There was no doubt about it. I’d never met anyone as frustrating as she was. Never. Not in all my years. She could push buttons like no other woman.
I was glad I’d given her a spanking. She deserved one every day for her caustic mouth.
With my cock still twitching, I headed for the door, more annoyed than I’d been in a long time. While it was obvious my sister knew the woman, that didn’t dispel my concern given Anna’s nationality. To have Sergio Russo’s name suddenly leap out of the woodwork only to have one hot Italian girl bump into me, a woman who happened to be right around Sergio’s age, didn’t seem possible in my world.
Whatever the case, I certainly wasn’t going to gather information from the feisty girl since it was obvious she hated me.
Emmeline was in the kitchen. She’d already turned on the satellite radio, likely to drown out the conversation we would soon engage in. To everyone else, my sister was the sweetest representation of our family, kind to everyone. Always giving to charities. Always cooing over rescue animals. Always offering to help anyone in need.
Few people, including members of her own family had seen her cunning as much as I had. Perhaps because we were closer in age. When she’d been younger, she’d come to me with her problems, including bullies in school that needed a reason to back off.
Which I’d happily provided.
I’d listened to her dreams, her desire to leave New Orleans in search of her own life even though our father would never have allowed it.
While our closeness remained, what she’d lost in naiveté while growing into a woman, she’d gained composure and the same sharp tongue both my mother and grandmother were famous for.
The conversation would be pointed with nothing held back.
Thankfully, she’d pulled out a bottle of bourbon and a glass alongside her favorite merlot. She’d already poured herself a glass and was taking sip after sip, her frustration obvious.
She noticed I was stroking my forehead and groaned, placing her glass on the kitchen island. After grabbing a kitchen towel from a drawer, she turned on the faucet. “You should probably go to the med center or the hospital, but I know you’re hardheaded as fuck. You’ll keep going. You could be half dead and you won’t take care of yourself.”
“You know how I feel about hospitals and doctors.”
Emmeline tossed the towel at me with enough oomph I almost dropped the cloth. “Yeah, well, it’ll be your death one day. So be it.”
“Why are you so angry with me?” I pressed the cloth against my head, gently rubbing the gash. When I pulled the towel away, I grimaced. The wild girl had certainly used the statue to her advantage.
“Why? Are you kidding me? You all but attacked my houseguest. I should have known better after what you said earlier. I should have warned her about you. You were frothing at the mouth earlier today to try and find out who she was. So you just had to know.”
“I have my reasons.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
Her accusation caught me off guard. “This time I get to say it’s none of your business.”
The way her eyes lit up was an easy realization she could see right through me. “You did. My God. Then you should know how sweet she is. She’s my friend. That’s all you need to know. She doesn’t need you in her life, Jax. What did you do, accost her as soon as you walked in?”
My sister was spitting fire, more so than she usually did. “What? Are you kidding me? She accosted me with a statue. Look at the gash on my forehead.” I pulled the cloth away, finally tossing it into the sink.
While the pain was still biting, I’d been through much worse, including gunshot and knife wounds. I poured a hefty amount of bourbon, downing two solid swallows while my sister continued her anger-filled glare.
“Do you want to tell me how you know her?” I challenged.
“Do you want to tell me why it’s obviously such a big deal to you? I just told you. I invited her into my home. That’s all that should matter. This is my house and the last time I checked, I can have any friends I choose. I’m no longer under the thumb of my brothers or my parents. This is my life.” She smashed her finger onto the surface of the island to make her point.
I moved closer, shocked when my sister bristled. She hadn’t done that my entire life. “While it’s painfully apparent you don’t care about your family as I thought you once did, do you at least recognize what kind of family you grew up in?”
“What does that mean?”
“What does it mean? It means that we aren’t a typical family in any way, shape, or form.”
With her eyes still flashing, she gathered a wry smile. “You mean because we’re bad people who do even worse things?”
“We’re not bad people, Emme. We’re just…” Hearing my own sister use the word was enough to shock the hell out of me. I hadn’t been prepared to be faced with such an egregious claim.
Although… We certainly would never be considered upstanding citizens, not with our history of actions and heritage.
