"No. She didn't want it pushed. I gave her a tip about the makeup and left it there." She's quiet for a moment. "She seemed relieved that I dropped it. She's used to covering it. You can tell the difference between someone surprised they have to explain a bruise and someone who's had the explanation ready for a while."
So it wasn't new at dinner, and it wasn't new when I saw it yesterday.
Now I’m wondering just how many times she’s had to hide bruises?
"I told your father," Vittoria says.
I’m not surprised. She and my father don’t keep secrets from one another unless it’s to do with the famiglia, then Vittoria won’t know. "What did he say?"
"That it's a Delaney matter until she's under this roof." She says with a cold tone, and I know that she disagrees with my father’s words, as she herself was beaten and put in the hospital by her father.
I’m not surprised by my father’s decree, because strictly speaking, interfering in the internal business of an allied family before the marriage is formalized is a political problem we don't need on top of everything else.
I understand the logic of it, but it doesn't mean I like it.
"Thank you," I say. "For handling it the way you did."
She nods. “She’ll be happier once she’s free,” Vittoria whispers as I begin to walk out of the kitchen.
Vittoria is a dreamer, that’s for sure. She and my father have a relationship, a marriage, that many within our world don’t. Their marriage is filled with love and respect. I don’t doubt that she thinks that’ll happen between Quinn and me. I don’t have it in me to correct her.
My marriage is for an alliance, that is it.
Ciro’s exactly where I knew he’d be, in the study eating his breakfast as he reads something on his phone. I sit across from him, and he glances at me before putting his cell away. No doubt, he can read from my face that I'm not here for the coffee.
"The Delaney family dynamics," I say. "What did you make of it at dinner?"
He thinks for a second. "The mother and Daire run on the same wavelength. They’re extremely similar, not saying that’s a good thing.” He reaches for his coffee cup. "Quinn's different from them. She's quieter, but she doesn't miss anything. I watched her all through dinner. At one point, the mother said something to her, one of those where it sounds like a compliment and isn't. Quinn looked at her plate for two seconds and came back as if nothing happened."
"Like she’s used to it, she’s practiced how to act," I say.
"Very." He looks at me. "She's not weak, though. Don't make the mistake of reading the quiet as weak. People who've been dealing with something their whole lives are usually harder to break than people who haven't."
"I know that."
He nods. Then I tell him about the bruise, and I watch as he goes still. It’s just a small pause. It’s something he does when he’s trying to work things out. "The father?"
"Likely."
"Christ." He says it quietly. He's angry. "Does she know you noticed?"
"No."
"Good,” he says with a nod. "Once she's here, that stops."
"It stops," I say, roughly.
Ciro looks at me for a moment and then picks his phone back up, which means he understands everything I didn't say.
"I want more information on the Delaney household," I say. "Not his business dealings, I have all of that. I want information internally. I want to know what the family dynamics are. What Quinn's actual history in that house looks like. Any incidents or patterns."
"Marco," he says. "Quietly."
"Very quietly."
He nods once and I know it’ll be done.
I enter my office, the brown envelope in my hands, and anxiousness running through my veins. Tempest has information for me. It took him only a few days, but he found something. And in true Tempest form, he didn’t deliver it to me. No, he made a whole song and dance about it. He texted me from a burner phone with the location of a safety deposit box and how to locate it. Of course, I had to get the key, which was in a different location first. I swear the man is more paranoid than I am, and that’s saying something.
