stopped to tell me Gio suspected we had a mole, he would have been my first guess. But no one takes me seriously around here. I’m just a pretty woman who can wield a gun.”
That confirmed that I was right not to use Tamryn’s help for this task. “Well I’m gladsomeonebelieves me.”
“He may not want to admit you’re right because he’s a petty man, but I think Merrick believes you as well. He’s just going to need something a little more ironclad before he’s willing to act on it.”
It seemed Merrick had filled Tamryn mostly in, but I doubted he told her about our ‘deal.’ She’d likely never go for it if he legitimately tried to hurt me, especially not when she thought Milli was shady too. But then again, maybe he didn’t tell her because he already knew that it was a deal in which I’d come out on top.
“Well thanks again,” I said. “I told Gio I’d check in when we were done so he could see for himself that I’m safe, so…”
“Yeah. You go. I’m going to take a nap. It’s been a long time since I’ve done all that. I’m tired. Young people have it so easy.”
Tamryn and I went our separate ways and after a quick shower to clean myself up, I went and found Gio in his office. Milli was just coming out as I was walking in, and though we exchanged a smile he didn’t say anything to me at first. Just as I was nearly in the office and he was out, he stopped and looked back at me.
“I’m sorry about your father,” he said, with a hint of genuity in his voice.
“Thank you,” I replied, and then he continued off.
I shut the doors to Gio’s office and then looked at him. “You didn’t tell him?”
“No, of course not. I told you I wouldn’t.”
I smiled although I was weirded out. “Thank you.”
He nodded a little, although curtly, like he was upset. “Yeah. Did you need something?”
That took me aback a little. “Oh, um, no. I just finished training with Tamryn.” I held my arms out on either side of me. “I’m still in one piece,andI won.”
“You won?” He seemed truly surprised.
