“Oh.” We move to the door and out into the hallway. All the bronze and crystal and old-world opulence hurts my eyes, so I close them.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Bianca chastises. “Keep those pretty hazels open for me, babes. You gotta help me get you to the guest room.”
My eyelids feel like bricks, but I heave them upward anyway.“You’re nice,” I tell her as she nudges me toward the front of the house and up the grand staircase. “I like you.”
Her smile is small, but her reply brightens my whole chest. “I like you, too, Daisy.” She shuttles me along the hallway to one of the many closed doors. My eyes fall all over the place—the walls with the ornate portraits hung like they might be in a castle and the supersoft, red rug beneath my too-sluggish feet. When she gets to one of the many doors that all look alike, Bianca glances up the hall and then turns the knob before moving both of us inside. The door snicks shut.
“Bathroom,” she says, and then we’re on the move once more, toward a second door past the four-poster bed that takes up most of the room with heavy draperies hung from the bars atop each post.
“Jesus,” I mutter. “Who lives here? The Duke of Norfolk?”
“The duke of what?” Bianca looks at me like I’m crazy, and hell, maybe I am. I did marry a stranger, after all, and I don’t care all that much that he’s a criminal. Then there was the whole attacker, killed-a-man thing. When I admitted to Giulio that I wasn’t remorseful, I expected him to scorn me for it. I suppose I should have known better. He’s killed more people than my measly one. I’m a little annoyed by that, I realize. Not because Iwantto kill people, per se—I’m just competitive, and I don’t like feeling like I’m losing. Even if it’s not really a competition… but if it were, I could totally kill more people than Giulio. They’d never see me coming.
“Do you think Giulio doesn’t think I can handle shit because I haven’t killed as many people as him?” I ask.
Bianca’s brow creases with confusion as she locks my armover her shoulders with one hand and opens the bathroom door with the other. Unlike the classic vibe of the mansion, the bathroom is modern, thank fuck.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bianca asks as she sets me against the counter. I latch on to the cool marble ledge to help me stay upright.
She reaches into the glass shower and twists a few knobs, putting her under the spray for several moments. “That guy I killed,” I remind her. “I’ve never killed anyone before, but who knows… maybe now that I’m a mobster’s wife, I’ll start a trend.” A snort of laughter bubbles up out of me. Almost as soon as it starts, though, the amusement dries right up. “Is it because I’m not from this world that he thinks I can’t handle myself?”
Sandaled feet appear in my vision where it’s planted on the floor. Bianca’s hands go to my clothes, and she quickly begins to pull them off me. “I don’t think he respects you any less because of who you are, where you come from, or for killing a man. If anything, he probably respects you more. You weren’t raised like we were. Normal people don’t take up for their friends or themselves like that.”
“Then why doesn’t he want to tell me anything?” I whine as she gets me all the way down to my bra and panties.
“Do you need my help, or can you do the rest?” she asks, taking a step back without answering me.
I glance over myself and then just wave her toward the door. “I got it,” I say. The high-flier vibes are waning anyway, and now all I feel is tired. Bianca disappears into the bedroom with no further prompting, and I strip out of the rest of my clothes before hopping into the shower and soaping up.
My head, once so light and airy, is quickly coming back down to earth. “This sucks,” I mutter to myself as I wash off the sweat of the previous day.
First the nerve-racking interview, then running into Constantin, and Emil, and Giulio…
I twist off the water and step out of the shower, reaching for a large, fluffy black towel hanging from a nearby hook. Wrapping the fabric around my body, I grab the pile of clothes I left on the floor and walk out into the bedroom. Bianca isn’t there, but there are fresh clothes on the bed, and a quick check tells me they’re my size.
“Damn, she’s good.”
I rub off the last of the water and then jump into the pair of skinny jeans and the soft-as-a-baby’s-butt V-neck T-shirt before flipping my hair up into a towel turban and peering out into the hall.
“Hello?” I call out.
No answer.That’s not ominous. Nope. Not at all.The sarcastic quip of my own mental voice doesn’t lead me to believe the lie any more than if I had spoken it aloud. Creeping out into the empty corridor, I head toward the stairs and peer down as voices filter up.
“—tell her, she’s fine, but you should—”
“Bianca?” I call out as I stop at the top of the stairs. Bianca swivels away from Alonzo and Otello, both of whom are standing in front of the double front doors with equally grim expressions. “What’s going on?” I ask. My spidey senses are on high alert, and I know something must be wrong. I glance around them. “Where’s Giulio?” Bianca comes away from Alonzo andOtello and stops at the bottom of the stairs. I descend toward her slowly, my hand gripping the banister with white knuckles. “What’s going on?” I repeat the question, louder this time.
Don’t panic, Daisy.There’s no reason to panic. Giulio is okay. He’s big and strong and could probably,maybe, take me in a fight. He’s smart, too. Surely, he’s fine, and there’s nothing at all to worry about. Nope. Not yet anyway. Fuck, I hope he’s okay. It would so suck to actually start liking my husband only to have him turn around and get murdered.
“He’s not here, Daisy,” Bianca says.
“Yeah, I guessed that,” I deadpan as I reach the last step. “That still doesn’t tell me where he is.”
She tilts her head to the side, looking down at me contemplatively. I scowl when I don’t receive an immediate answer and latch on to her arm. “Where. Is. My. Husband, Bianca?” I demand.
“He’s meeting with Emilio Cesari,” she finally says, continuing to watch me as if she’s waiting for something.
Mother. Fucker. If Cesari doesn’t kill my husband, I just might. Don Luciani made it clear that Cesari was dangerous. Giulio thinks the man is dangerous. So,of course, he goes to talk to the guy. Of all the bullheaded, stupid—I cut those thoughts off.
