Page 62 of Sizzling

Dovie tensed up again.

“Could you please not?” I asked tightly, glaring at him.

It took him a moment, but he realized what I was saying, then nodded. “Sorry.”

I turned my attention to look out the window. We weren’t a secret anymore. Someone knew. Someone I had trusted twice, and he’d burned me. But that had been sex. He didn’t respect me, but possibly, he could be trusted with this. For Dovie’s sake.

“What if I had somewhere safe for the both of you to stay until we knew you could leave on your own again? Somewhere no one could get to you.”

I frowned at his reflection. “I’m not moving into your house.”

“No shit,” he shot back at me like the idea revolted him.

Asshole.

“I’m talking about Maeme’s. You remember how big her house is, and no one lives there but her. She’d love the company. You can each have a bedroom with a connected bathroom. Plenty of space.”

As awesome as that sounded, I didn’t think my taking Dovie into the den of the Mafia grandmother was a good idea. I also wasn’t ready to add someone else to this circle of trust that was already really weak with a lot of cracks.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. The less people who know, the better.”

“Maeme is someone you want on your side. No one will get to Dovie that you don’t want near her. Maeme would never allow it.”

Having someone with that kind of power sounded almost too good to be true. I knew better than to trust things that sounded too good to be true.

“Who is Maeme exactly?” I asked. “I know she’s not your grandmother.”

He grinned. “For all intents and purposes, she is my grandmother.”

For all intents and purposes? What the heck did that mean? Either she was or she wasn’t, and what kind of grandmother was going to be able to protect us, protect Dovie?

“I need a little bit more security than your grandmother.”

He chuckled. “She’s not actually my grandmother. She’s King’s.”

I’d thought that might be the case, but I had hoped it wasn’t. “Oh, well then, that’s a hell no.”

What was he thinking, and why hadn’t I known that already? I had let that woman into our apartment.

“Just let me explain. King isn’t a bad person for starters. He just worships the ground his wife walks on, and he’s determined to kill every fucker who ever hurt her. Rog—uh, well, you know he was at the top of that list. As for Maeme, she’s his grandmother, but she’s all of ours too. She’s not a normal grandmother. She’s a Mafia grandmother.”

Dovie’s head shot up, her eyes wide as she stared at me in horror.

Dammit, Storm. Did he have no control over his tongue? No … he did not. I’d already known that.

“It’s okay,” I told her and touched her cheek. “I swear it is.”

“Sorry,” Storm said, sounding like he meant it.

“Yeah, not exactly the way I was gonna explain to her what and who you were. So, thanks for that.”

“I said I was sorry.”

I signed, “I knew. It’s the Mafia in the South, and they have no issue with us. They wanted to kill Roger because one of their wives had been abused like we were.”

The flicker of pain in her eyes from the sorrow she felt for a woman she didn’t know, I understood that all too well.

“He isn’t going to hurt us?” she signed.

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