I take her shoulders and look down at her face. “Let me look at you.”
She rolls her eyes, but she lets me.
“You look good,” I say.
“So do you.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s not.”
“It is if you’ve got eyes.”
She laughs under her breath and squeezes my forearm. “Regardless, it’s good to see you.”
That means more than I let show.
“Yeah,” I say. “You too.”
For half a second, I think about saying more. About asking the questions I came here with.
Are you happy? Are you safe? Did you choose this? Do you need me to get you out?
But her husband is standing ten feet away, and I’m not confident I could defend my position if I needed to right now.
So I let my gaze flick once, deliberately, over her shoulder.
Vito is still on the steps.
Still watching.
Teresa follows the look and sighs like she knows exactly where this is headed.
“Adrian,” she says, stepping a little to the side. “This is my husband, Vito.”
Husband.
The word feels wrong.
Vito comes down the last few steps at an unhurried pace. He moves like a man who knows what his body can do and never wastes motion trying to impress anybody with it. The muscles aren’t to impress; they’re for use.
Up close, I can see even more of it; the quiet aggression, the dark eyes that miss nothing. He’s younger than me by a decade, give or take, but there is nothing boyish about him.
He stops in front of me.
I’ve spent enough years reading threats to know the difference between a man who’s wary because he should be and a man who wants an excuse. Vito isn’t spoiling for a fight.
But he isn’t open to this either.
He’s doing this because he has to. I’m here to protect his sister, and like it or not, I am part of Teresa’s family.
But that doesn’t mean I get a free pass. I feel him weighing me as he steps closer.
Fair enough. I’m doing the same. Being married to Teresa doesn’t give him a free pass either.
“Adrian,” he says.
His voice is deep, flat, and not especially welcoming.
