Page 32 of Merciless Attraction

“Steve broke in and I caught him. You gave me that 22 and I was forced to use it. I shot him in the face, and he ripped my rosary off my neck as he fell back. I thought he was dead and felt guilty that someone I’d brought into our lives broke into Mom and Dad’s house. Steve played the long game. We dated for an entire year before he mentioned anything about meeting my brothers.”

Natalie immediately sits next to her friend and throws an arm around Gemma, slowly rubbing her shoulder. Natalie tells us the rest. “I use large trunks for my instruments, and we moved his body. We dumped him in the river.”

“And you’re okay with this?” I ask Natalie.

She glares at me. “You don’t know my parents. I’ll forgive you for your ignorance, doc. I’m a Bersani, daughter of—you know what? It doesn’t matter. Gem and I have a thing where we don’t want to be in this shit anymore. We moved out here and look at us. Still in the middle of mob shit. Are you okay with this?”

“I’m confused because if Steve is dead, who the fuck sent the necklace? Are you sure Steve was dead?” I ask them.

They both nod.

Damian stops scrubbing the counter long enough to look up. “Did you weigh down the trunk?”

Gemma and Natalie look at each other and then at Damian. Natalie has the most innocent look in her eyes as she asks. “Doesn’t the body weigh it down?”

Damian pulls his phone out to make a call. “Bash, yeah, we need you here. Now.”

Chapter 13: Gemma

The moment Casper and Bash show up to my apartment, the energy shifts. Casper looks around my place, runs his finger along the chair rail, and glances at Damian. Damian’s no longer scrubbing my countertop as he stands in front of the peninsula island with his arms folded over his chest.

Antonio’s standing beside the window, his eyes scanning the darkness of the street in front of the house. Natalie’s hands are like a steeple holding up her head as she glares at the package on the table. My heart races every time I stare at the rosary beads that are supposed to be clutched in a dead man’s hand at the bottom of the East River.

Casper’s voice is low when he speaks. “I need your phones off and put them upstairs.”

Dread washes over me as we all power our phones off and hand them over to Damian who heads upstairs to put them in Natalie’s apartment. When he gets back, Bash closes and locks the door behind him.

Bash is still in pain from the other night as he stands in front of the door, looking like a younger version of our dad. Dark hair and dark gray eyes stare at me with disappointment. He groans and Antonio moves away from the window to sit beside me.

“Tell me exactly what happened, Gemma,” Bash demands with restraint in his voice.

My eyes shift from him to Natalie. She has an expression mirroring the worry inching through my body. Antonio rubs my shoulder from beside me as I dredge up memories from nearly a year ago.

“Steve was going on and on about meeting you guys for the two years we were friends and then the entire year we dated,” I tell them.

“The grease monkey?” Casper asks, running his fingers through his light brown hair. His familial dark gray eyes narrow at me as his brow furrows, likely trying to remember what Steve looked like.

“He said he worked at a body shop, but I don’t know,” I shrug my shoulders. “We dated for practically a year. Way back, like last September, he started dropping hints that he wanted to come around and meet you guys. Ma and Pop had already left for Sicily.”

Bash nods slowly. “It’s starting to come back to me. They left and I was trying to sell the house. He met up with us at that restaurant, but he was like a fucking Energizer bunny.”

“I didn’t like him,” Damian growls from behind my kitchen counter. He’s now sitting on top of it to stop himself from cleaning it all over again.

“Yeah. After you guys brushed him off, he wanted me to do more to convinceLa Familiato bring him in. I tried to tell him it doesn’t work like that. I don’t have any say on who you guys work with or anything. When he finally got that through his thick skull, he broke up with me.”

Bash simply sighs, folding his arms across his chest. “Then what happened.”

“About eight months ago...” I hesitate to tell them the rest because I know I screwed up and I just wanted to fix the situation without getting them involved.

“Go on, Gem,” Antonio encourages me as he gently rubs my shoulder. Having him by my side gives me enough courage to continue.

I touch his hand but stop when I see the glint of discomfort in my brothers’ eyes. “I went to the house because I told Bash I would get it cleaned and staged so he could do an open house. I heard someone upstairs and thought it was one of you guys, but it was Steve. He was angry and had a bunch of shit in his hand.”

“What did he do?” Casper asks anger rippling through his voice.

“He threw the stuff at me and we started fighting. I was able to get to my purse and I used the gun Damian gave me.”

Casper and Bash shoot daggers at Damian, who shrugs and says, “She’s our fucking sister, running around New York without a piece is stupid. I taught her how to use it.”

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