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Really, it was a shame they were mortal enemies and that it was likely one of them was doomed to die at the other’s hand. Still, as she’d already determined he probably didn’t bother with sex, his sexiness was immaterial. His emerging sense of humour was more of a problem because it made him seem a bit too human, but she could easily handle that by reminding herself of who he was: the son of the man who’d killed her parents and a man who, given the chance, would kill her and wipe out the rest of her family.

Weighing up the situation, she made a decision. “Right, I’ll cook, but I want you to take three steps back. You’ve seen how good my reflexes are and how good my aim is, so if you try to rush me or shoot me in the leg or anything like that, I will put a bullet in your heart without blinking. If I’ve got a pan close by, I will throw it at your head.”

“You’re very bloodthirsty, aren’t you?” he commented.

“Says Mattia Esposito.”

“Only when it’s necessary, and I don’t take pleasure from it.”

“I don’t imagine you take pleasure from anything. Three steps back or we both go hungry.”

Mattia took the three steps. They put him back at the wall he’d rested against while waiting for Elvira to use the bathroom. At some point he would have to use the bathroom too. He could hold his bladder for hours, but he wasn’t a camel. When nature called, he would be at his most vulnerable.

He’d only felt vulnerable once, when he was fourteen, and his father had decided it was time he became a man. It was a feeling he’d refused to let himself feel again, but he imagined trying to pee with Elvira Ranieri aiming a gun at him while trying to keep his own gun aimed at her might just do it.

“Carbonara?” she called after she’d peered through the cupboards.

“Sure.”

She turned her face to him and grinned. “Remember that delicious meal Rocco cooked for us the night we took everything from you?”

He narrowed his eyes. Elio had made a point of telling the Espositos how Rocco and his partner Carlo, joint owners of Carlo’s restaurant, helped raise the Ranieri children after the slaughter of their parents. That little point had been made shortly before Elio informed them everything they possessed now belonged to the Ranieris.

Her grin widened. “My carbonara recipe belongs to Rocco. He taught me how to make it when I was ten. We’ll have to skip the garlic as I can’t chop it without a knife, but you’re in luck that you have all the ingredients needed, although it’s a shame not to find any cyanide or arsenic amongst it all. That would be one way of getting rid of you. Who bought all the groceries?”

“I’m hardly likely to share that with you.”

“Well I know it wasn’t you – the last groceries you bought were wine, ready-made pasta and jarred sauces no self-respecting Italian should be caught dead buying, so my guess would be Stefano.”

Mattia was glad Elvira was pulling a frying pan from a cupboard while she said that, her attention only half on his face, because he was damned sure his expression would have given him away.

What monstrous memory did she have to remember groceries? More importantly, how the hell had she guessed Stefano’s involvement? His number two had the instincts of a rat. He’d driven Mattia to Elio’s ambush of a dinner party and had hung around in the car. He’d known something was going down when the Espositos’ lawyer turned up with two armed men who didn’t belong to the Espositos at his side. His rat-like instincts had switched into gear, and he’d fled the city.

Now removing a saucepan, she cackled. “Your silence speaks volumes. But really, who else could it have been? He was the only one of your men who disappeared. How were you able to communicate with him? You already know we were watching you like hawks.”

“I’m not going to share that with you either.”

“So you admit it was Stefano?” she said.

God, this woman was quick. “I admit nothing.”

“You’re not denying it.” Putting the saucepan under the tap, she turned the cold water on, and all without taking her stare off him or removing the aim of her gun from him. “My guess with the communications part is that you’ve got hold of some ingenious new technology that does some kind of filtering trick on your phone so only the user can read what’s on the screen.”

How the hell had she guessed that?

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Spoilsport. Seeing as we took your phones off you at the dinner party, at least tell me the phone was already in the apartment for the eventuality of you one day needing it.” She smiled sweetly. “I just can’t bear to think of the pain you must spend your life in if you keep it safe up your ass instead.”

Another burst of laughter rose up his throat. He smothered it before it could escape. “Yes, it was already in the apartment.” There was no harm in sharing that with her. The apartment was useless to him now. It had been bought as a place to escape to if it ever came to it, but in reality, had been useless for that purpose almost from the start. He’d kept it all the same, and made sure to keep an unused burner phone there, although he’d never let himself think too deeply as to why.

The saucepan filled with water; she poured salt into it and turned the hob on.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said as a sudden vision of boiling water being thrown into his face formed. He would put nothing past her. “Put the pizzas in the oven.”

“Coward.”

“Self-preservation.”