Page 32 of Revenge on the Mafia

He was watching me like a hawk. The wall behind him held three picture frames. One foot by two feet. One of them hung crooked by a quarter inch.

“I wonder if she’ll tend to my needs.”

I didn’t give my fucking body permission, but somehow in the next breath, I had my brother pinned to the wall in a chokehold. One frame crashed to the floor from the force of my action.

“Interesting,” he murmured, his gaze on my grip, not in the least bit put off. I knew what he was thinking. Because I was realizing the same thing. Why the fuck am I behaving like Enzo?

Fuck.

Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one… thousand five hundred and ninety-seven. I released my grip. Stepped back. I had to get to ten thousand nine hundred and forty-six before I could get my breathing to ease.

Stefano shook himself off the wall and observed me. “She’s not just a maid,” he stated the obvious.

I sighed. No. She wasn’t. She wasn’t just a woman either. She was the woman. Images filtered through my mind. It was her eighteenth birthday, and she was at the beach, and a boy was seated next to her. I didn’t know jealousy until then. Her voice filtering down the hallway while I sat with her father, learning everything I’d wanted to learn but yearned to be outside with her. Her gaze, the terror behind the slatted cupboard. The sorrow in her eyes when she heard music. The agitation in her steps when she’d run from me the other day. Her breathing. Her voice. How it always cracked when she got emotional. Her eyes. Her hair. Her words. Her Spanish.

“Forget it,” I muttered to him and to myself.

As if I could.

“Nico.”

Jesus! He was a dog with a bone. “What?” I snapped.

“Why did you give your maid a knife?”

So she could kill me, of course.

“I’m teaching her.” She was a fucking amateur. If I didn’t give her a hand, I was going to make it to eighty.

“What?”

She had to learn to live again.

“Is it some kink I don’t know of?” Stefano sounded annoyed.

“None of your fucking business.”

A beat of silence passed.

“You’re not planning on doing anything stupid, are you, Fratello?”

Behind his shoulder, Anna rushed out of the office. She stopped, shot a nervous glance my way, and fled to the living room. For six seconds, she was in my view. My breath eased.

“Stupid? No.”

Only what I deserved.

I heard it just before I turned into the living room.

Crack.

“What was that?” The new girl’s voice reached my ears.

“A stone?” Anna questioned.

Footsteps followed. I pressed against the wall. A fucking intruder in my own home. “Ohhh, it’s a bird.”

“Poor thing.” Anna’s voice had softened.