If her family knew she was here, or not, they could accuse me of breaking the sequester and attempting to hijack the maze by conspiring with this woman. Everyone knew my wife and her sister didn’t get along, but Benedetto Dandolo was the mostneutralist man I’d ever met. Magpie said he was so neutral, his spirit aura was cream colored.
“Wowza,” theewwwwoman said, breathless, checking me and Marciano out. “Where do these men come from?” She pulled two apples from another barrel and set them over her breasts. “Are you hungry for my fruits?” She jiggled them.
Marciano exploded with laughter. When he looked at me, he sighed, wiping his eyes. “Can’t make this fucking shit up, brother,” he said.
“Ciao, Mariano.” My wife’s sister waved, her breasts bouncing. “I thought you would be alone, but I see your other brother is here.” She pulled the friend forward. “We could make this the four of us?”
“You and your friend, get the fuck out,” I said, heading toward the villa, going for the phone. Her father would hear about this.
Fuck me sideways.Six words I never thought would register in my brain.Her father would hear about this.It was usually the other way around that got stuck in my head.He would never hear about this.
“No!” my wife’s sister screeched, and her weight fell on my back. Her arms wrapped around my neck, her legs around my waist. “I know you are just using my sister to get to me! You have wanted me all along! It is fine. My family will allow us to be together!”
I turned, facing Marciano, and she held on, almost choking me.
“I saw the way you were looking at me!” the sister yelled in my ear, trying to nibble on my earlobe after. I had to push her head away. My earlobe stretched and I thought she might bite part of it off, take it as a souvenir. “You cannot want my sister! You cannot! There is no truth to this. None at all! My name will fill the pages of your little red book I have heard so much about!”
I wasn’t going to spend a second fucking defending myself to this woman. She was either here to truly threaten the date I would be reunited with my wife again, or she was truly, madly disturbed. I was a betting man, and my bet was on the latter, then the first—she’d use it when she didn’t get her way.
Marciano decided to help a motherfucker out by attempting to pry my wife’s sister’s naked, clinging form from my body. The friend jumped on his back, clinging on for dear life.
“Woooo!” she was shouting. “This is just like a rodeo! I have always wanted to ride a cowboy! Yip. Yip. Yipeeeeee!”
“I’m not a fucking cowboy,” my brother was saying, trying to peel my wife’s sister off me. The friend started to nibble on his ear. “That fucking tickles! Knock it off, lady!”
“I can’t fucking help you unless you help me,” I said to my brother, growing more frustrated by the second.
We were taught to respect women, honor them, and I didn’t want to fucking hurt this one by flinging her off. Unless she was a direct threat to me or mine, wielding some type of weapon, it wasn’t in me to cause harm. These women were much smaller than us, but they were worse than an itch we couldn’t fucking scratch.
“You’re the master at this, Mariano!” Marciano pushed her head back when she started making horse noises in his ear. “What the fuck? Has anyone told you lately you’re not a horse?”
I somehow managed to get my wife’s sister off me, but she was fucking relentless. She jumped right back on. My brother was able to bring the friend to his shoulder, where he threw her over it. I did the same, but the sister kept pounding on my back. She was throwing one of her tantrums. My wife could throw one, too, but hers were cute. This one was starting to piss me off.
“Who’s the fucking master at wrangling a ‘won’t take no for an answer’ woman?” Marciano hit his chest. “Me.”
“You tell Sicilia this? You’re a master at wrangling naked women?”
My brother spun around so fast the friend went flying. “Sicilia,” he said.
“She’s not here, motherfucker,” I said.
“Oh.” He fixed his disheveled hair. Then, before he knew it, the woman was back, fodder all in her hair. She looked like a demonic creature.
“Fuck me sideways.” I sighed.
“All ways!” the sister screamed at me.
“Get off. Now.”
Three simple words from my sister’s mouth.
Mia seemed to appear out of nowhere. She had that mamma tone going, and even though I had no fucking idea if it was going to work on my wife’s sister, it did. The two women slid off, and neither of them looked at my sister as they ran for the stables, probably to grab their clothes.
Marciano hugged her, giving her a big kiss on the temple. “Thank you,” he said. “I spun around so fast, I got dizzy. Damn.” He sniffed himself. “I stink like that perfume.”
My sister eyed me. “What happened to you?”
“Those women?—”
