Page 54 of Assistant to the Mafia

“More importantly,” Grace insisted, “I can’t just up and leave. If you really wanted ‘girl time’, you should have sent me a message so I could put it in a schedule.”

“You never would have agreed.”

That was probably true. Still, Grace argued. “You think just showing up unannounced like this is better? You think I’ll be more willing to just waltz off with you?”

Cait stepped forward and latched onto Grace’s left wrist. Her grip was just firm enough that her fingers pressed painfully into the edge of the stitches still covered beneath a layer of gauze and sleeve, and Grace yelped reflexively from the sharp zing of pain. Cait immediately let go, hands up as if she was being held at gun point. “What’d I do?”

Grace cradled her wrist, the pain already receding and humiliation rushing in in its wake. “Nothing,” she said, too weakly.

“That was not nothing, Gracie.”

Agitation resurfacing and helping to smother out her embarrassment, Grace said, “I really don’t want to talk about it, Cait. You just shouldn’t be grabbing people like an impulsive child.”

Cait scoffed and moved her hands to her hips. “Oh, so once again, everything is my fault? Shame on Cait for living, is that it?”

“You cannot be serious right now.”

Cait swung her pointer finger out, nearly smacking Grace in the process, and practically shouted, “You just faked an injury on me!”

“I did no such thing!” Grace hissed. “And keep your voice down.” Why was it so hard to have a conversation with her sister? Was it her? She’d seen Cait have rational, calm conversations. Why could the two of them not have one?

Cait crowded her again, deliberately reaching for Grace’s forearm. “Really? You’re trying to tell me you’re hiding something under this designer sleeve? What, did you roll out of bed and bruise yourself in the fall?”

Grace yanked her arm away before her sister could close her grip, the motion throwing Grace faintly off-balance. She scrambled to catch herself on the edge of her own desk, still pinned by her bullying sibling. “No, I didn’t roll out of bed. Back off, Cait.”

Cait didn’t, her eyes narrowing. “Finally got yourself a new guy and he’s already leaving the wrong kinds of marks, then?”

Indignation surged and this time it was Grace’s voice that went up. “No, dammit!” She clamped her lips shut, heart racing. Her head was starting to hurt, too.

“Well what other explanation could there be?” Cait reached again for her arm. “Just let me see. There’s no need to protect—”

Grace smacked her sister’s hand away. “There are plenty of possible explanations, Caitlin. And I already told you I do not want to talk about it. Let me breathe!”

Cait’s brow furrowed, an undeniable light of challenge in her eyes. “Said every domestic violence victim ever. Gracie, I see it all the time, but almost always after it’s gone on way too long. Take advantage of your big sister’s expertise.” She finally got her fingers around Grace’s wrist.

“Ladies. What’s going on here?” Dante asked, standing suddenly in his office doorway.

Cait leapt back as if she’d been caught misbehaving and swung her attention over to him. Her gaze swept up the length of him blatantly.

Grace really wanted to smack her sister upside the head, for more than one reason. They were both married, and there was nothing subtle about the heavy black and red ring on his hand. Instead, she straightened from her backward leaning position and forced herself to unclench. It was still an effort to calm her voice, despite that she wasn’t at all mad at him. “I apologize, Mr. De Salvo.” She motioned to the woman she was sure he already recognized. “This is my sister, Caitlin Hawkins-Burke. She dropped by unexpectedly. I’m so sorry if our conversation got too loud.”

Dante spared a fleeting glance at her ogling sister, then narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s the matter?”

Cait put her hands on her hips. “You don’t happen to be the abusive one, do you?”

“Cait!”

“I beg your pardon?”

Cait motioned to her. “Gracie has some kind of bruise she won’t show me on her wrist. Obviously, someone’s mistreating her. I assumed she had a guy she hadn’t told me about, but maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Plenty of bosses are abusive to their employees.”

Grace was mortified. She wanted to throw up, but not until after she picked up her computer monitor and bashed her thoughtless sister’s head in. “Caitlin, what is the matter with you? You can’t go baselessly accusing people of assault!”

“But it’s not baseless,” Cait replied, tossing a frown in Grace’s direction without fully looking away from Dante.

“It is completely baseless.” Grace drew a breath. “I am so sorry, Mr. De Salvo—”

Dante held up a hand, keeping his frown aimed at her sister. “Then you’ve made up your mind, have you? Whatever it is Grace is refusing to show you, it must be my fault? And your foundation for that assumption is … that I am male, her employer, and such things have been known to happen in the world?”

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