They all laughed again.
Rocco gave me a curious look. “Is Zio unwell?”
“He’s fine,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. Tense. “The old man needs a drink.”
Digging around in the cabinets, I found the peanut butter Scarlett made from scratch, took an apple from the bowl, washed it off, and then found a knife.
What else did she put on an apple for Mia? Ah, cinnamon.
It took some searching, but I finally found it and made myself a kid’s snack, sprinkling cinnamon on the meat of the apple before smearing it with peanut butter.
Mitch grinned at me but made no comment. My brothers stared. I offered them a piece, but they all declined with a shake of the head.
Peanut butter and cinnamon didn’t pair well with strong drink.
The door opened and two more people came in.
Eating, I feigned nonchalance until the time felt right.
Tito had walked in behind them, and he made a frustrated noise as I pinned Vincenzo against the wall with an arm to his throat. His nose was busted, both eyes purple from the fight with Diogini.
His wife made a noise, there was a scraping sound against the counter, and then the sound of struggling for a moment before metal hit the counter again, and Mitch’s voice came out soft but firm.
“You don’t want to do that,” he said. “Leave this between your husband and his cousin. Brando won’t take much offense if you stab him, but his wife will. You remember Scarlett? She’s a nice kid, and most people consider her sweet, but beneath it all, she’s wild about her husband staying alive. As one would say,passionateabout it, perhaps even obsessed.”
Vincenzo put up no resistance, a silent conversation existing between me and him. My brothers had come to stand in front of her, though Mitch was the one keeping her calm.
“You’re still breathing because my wife doesn’t have a mark on her from you,” I said in Italian. “You’ve had your revenge. We won’t have this conversation again. This ends now, or we move forward as we are.”
He searched my eyes for a moment before he nodded, once.
“You will apologize to my wife. Whether you mean it or not.”
He said nothing, but I let him go. The rest was up to him. In a movement so swift, so fast that none of us could catch her, Vincenzo’s wife snatched the knife up again, this time turning it on her husband.
“You kissed her or something?” Her voice came out low, trembling with rage.
He looked at me. I narrowed my eyes at him. If he would have kissed my wife, it would have been his last. Nino had mentioned nothing about that, but his eyes were swollen shut and his head dizzy at the fucking time.
This time, no one made a move to take the knife from her. I noticed that Rocco stroked his own chest where his wife had cut him however many stitches deep.
“No,” Vincenzo said quietly. “I did not kiss her, but I made her think I was going to. I pinned her against the wall.” He paused. “I wanted to kiss her. Out of revenge.”
She lunged with the knife, swiped, peanut butter scattering all over his shirt, a small rent in the fabric where blood started to bloom.
He shook his head and then sighed, looking down at the wound. He said something about a new scar.
“I’ll make a hundred new scars, Vincenzo Fausti, if you even think about kissing someone else! I don’t share!”
This time, Tito intervened, to his limit with blood and insanity. He took her wrist, said her name softly, and then moved her toward the door, all the while making motions behind her back for Vincenzo to follow.
“I think not,” he said under his breath.
All the men in the room, beside me, called him a coward.
He glared at us before he set off behind them, determined to see this through.
“The sad part of this tale—” Rocco shook his head and downed the rest of his drink “—is he will love Sylvie more tomorrow. She has claimed him with her passion and made a mark.”
