Page 103 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

“Was one of my most trustworthy. Now, he’s dead.”

Dead because I had killed him for putting the Buratti family in danger.

“What are we going to do?” Laila asked. “How much does the FBI know?”

“I don’t know,” I said, running a hand over my face. “Pietro is working on it.”

Pietro, my brother, was the loudest—sometimes most infuriating—guy in the entire family, but he loved Laila like a sister and had been wanting us to have kids for months now so he could finally be an uncle. We had been trying, too, but … Laila hadn’t been able to get pregnant.

“I have to go meet him”—I peered down at my watch—“now, but please, stay safe.”

“I will,” she said. “Promise me you’ll come back to me.”

I kissed her. “I promise.”

15

laila

With her tablet, Sage sat on our white velvet upholstered sofa near the floor-length windows and drew her pen across the screen a couple of hours after Constantino left. Expression soft, eyes light, fingers gliding her pen in small strokes, she hummed.

I grabbed a wineglass from the cupboard and opened the last bottle of Armand de Brignac Rosé that Constantino and I had bought on our trip to France last year. We had plans to go back in June, but with all this FBI nonsense, I didn’t know if we would.

After I filled my glass halfway, I leaned back against the counter and stared over at Sage. She had that same look of awe on her face that I remembered feeling while painting years ago. But I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d held a brush.

“Are you drawing?” I asked, the mere scent of Afterglow wine giving me confidence.

Earlier, I had completely screwed up over texts, asking her for a damn picture of herself. I didn’t know what had come over me, but I just … I couldn’t talk to Sage like I could with Bethany or any of the other girls. Sage made me nervous, and all she was doing was drawing.

Sage glanced up at me, cheeks tinting pink. “Um, yeah.”

I took my glass and sat on the opposite side of the couch. “Can I see it?”

“It’s, um, not that good,” she said in a whisper, swallowing hard and glancing back down at the screen. She curled her fingers around the edges of it until her knuckles turned white. “I’ve been thinking that’s the real reason why my job laid me off.”

My chest tightened as guilt washed over me.

She thought she wasn’t good at something she loved doing.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, pushing the bad memories and feelings away from when I had thrown away my art supplies for good, when I had told myself that it just wasn’t for me anymore, that I was happier being a housewife who went to brunch every day with her friends.

“Stop it,” I said once I finally shook the feelings away. I crossed my legs and leaned closer to her. “That is definitely not why you were laid off from your job. I bet your art is amazing. So, think of this as a way to … do what you love now.”

Sage stared at me, inhaled sharply, then pressed her nude-colored matte lips together. After another moment, she turned the tablet toward me. A colorful drawing of a woman lying in a bed, staring up at the ceiling, her breasts and torso covered with a thin sheet, glowed on the screen.

“Sage,” I said in a breath. “This is amazing!”

“You think?” she asked shyly, blushing even harder.

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “We should put it in a gallery or an auction.”

“A gallery?” Sage asked, shaking her head and taking the iPad back from me. “I’m definitely not that good. There are so many artists better than me. I can’t even imagine someone would want a naked woman hanging up in their house.”

“Please,” I said, playfully rolling my eyes. “If you drew this on an actual canvas, I’d hang this in our bedroom.”

Sage stared down at the drawing, looked back up at me, then smiled softly, changing the direction of the conversation. “You know, I’m actually sorta, kinda glad they laid me off,” she whispered. “I worked for an animation studio who liked giving the females unrealistic body proportions since the content is mostly all geared toward men.”

“Like everything else in this world,” I said.

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