Page 94 of Revenge on the Mafia

So, I kept all those words locked behind my lips. Crawled closer to him and put my head on his chest. His heartbeat thudded against my eardrum. It calmed me. Soothed me.

This big, cold dangerous man had found a way to calm my panic attacks.

It wasn’t chamomile tea that put me to sleep. It was his heartbeat. The one I was supposed to take away. My blood chilled to icicles at the thought of it.

He only made it worse. Because just before I slipped into darkness, his hand moved to my head. A stroke of his palm on my curls and three words next to my ears.

“Mine. All mine.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

ANNA

August 22nd.

Debo imaginado a todo...estaba cayendo en la misma enfermedad que me correspondía por herencia genética.

I must have imagined the entire thing. Made things up to make life easier. Maybe, just maybe, I was falling into the same illness that was genetically mine to claim.

I sat on his bed, wearing his shirt, legs crossed under the weight of his sheets. When I shifted, and I did it enough times to test it, his scent washed over my skin. Teak and cider. The scent was as male as he was.

My phone rested between my ear and shoulder while I waited for Mamá to come to the phone. She’d stopped trusting her phone. So for over a week I had to call the general line and wait for them to coax her to speak to me.

I played with the buttons on his shirt. I’d woken up early again. Dread stringing through my body, oxygen abandoning me and leaving me behind apprehension. This time I hadn’t found him. He’d been away from me for three days. His locked office door was proof of it. He may have married me, but it was abundantly clear that he didn’t want me in his life. Yet somehow, my stupid mind had a hard time believing it.

But of one thing, I was sure. I’d never be able to go through with it without his help. My panic a few days ago had made that all too clear. My head immediately throbbed with one question. What had happened for him to go down this path?

Commotion crackled through the phone. Mamá’s nervous voice carried through the line. “How do you know it’s her?” I heard Sonia’s calm reassurance, and after some back and forth, she finally picked up the phone. “Anna?” Her suspicion was tight and unfortunately so familiar I didn’t even pause for a breath.

“When I was small, you lied to me. You told me you hadn’t changed a single thing in Yaya’s paella recipe, but you did. You added white wine to it.”

She let out a relieved sigh. “Anna.” Then she laughed. “I never told your Yaya that.”

I smiled. “Is that why you never made it when she visited?”

“Of course. Anyway, my mamá would always think hers was better.”

We fell silent. Mamá reminiscing about her mother. I thought about how strange life was. I remembered everything about Yaya. Her yearly visits. Her weathered face and cracked lips. Her gray hair pulled so tightly into a bun that it stretched the skin of her face. How her dark skin had lighter tones around her wrinkles. Her hands were always warm and her hugs warmer. But somehow, I couldn’t remember anything about how Papá had been. He was a censored image in the video playing back my memories.

“What were you doing, Mamá?”

“Sleeping.” Her voice was dull again. Every time I called, I felt her fading away like thick paint peeling off under the weight of heavy rain.

“Did your Italian friend visit you again?”

“He left.” She fell silent, and I knew she was listening to someone no one else saw but her. Then she muttered. “I’m telling her, anyway.” Then her tone rose to a normal range. “He was here for three days. But he said he’ll bring you with him and come again.”

My pulse skipped a beat. Three days? Desperation was making me turn dreams into reality.

“I’m glad you married him.”

The air shattered in my lungs.

“Who, Mamá?”

“Your father would have liked that.”

I choked out words through the painful lump in my throat. “Who, Mamá?”