I turned to the side and blinked at the reflection in the mirror.
No wonder my husband didn’t want to attempt sex in the back of the car. He was probably worried that I’d deflate like a hot air balloon with one rough touch.
The scent of cookies wafted underneath my nose again. I grabbed the matching robe and slipped it over my shoulders, but I was too hungry to bother fastening the belt.
My feet padded against the floor, navigating through the darkened house like a mouse on the hunt for a crumb. Light poured out of Brando’s office. I stopped at the sound of his voice, clutching the cross around my neck.
His words flew out in rapid, perfect Italian, but he was keeping his voice down. If I had to guess, he was speaking to Rocco.
Brando mentioned what I had told him before we told Maggie Beautiful—that Luca wanted me to tell her that he’d see her soon. I’d also told him what his father had said to me, about killing the sheriff’s wife on purpose. None of us had a clue as to why. Killing children and women was strictly against their rules, usually.
I had had unnerving dreams of Luca Fausti ever since our meeting. He would hand me a pink rose and then lean in to kiss me, his other hand always reaching out to touch my swollen stomach. I’d try to move, but as it goes in dreams, my limbs would take on lead, and my feet were rooted to the spot.
A loud pound came from the room that made me flinch. Brando’s fist came down on the wood, and it sounded like he cracked something. “Stay put,” he said in Italian. “You’re not driving here. We’ll see you in Rome tomorrow.”
As curious as I was, those damn cookies were calling my name. Whatever was happening, a few minutes to spare for a bite or two wouldn’t make a difference. I had to feed Pastini. Priorities, you know.
If I was being honest, I was using the baby as an excuse to eat, but the hunger came from a place I had never met before. I was lucky if an hour went by and the thought of food didn’t go swimming through my thoughts. I had become an avid fisherwoman. In all fairness, it was as though the baby was the driving force behind it. Who was I to deny her?
An almost eerie feeling came over me as I entered the empty kitchen. Where were all the men I had seen earlier? Perhaps I had been imagining it? I shrugged off the thought, going for the cookie jar, eating one as I poured a glass of cold milk.
Jet hurried into the kitchen, as did Ruby. Even animals had the feral instinct to run to food when it was offered. And neither one of them were eating for two.
Ooh, grapes. I took out a bunch of those, too. I wondered if they would be good dipped in milk? Even Ruby seemed to turn her regal snout up at that.
“Hush,” I said to her. “You can’t have grapes anyway.”
I laughed to myself, going to the cabinet to get her a bone and Jet some kitty treats. Before I could get either one, Ruby’s ears pricked, and she came to stand in front of me, growling low in her throat. Her hackles stood in a long, thick patch on her back. There were very few things in this world more threatening than a Doberman on the defensive.
Ruby turned out to be sneaky. She rarely barked, but she would hide on the side of the house, or in places you’d never dream to look, and as soon as the stranger approached, she’d lunge, pinning him or her to the side of the house, her lips in a snarl, teeth a snap away from the stranger’s crotch. Usually it was a man’s. Only someone she was comfortable with was able to stop her from castrating him.
She understood three languages: English, Italian, and some commands in German.
I patted her head. “It’s all right, girl,” I muttered, biting into my cookie. No lights were on outside, and nothing seemed to move. Though the men I thought I saw earlier were not around, that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Just as sneaky as Ruby, they crept around, hiding in the shadows, armed to the teeth.
All of a sudden, the fear from earlier washed over me, and I dropped my cookie. Jet hit it with her paw, playing hockey with it instead of eating it.
I held my stomach tighter, wondering if this was it, if I was about to go into labor.
Brando’s name was on the tip of my tongue, but before I could call out to him, the yard erupted into madness, men running in all different directions. A car came flying into the driveway, its lights illuminating the surrounding chaos.
“No!” I almost screamed, but I couldn’t get the word out loud enough. “Maggie Beautiful.” I was terrified that the men would start shooting at her.
Before the car could come to a complete stop, she hurled herself out of it, rolling on the ground as it continued forward, ghostly with no driver. I heard the giving of metal as it hit a tree. Without thinking, I took off out the door, Ruby on my heels.
Maggie Beautiful moaned, but she was wide awake, on her knees, crawling, covered in blood. Men started to converge, some running toward the car, others toward us.
“Maggie Beautiful!”
The sound of her name from my mouth snapped her attention to me, and she used my nightgown and legs to crawl up from the ground, slapping the men’s hands away that were attempting to help. She was feral.
She clung to me, shaking in my arms, crying into my hair. I couldn’t hold her up. Gravity pulled on my stomach. We both started to go down, but one of the men caught my arm before I could land with a bang. He lowered me down slowly, while she held on with a force too strong to lighten.
She was so slick with blood that I could feel the stickiness of it on my skin, feel the thick wetness seep into the fabric of the nightgown—cold and so metallic that I could taste it with every breath.
“Maggie Beautiful,” I said, attempting to calm her by keeping her close to me, stroking her hair. “What happened? Tell me. Are you hurt?” I didn’t know if she was truly in shock or if she was too upset to speak.
The men began to move around us as Brando shot through the crowd. He hauled me up but stopped when I let out a cry. He was pulling me up while Maggie Beautiful pulled me down. Then she started to wail. His face drained of color, as though all the blood that he had just noticed came from him.
