Page 61 of His UnBearable Touch

Salvatore gave his mate a slow smile when she silently sighed at Uberto’s comment. “She knows.”

“Can’t be helped, I guess. First things first. So, if I can’t kill him, what can I do?”

Salvatore had a look in his eye that made Natale shiver down to her toes.

“Can you get into his home when he’s not there?”

There was an ominous moment of silence on the other end of the phone. “I’ll pretend you didn’t just insult my skills. Just tell me what you want.”

“Fingerprints. I will send you the prints from the police file.”

“No need,” Uberto’s voice sounded upbeat, excited, “I have the records on my phone. Why do you need the prints?”

The front door of the penthouse opened up and Salvatore was already on his feet. “Get them and compare them to the prints in the file. Then call me.”

“What? That’s all you’re going to-”

Salvatore hung up and he moved toward the front door, taking Natale’s hand in his as they moved.

In the kitchen, Valerio dropped his keys on the table and looked up at them. “I just need to get showered and changed. Then we can go to the theater.”

He saw a look pass between the two.

“Did something happen?”

Salvatore managed a smile for his brother. “Not yet, but our brother is about to have a little bit of fun on company time.”

Valerio tugged at his tie, a ghost of a smile returning to his lips. “Tell me.”

* * *

Allegra let a bit of time go by before she turned back to her makeup table. “You were kind of hard on Zack.”

“He’s annoying,” Linda huffed and walked over to the closet, sliding the hanger on the bar. “This is a really nice dress.”

“Thank you. Natale was a huge help. It’s hard to find a dress that I feel comfortable in and can play in, without having to worry about flashing the first few rows while I’m getting ready to play.”

“I guess you’d have to worry about something like that.” Linda’s tone was soft, almost sullen. “Oboe players, well, we don’t have to worry about that.”

Allegra set down her compact and laughed. “Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be a problem.” She picked up her blusher and opened up the cover. “And I guess you don’t get a lot of the same comments about playing position. When I was in high school, some guy that I liked told me he’d never be interested in a girl who played the cello.”

“What?” Linda sounded genuinely surprised. “Did he say why?”

Allegra sighed as she dusted on the blush high on her cheekbones. “He said all girls that played the cello were secretly lesbians. That we liked thick girls with hips between our legs.” Allegra laughed. “Little did he know.”

“Yeah, um… that’s bordering on-”

“TMI? Yeah, I guess. Sorry about that.” Setting the compact down she turned slightly on the seat. “You said you wanted girl talk. What’s up?”

“Nothing, I mean… I had something to… so what are you going to do after this concert? I mean, you’ve been gone so long. You haven’t played in public in forever and now you’re just… What are your plans?”

Allegra felt an odd twinge in her middle. “You know, I don’t know. For so many years I thought I’d never play again. So much of my process in learning music, well, anything really, it’s all visual.

“But when I was upset or when I was lonely, which was a lot of the time,” she confided, “I’d hear the music in my head and my fingers were almost itching to play again, so I got a tutor to come in and we worked on getting my skills back.”

Linda mumbled something, but Allegra couldn’t quite hear it.

“What was that?”

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