Cora’s just ending her call as I walk back in. She takes one look at my expression and frowns. “I think my news was better than yours. Is everything okay?”
“Just typical bad guy stuff,” I said, swiftly getting dressed. “I’ll probably be late tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I was thinking I could cook tonight? Maybe give me a heads-up when you have an idea of what your day looks like.”
It’s just the mundane conversation of a husband and a wife, but it makes me forget my fury for a moment. Marriage was never something I’d thought much about, I always assumed I would end up in an arranged union. But these exchanges with Cora give me a satisfaction I never expected.
Cupping her face in my hands, I kiss her tenderly. “What was your call about?”
“Marietta wants me to come down to a cake shop and do some taste-testing, just us and maybe Kelli, so I don’t have to endure two hours of disapproval from my mother,” she said.
“Hiring Marietta is clearly one of my better ideas,” I said, kissing her again. “I hate that I have to handle business when I have my luscious wife right here within my grasp.”
Her eyes narrow, getting a faintly feral look. “Well, maybe tonight you might have to work to get me in your grasp. It’s a very big penthouse.”
“Fuck,” I groan, “you’re making me hard.”
“Go!” Cora’s laughing, backing away from me. “Go! I’ll see you tonight.”
“Oh yes, you will baby,” I promise, backing away. She’s half-dressed in a black lacy thing with her hair piled on top of her head, curls sprouting out from the steam in the shower. She looks happy. Genuinely happy.
It’s six hours later, as I’m still searching for our warehouse arsonist and dealing with the news that the Boston Health Department shut down our most profitable restaurant for ‘health violations,’ when I get a call from Mattia’s number.
“This better be important,” I snapped.
Kelli’s voice blares out of the speaker, hysterical and crying. “She took her! She took Cora and Mattia is shot and I called 911 and oh, fuck she took her!”
“Slow down,” my breath is lodged in my throat. “Who took Cora?”
“It was Marietta!” Kelli sobbed. “She was going to shoot me if Mattia tried to stop her and Cora just walked out with her so she wouldn’t kill me but then the bitch turned around and shot Mattia! What should I do?”
“You’re doing exactly what you should be doing,” I said, trying to reassure her. “Tell the paramedics you’d gone to the bathroom and you don’t know what happened. Don’t mention Cora and Marietta. Go with him to the hospital. Do not say anything else, I will be there within ten minutes.”
“She shot him,” she wept, “like it was nothing. Her face never even changed expression.”
I run a hand over my eyes. Cora. She took my wife. “I’ll be right there, Kelli. You stay strong, yes? It will be all right. You can do this.”
Handing the phone off to Carlo, I said, “Get everyone we have scouring the area around Emily’s Cakes, Marietta kidnapped Cora.”
His mouth dropped open. “Marietta? You have got to be fucking kidding.”
“No,” I said, fists tightening until I could hear my muscles creak. “She took my Cora.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
In which Cora is kidnapped. Again. This is number four if you're counting.
Cora…
I wake up in the back of a car.
Not in the back, in the trunk. My hands and feet are wrapped tightly with zip-ties and this shit needs to stop happening to me. Squinting in the feeble light coming through the cracks of the trunk lid, I tried to think through the brutal headache left by that bitch cracking me on the back of the head with her gun. Marietta’s speed and expertise make me think it’s not the first time she’s done that.
Earlier...
Kelli and I met up with her at the bakery, a cute little place by the Wharf District. When we walked into Emily’s Cakes, I looked around, breathing in all the wonderful scents of sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. “Everything here is so pretty!” I said, admiring the delicate stacks of petit fours in lovely shades of lavender and pink. “Where’s the owner?”
“Oh,” Marietta was rapidly texting, her fingers moving like lightning. “She had to run out for some caramel syrup, but she left all the starter cakes out for us to sample. Sorry,” she looked up with a quick smile, “just trying to make sure we got the right shipment of tequila for Deconstructed this time.”
