Page 101 of The Woman in the Garage

I was too short compared to him to make contact with his nose, but I felt the solid jut of his chin against my skull.

David let out a howl of pain, and his hand loosened just enough for me to duck down and rush forward.

David recovered fast, though. And then hands were shoving hard into my shoulders, sending me stumbling forward too quickly to brace myself.

I collided hard with the fridge.

The pain was minor, but the impact made my breath rush out of me.

The pain when David grabbed my hair and yanked hard enough to force me to my knees, though, was enough to make me cry out.

I reached back, trying to grab my hair to lessen the sting across my scalp. But he was quicker, wrapping my hair around his fist. Once. Twice. Then yanking harder.

“Give me the shit,” he snarled.

“I don’t have it,” I insisted, my voice a shriek.

“Bullshit. Give me the fucking keys and unit numbers, or I swear to fuck, I will—”

I have no idea what the rest of that threat was going to entail.

Because one second, he was snarling at me and yanking my hair so hard I was shocked it didn’t just come out of my scalp. The next, there was a loudthwackfollowed by a slamming sound, and the hold on my hair released.

“That was enough of that, don’t you think?” a woman’s voice asked, making my heart shoot up into my throat as I swiveled around on my knees.

There was David, lying prone on the floor just a few inches from me.

Spread all around him was… food?

Ravioli and red sauce were… everywhere.

Including on the neat cream pant legs of the woman standing there, an empty cast iron skillet still in her hand.

She was a short woman with her black hair pulled half up and secured with a claw clip. Her face featured some laughter lines around her lips and near her eyes, but her beauty was timeless.

And very, very familiar.

I’d seen her face smiling from the center of the only framed family portrait Santo owned that lived on the mantel.

This was Giulia Grassi.

Santo’smom.

I barely managed to hold back a groan. I’d imagined being introduced to Giulia a few times since getting together with Santo. I imagined handing her a plate of handmade cookies or a savory side dish. Or maybe just flowers. I figured I would compliment her home, would say it was such a pleasure to meet her.

Never once, in any of those imaginings, had I thought to picture myself on my knees in Santo’s kitchen, chest heaving with my ragged breath, eyes wide and confused.

But then I remembered.

The emergency button.

I’d figured it had just gone out to the men in the Family, but maybe it went out to… everyone. Mafia mama bear included.

“We have to move fast,” Giulia said, placing her cast iron skillet down on the island. “It isn’t like the movies. He’s going to wake up.”

Her calm seemed infectious.

I scrambled forward, turning David onto his stomach, then climbing onto him, knees digging into his back. I reached for his hands, wrenching them up to the center of his back.

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