“Leandro is pissed, because maybe your father was going to look over you and have him head the family if something ever happened to Lothario.” The pants were much too big, too, but the shirt being tucked in helped keep them up.
Naz handed me the hat and I looked around. A mirror above a plain basin with a faucet was on the other side of the room. I stood in front of it, and Naz stood behind me, arms crossed.
I was just glad I hadn’t put on any makeup on the plane. I lifted my hair and started to tuck it into the hat. “You’re here to stop your brother from contacting whoever he’s thinking of in here. Are you too late?”
He shook his head. “He’s waiting at the prison.”
“That’s good. At least.”
“You do not know my brother.” He squinted at me. “Or do you?”
“No, just a few things about him. Same as you.” I sighed, trying to fit more of my hair underneath the hat. “Jumping to another reason. Lothario tried to have Brando and Scarlett Fausti killed?”
He nodded, and I noticed the veins in his arms swelling. That heart wasn’t doing him any favors either.
“Okay, I’m thinking Lothario does this because Brando is welcomed into the family out of basically…nowhere. He’s the oldest of Luca’s sons. He might challenge Lothario for the position since Luca is in jail.Wait!Was Rocco in on this with your father? He would have good reason to do it, too, since he was in line to rule and Brando could nudge him out.”
“Stay on the same road. Rocco would not do this.”
“Just going over all possibilities. So…Brando and Scarlett are still here to tell the tale, which means…your father failed, but Luca knows what he’s done. He might have put the both of us in this situation because it might be as dangerous as the one Brando and Scarlett had to face. But…” I made a growling noise when I couldn’t get the stupid hat to sit right. I had too much hair, or I just wasn’t fixing it right.
Naz came to stand behind me, and his scent and body heat…it took me on a ride in the clouds, just as he took me for a ride in his plane. He set the hat on the counter and started to slick my hair back.
“But what doesn’t make sense is for him to stick me with you, especially for this. He could have found someone you cared about, like Brando loves Scarlett, to make this hell for you—for both of us.”
Naz was concentrating on what he was doing to my hair, his eyes hard, until he stuck the hat back on my head. I was more dude-ish once he was finished, and I was thankful for it.
He looked to the left, before he met my eyes straight on. “There is one more reasonZioLuca did this.”
A weighty pause.
I lifted my eyebrows. “Care to share?”
“If I do.” He grinned. “I will have to kill you.”
I laughed, a breathy sound in the otherwise empty room. “There must be an easier way. Death might be easy, but it lasts forever.”
“There is another way. I keep you…per sempre.” The grin had faded from his face, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The loud raps on the door made me flinch. Naz didn’t move, but he turned his face toward the door and said something in Italian.
“Those knocks are for us,” I said, and my voice came out neutral, but on the inside, I was melting from his words, the thickness of them. I went to move, but Naz’s grip on my arm stopped me.
“You do not seem like the type of woman to just listen when told to do something.”
I didn’t realize it at first, but I was shaking my head, agreeing. I wasn’t. I wouldn’t bite my nose off to spite my face, but I always did what I wanted to do.
“However, in my world, I need you to just fucking listen, or you might get me killed without a good reason for it, ah?”
Yeah, I could understand that.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Tell me you trust me, Ava.”
“I do.”
