“…the shipment carrying guns,” he continues. “Our men were attacked,cinque furono uccisi(five were killed).”
My hands instinctively clench into fists, fingers itching to claim lives with my bare hands this time. “Chi oserebbe(Who would dare)?” I snarl into the phone.
“I just got the word,Capo. I’m working on getting more information.”
“Screen the men, draw out a list of enemies,” I snap, taking the steps in twos with heavy breathing. “Every fucking one of them. The crew on duty last night, every bastard who has tried to claw at this empire.”
If there’s a rat, I’ll have him dangling from his tongue before the day ends. And if it’s the Russians, I’ll show them what it means to move in silence.
Gli farò passare l’inferno(I’ll give them hell).
***
The ride to the mansion is a blur, and I jump out of the car once the tires screech to a halt. I’m heading inside when I catch sight of the maid I assigned to Isabella rounding a corner toward the garden.
How comfortable she’s made herself. I stride quickly toward the garden with one aim in mind.
“Do you think the concept of forgiveness is fair?” Isabella’s faint voice floats to my ears when I’m almost there.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” the maid replies after a moment of silence. Good. She’s not here for opinions.
I round the corner and take in the sight before me. She’s in a long, flowing gown with an open book in hand, and her glasses perched atop her head. Her hair is in a messy ponytail with a few tendrils that perfectly frame her face.
The sight makes me pause, then irritation crawls up my chest. I shouldn’t be staring.
She tucks a strand behind her ear and angles her head at the maid. “Sharon, did Dominic by any chance give you rules not to talk to me?”
In that moment, I make myself known, my hands tossed casually into my pockets. Color drains from the maid’s face when she sees me there. Her eyes widen, she bows, then stumbles out of my presence. I focus my gaze on Isabella.
“Speak of the devil,” she scoffs, facing the opposite direction, her ponytail jumping behind her.
My jaw clenches, eyes dropping to the phone between the pages of her book. “Your phone.”
She’s now a part of this house. So when everyone gets checked, she does, too.
She turns and eyes me, somehow the absence of her glasses shielding her eyes gives her a different kind of beauty. A moreelevated kind of beauty that makes her green eyes shine with…innocence?
I briefly wonder if she knows she looks this…different, without glasses, or if low self-esteem makes her shy away from the attention she’d otherwise get from this…look?Or why I find both circumstances fucking attractive?
“I’m wondering, do you ever smile, or is your face always like this?”
And I hate that I notice the tiniest details as she stands. Her different shade of pink lipstick, her perfectly manicured fingers and the deep impression of her hand against the page of the book. Which means she’s been on that page for a long time… probably thinking. Maybe that’s where her question about forgiveness came from.
“I won’t repeat myself.”
“You know, you don’t have to.” She trains her gaze on a flower as if deep in thought. “You just have to ask nicely,” she says, gaze drifting to me as she shrugs her shoulders.
Her shrug is too casual for the fury in my chest. She should know men like me don’t play nice.
“Hand me the fucking phone, Isabella,” I grind out, extending my hand, my patience already wearing thin.
And she does something I least expect. She shoves the phone behind herself and takes a few steps backwards.
The seriousness in her eyes sets a spark of amusement in mine.
“No.” She tries to fold her lips into a stern pout, but it comes off as anything but that.
I scoff. What is this childishness? I briefly wonder if she’s always this goddamn difficult at the Rossis.
