“What did I tell you, Mitch?”
Mitch nodded at me, ambling behind his wife. He walked with a limp. Mariano had told me a car accident had taken part of one of his legs. “Do you curse in a lot of languages?”
“Italiano,” I said. “Do you want to hear this?”
He laughed, shaking his head, patting the dogs. “You’re a spitfire, I can already tell.” His eyes moved behind me. “Mariano.”
My head whipped around.
My husband stood behind me, dripping sweat, his eyes narrowed on the new visitors. He met Viola halfway and kissed her on the cheek before he shook Mitch’s hand. He stepped back and set his hand on my lower back. His thumb touched my bare skin. He moved it back and forth, his calluses against my tender skin making me shiver. I could smell him in the air. Not the stink of sweat buthissweat. I could sniff him all day long and not tire of it.
“We were just telling Sistine?—”
“My wife.”
Mitch nodded, his eyes narrowing against Mariano’s. “Your wifethat she’s a spitfire like Scarlett?—”
“My mamma.”
“Yourwife is a lot likeyourmamma.”
Mariano nodded. “That’s high praise.”
“It is!” Viola smiled at me. “I miss that bitch.”
Viola took me by the hand, leading me into the house. Mitch and Mariano fell back, and I heard Mitch telling Mariano they had come to meet Brando and Scarlett for Everett’slife celebration at the bar that night.
Viola lifted my hand and examined my nails. “Girl,” she said, eyeing them as though they were diseased, “let me help you out with this. What’s your favorite color?”
I looked at my husband’s eyes. “That exact color,” I breathed out.
She laughed. “I’m not sure if we can find that exact shade, but we’ll work something out.”
We stepped into the house as Charlotte came down the steps. The dogs got close to her as they ran up the stairs toward the room PapàBrando and Mamma Scarlett were in, and she shooed them away for getting too close to her orbit. I wished the male dog would lift his leg and piss on hers.
This did not happen, because of course karma would ignore her, but a woman could still wish. The evil sister spared no time for us. She was on the hunt for her sleaze of amarito.
Viola sighed, and it was a heavy sound. “Where is my Sandy? I’m sure she’ll need some pampering too.”
I squeezed her hand. “More than you know.”
Chapter 54
Mariano
My feet hit the pavement in even strides. The sun was out for the first time in days, and it was burning through the humid air. I pushed through it, feeling the tension inside of me burn away as if a fiery pit burned there.
As of late, the burning never abated fully. From my wife choosing to separate to prove something to her family...
To my wife keeping a dangerous secret from me...
To my grandfather, Everett, dying, and all the subsequent issues mamma’s sister, Charlotte, was causing…
To what my wife had asked of me, not to kill Iggy …
A constant tension seemed to throb underneath the surface of my chest, as if I had developed a new tic, and not even physical activity could silence it.
It drove me.
