Reiko’s brow dipped in a thoughtful frown. “You don’t think it’s her, though?”
Santino gently rolled her other arm, examining the worst of the wounds, and told himself to be grateful it looked like it had stayed closed up. This was the only one Ivers had stuck a couple of butterfly stitches on and requested they keep dry, so he set about carefully wiping the surrounding skin clean. He’d still leave off the wrap until after the bath, to avoid the bandage possibly catching a splash and absorbing the water.
“No,” he said while he worked, in answer to her question. “Unfortunately. Gisella is third-generation Italian-American, supposedly named for a relative she doesn’t know. She doesn’t actuallyspeakmore than a few words of it. Danilo often complained that he could talk shit about her in front of her in her own ‘native tongue’ and she would never know, calling her ignorant for what she hadn’t been taught.”
Reiko’s visible disapproval was far from surprising. “That’s horrible. How were they married if he treated her like that?”
Santino smiled. “Danilo married for pomp, beautiful. He would only marry women of Italian descent, he didn’t know how to be faithful to any of them, and he only ever cared to fight for his son—the boy Gisella gave him. Which means his other three daughters were paid off with material things and expected not to miss him.” In Santino’s mind, they were better off for it. But he saw easily how Reiko would have a different opinion.
“That’s repulsive.” Reiko sighed, dropping her gaze. “Is it bad if I admit I’m not sad to not be stuck being related to a man who’d do that, again?”
Santino tipped her chin up. “No, beautiful. It’s not bad at all. Yes, he was my cousin, but I’ll curse his name for the rest of my days after what he did to you. So don’t be shy with how you feel. You never knew him before he abducted you and treated you like trash. You’re entitled to remember him appropriately.”
Her lips lifted and the light danced in her eyes. “You already got laid this morning; you don’t have to be so charming.”
Santino let out a laugh, pressed a quick, wet kiss to her lips, and stepped away to start the bath. “I fail to see your point. Are you implying you think I’m a one-off?”
“I would never.”
He raked his gaze over her as he returned to her, the water pouring into the tub behind him. She looked the perfect combination of cute and sexy, perched naked on the bathroomcounter the way she was. It wouldn’t be difficult at all to bend down and fill his mouth with one of those perky tits.
“Hey. Stop that. You never told me about the other woman.”
Santino blinked and lifted his gaze to meet hers again. “What other woman?”
Her eyes revealed the laughter she tried to keep off her face. “You said there were two choices, and you only told me about his widow.”
Shit.She was right, and for as much as he’d prefer to lose himself in pleasures, there was still work to be done. Work that wouldn’t start until they were cleaned up and pulled together for whatever was left of the day.
Santino leaned in and cupped her face between his hands, brushed his lips from one cheek to the other, and rested his forehead against hers for a long second. Because she had also reminded him of the unavoidable, ugly truth. If Danilo’s accomplice—and Reiko’s literal kidnapper—hadn’t been Gisella, then there was only one answer. And he was going to have to be firm when he delivered the news, because no one would believe him. “If it wasn’t Gisella,” he said, speaking quietly as he echoed his own thoughts out loud, “then it was Danilo’s older sister, Adele.”
Reiko lifted her hands to his chest in a comforting touch. “Another of your cousins.”
“My only other cousin, probably.”
“Probably?”
Santino exhaled. “Their youngest sister, Noemi, disappeared years ago. She’s either better at hiding than fucking Waldo or she’s long dead.” He couldn’t deny the voice that had begun to whisper a concern as to whether or not Noemi’s disappearance hadn’t also been an internal plot, but he had no way to know. Too many years had passed.
He straightened and caught Reiko’s hands, lifting them to press soft kisses to her knuckles. “If I’m right,” he said, “no one in the family will believe me. Adele’s a fucking church mouse. She never speaks up out of turn at family functions, I’ve heard her angry maybe once in my life, and she’s basically devoted herself to playing caretaker for my aunt. So far as my mother and grandfather are concerned, she’s a saint.”
Reiko scowled. “Sounds to me more like she’s been walked over and felt brow-beaten into surrendering her life in favor of other people’s comfort. And someone like that is bound to snap eventually.”
Santino scooped Reiko off the counter to carry her toward the tub. “You’re catching on, beautiful.” He kissed her head. “But we’ll worry about that after we’re ready to face the day. Let’s clean up first.”
Chapter twenty-one
Supporting the Weight
“I can’t believe howmuch of the day we slept through,” Reiko said as she polished off her very late breakfast. Santino had insisted they start the day with breakfast, despite that it was mid-afternoon. She’d almost made a joke about marrying him just for that, but the fear that he might order someone to delivera pastor to their room next had held the words inside. She refused to be married looking like someBride of the Mummy. If that was a thing.
Santino leaned into her space, his lips trailing from her temple down to the base of her throat and thoroughly re-grounding her in the process. His words were murmured against her skin. “That’s what happens when you lose a full night’s sleep to traumatic events. Bodies need rest.” He pressed a final kiss to her shoulder before straightening. “How are you feeling?”
Reiko offered him a soft smile, ignoring the blush probably staining her cheeks. “Much better, I promise. Just a little sore now.”
Tapping on the exterior door cut off whatever Santino opened his mouth to say in response and Reiko stiffened instinctively. Santino had explained that they’d reserved a room at a random hotel under a false name, and only a very tight circle knew they were there. He planned to keep it that way until he’d excised the remainder of the poison from his family. She really had no problem with that. There was nothing quite like being attacked in one’s own wardrobe and abducted from a seemingly secure home by a man she was supposed to trust to make her understand the importance of real security.
So, she set down the herbal tea she hadn’t yet finished and told herself to hope it was Armando at the door.
