Page 18 of The Enforcer

Zahra, the dark-haired one, the big one, and I all glance at one another, chastened. If I wasn’t sure who was in charge of this entire operation before, I am now.

We arrive at a door. The gray-haired one lets go of Shae’s hand long enough to fish a keyring from his pockets. She turns to look at us, a shy smile on her face.

I see Zahra about to make a very rude gesture with her hands toward our cousin, and I reach around her to grab her wrists. “Please grow up,” I whisper.

Shae laughs at us, and the gray-haired man turns to her. I watch him watching her, and just like I’ve never seen Zahra smile the way she has today at any point in all those years she spent with Ryan, I never saw Steve look at Shae like this. The way she deserves.

“The fuck is in the water here?” I whisper as we follow Shae and her gray-haired baby daddy into this apartment.

“Nothing,” the big one whispers, suddenly closer behind me than he was before. “Why? What have you heard?”

I turn to him. He winks at me again.

“Can you stop winking at me, please?”

Zahra bursts into childish giggles.

Alfonso

“Don’t look at her like that,” Giulio hisses at me.

“Like what?”

“Like that,” he says. “She’s Zahra’s sister.”

“And?”

He rolls his eyes and nods toward the kitchen table, where Salvo is watching the other woman drink a bottle of water with every ounce of his attention. “Do you know anything about that?”

I shake my head quickly. “Nothing. When did he meet her?”

“No idea.”

I turn to him because I need to broach this subject even though I don’t want to; it’s Giulio’s job to be tactful.

“No,” he says before I can even open my mouth. Before I even have the words I need. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Because I know you. And you should be thinking what you’re thinking, but it’s not that.”

“How do you know?”

“Hi,” Zahra calls from across the room. “Do you two realize that you’re shouting?”

When we turn, everyone is staring at us, including Salvo. I catch his eye and think very loudly the words Giulio didn’t allow me to speak. Thankfully, Salvo is more levelheaded.

He pats the woman’s hand and then stands slowly from the table. “I think it is time we talked. This is an unexpectedly eventful day.”

“Big understatement. Huge,” the tall one I can’t stop looking at says.

“Pretty Woman,” Zahra and her other sister say at the same time.

Salvo, Giulio, and I look in confusion at one another.

“Okay,” he says tentatively. “Let us start with introductions.”

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