The woman spoke low, almost in a whisper.Shyness, I thought with extreme clarity. She was shy, but even more, she was hesitant. Guido glanced at me and then back at the woman.
Brando Fausti. Baby. Used all her money to get here. New York.
“What did you say?” I almost choked on my words.
She used her hands when she spoke, bringing them up and down on the handle of the stroller, but only a few words were still making it over the loud pounding of my heart.
“Wait!” The tone of my voice stopped her cold.
“Ah, Scarlett,” Guido said, interrupting. “What are you saying?”
Oh, I was speaking in Slovenian. Before I could inquire any further, Brando appeared from the hallway, smelling fresh and clean, his hair swept back, eyes narrowed on the newcomer at our door. He had bothered to put on sweatpants but nothing else. Droplets of water ran down his chest—the chest that I started to pummel with my fists.
It was as if a terrible explosion had erupted inside of me, and the fragments of it were aimed at him. Unexpected as it was, he stumbled back a pace before he wrapped his hands around my wrists, stopping me.
The woman had been quiet before, too effing quiet, but she erupted, too. The baby in the stroller wailed.
“Yours!” I screamed at him, almost hoarse. “She came here to bring youyourbaby!”
Two voices erupted at once, all saying different things in different languages, but I was too far gone at that point to give a fuck.
Brando turned us until my back was pressed against the wall, his eyes as hot as coals. He had an iron grip on my wrists, and I was pinned, nowhere to go. His jaw ticked, his muscles were tight and coiled, and his hands trembled.
“Listento me,” he said so low that it almost came out as a hiss. “Stop. Now.”
“Oh, I’m going tostopall right,” I hissed back.
He wanted to shake me, to hurt me, but he would never. I knew that much. He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, dragon fire blowing in my direction.
“Do you have ears, woman?” he said in Italian.
“Big enough, or so I’veheard,” I said, almost mocking.
“You want to believe that. You’ve been waiting for this. All these years.”
“Terrified of it,” I shot back. “I wasn’t wrong, was I?”
He let me go, suddenly releasing me from the pressure.Whoosh.I almost fell over. Turning his back on me, he disappeared again, into our room.
“Ah, Scarlett.” Guido touched my shoulder. He wasn’t being tentative either. These men were trained for war. “You should listen to Claudia.”
“Claudia?”
He nodded toward the woman. She was still out on the porch, bouncing the baby in her arms, biting her lip.
“I’m not here for Brando Fausti,” she said, much louder this time. “I was told this was his home, the one he shared with his wife. That’s all. I came here to speak to Violet Lewis. Nicole does not belong to that man. She belongs to Mick Lewis. I came here from New York. I apologize for any—”
A hand touched my shoulder. “Come in,” Violet said to Claudia. “We can talk in the kitchen. Give me a minute to get my children.”
Claudia nodded, setting Nicole back in the stroller and rolling her inside. Claudia nodded at me but said nothing else. Her eyes grew wide as she noticed Brando, his chest covered in a hoodie, the hood of it over his head.
He looked murderous. Eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring, the veins below his skin swollen probably from his blood pressure. Though I knew I was imagining things, I could’ve sworn his heart beat so hard against his chest that it made the fabric move.
He was leaving.
“Brando—” I went to reach out for him, but he blew right past me. Stuffing my feet into a pair of rubber boots, I shot out after him, nearly missing him.
We stood in the middle of the street staring at each other. He said nothing. I said nothing.
