Page 29 of The Sicilian Brotherhood I

I sunk into sullen silence again for a few moments, interrupted only by a tap on the shoulder.

“Hey,” he whispered, “I don’t want to sit in silence the entire plane ride. I know I may come off rough around the edges but I’m not a bad guy.”

I glanced over at him with eyebrows raised. I didn’t have to say out loud what he’d done.

“He was a pervert,” Giacomo said, “And he hurt you.”

He hadn’t meant anything by his last words, I was sure of it, but for a moment, my heart skipped a beat and I saw in him what I’d seen the previous night.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m dragging you halfway across the world.”

“And I assume you’ll leave me there, thousands of miles away from Franco.”

“Is that what you want?”

“To be far away from him? Yes.”

I turned away from him then, my mind flipping back and forth between seeing Giacomo’s gentle side but then being confronted with his roughness and savagery on the other hand. Franco might have set us all up to be killed, but Giacomo had ordered the hit on Ana. She’d been the closest I’d had to a close friend amongst the Sardinians.

Giacomo had nearly plowed through the entire bottle of wine on his own.

“Want some?” He offered.

I declined his offer. I needed to ensure that my senses wouldn’t be compromised with him. I’d already come close to toppling over the edge of what was appropriate.

“What could I possibly do to get you to unwind?” He said, leaning into me, the sweet scent of wine on his lips.

It was impossible to get any space from him, even mentally.

“Nothing,” I said, shifting my body as far away from him in the seat as possible.

“Is it because of last night?” He asked, his fingers dancing up my arm and up my shoulder until he grazed my cheek with them.

I scowled.

“No, it isn’t about last night.”

“Are you sure? Because you’ve been a bit jumpy…”

I glowered.

“There’s no other reason I could be jumpy I suppose. You only —“

He clapped his hand over my mouth before I could protest further and expose him — us, really — on the plane.

“Quiet,” he hissed, dropping his hand from my mouth.

“I’ll be a lot less jumpy when I’m far away from any man who’s going to try to tell me what to do.”

That shut him up for a while longer. He interrupted me towards the end of the flight after we’d both slept.

He’d written “sorry” on a napkin, and crumpled it between his fist as soon as he was sure I’d seen it.

I sighed and nodded, a quiet acceptance that being angry with him would only make this journey worse for me. He hadn’t threatened me, and he did seem solely interested in getting back his diamond. I wouldn’t take chances with my life, but I couldn’t act like Giacomo had been a monster to me.

He’d killed for me. He’d kept me safe.

---