“Is that pizza I smell?” She sniffed. “I don’t care what it is. I’m so hungry. You always drain me, but in the best way. I’m not sure if I can walk.”
“I’m starved, too.” I stuck a finger in my mouth, one with her all over it, and tasted the sweet honey that was my wife.
Her eyes lowered and her mouth parted.
“Ah—”
We both turned to look. Even though Guido had a poker face, I knew what he was thinking.
I slipped my hand from my wife’s ass. She was hiding the bulge in my pants. When I pulled her even tighter against me, she released a long, slow breath. She was a live wire in my hands. Sensitive and ready to go off again.
“You need to be here for this.” Guido chucked his head toward the private dining room and left us alone.
The look on his face when we first arrived was still there. I held her hand tight in mine as we followed Guido’s path. At the table, I held out a seat for my wife and took the one next to her. A variety of food was already set out in platters, along with silverware. I piled pasta alla Norma on her plate, my eyes never leaving Lev’s. The Russian assassin who truly didn’texist in the world.
No one really knew if Lev was his real name. All we knew for certain was that he was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. If that name was even accurate. He was all smoke and mirrors.
Lev’s eyes were glacier blue, and they glistened as he picked up his glass of vodka and drank. After he had enough of me, he turned them on my wife, who swirled pasta around her fork. The look in her eyes had changed. Something was off.
Something was always off if Lev showed up.
“Lev,” Scarlett said.
His eyes moved slowly from my wife to her mamma. Anyone with eyes could see he had a soft spot for her. Still, the affinity went only so far. He was as cold as his eyes.
He took the manilla envelope from beside him and slid it forward some. He took another drink. “There have been recent developments.”
That statement lingered in the air.
Rocco cleared his throat. A clear signal to keep talking.
Lev never moved to the beat of anyone’s drum but his.
He shrugged when he was ready. “The Fausti family has come close to finishing the war.”
“Close but not close enough,” Brando said.
Lev slid the folder closer to the center of the table. “I have information. Information that is time sensitive and has changed the course of this war. Not in your favor. However. This will come at a price.”
“A deal.” Scarlett narrowed her eyes at him. “What kind?”
I glanced at my wife. Her eyes were on her pasta. She felt something, too. But unlike Scarlett, she never made a show of it. She kept it close to her heart like a dark secret.
Lev passed Scarlett the envelope. She withdrew a picture and studied it for a second before she set it down. It was of a young girl—maybe around fifteen. It was hard to tell. She was pale with dark brown hair and blue eyes. She seemed frail.
Mia reached over me and took the picture, studying it like Scarlett had done.
“A marriage,” Lev said.
“Betweenwho?” Scarlett said, sounding like a perturbed owl.
Brando looked between them. I could tell he hated their interaction. Then he looked at me before he looked back at his wife. I was almost tempted to roar with laughter like he did when Elio Ascari had been testing me. But the seriousness of the situation stopped me.
Lev kept everyone in suspense for a second before he looked right at Maestro. The room had grown quiet, but it was almost like everyone’s thoughts exploded at the same time.
Maestro was young, too young to get married. The girl in the picture was even younger. In the eyes of the world, she was a baby bird who hadn’t even learned how to fly yet. That was what the picture screamed. She had wings she hadn’t learned how to use yet. Or maybe they were broken. Either way, she was extremely vulnerable.
Brando tapped his finger on the table. “An arranged marriage,” he said, speaking the thoughts we were all having. “My daughter’s life for my son’s.”
