Page 49 of Married With Malice

Clearly, she’s going to wander right past my nose so I have no choice but to speak up. “Sabrina.”

Her head whips up and she blinks in surprise. “What areyoudoing here?”

“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Her boyfriend, or whatever he is, edges closer to her. His puny chest puffs out with indignation.

Sabrina crosses her arms and purses her lips. “You could have just texted like a normal person.”

“Let’s go for a walk and I’ll explain.”

Now the boyfriend is openly huffing and puffing. Maybe he’s good with computers but he’s not very smart if he doesn’t realize he’d be outmatched before he raises his skeletal fists.

Sabrina finally notices his existence just as he’s about to explode with resentment. “We don’t need to work on the project today, Alec. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The dude fucking deflates. Now I just feel sorry for him. It’s like watching a puppy get stepped on. He gazes at her with a woeful look, which she doesn’t even notice, then slinks away and disappears into pedestrian traffic.

“I hope he gets home in one piece,” I say. “Now that he’s blinded with tears.”

She rolls her eyes and adjusts the strap of her pink Hello Kitty backpack. “He’ll survive. And no matter what Anni did to you, I’m sure you deserved it and even if you didn’t, I’ll always take my sister’s side. So if you’re here in search of an ally, you’re wasting your time.”

“The sibling loyalty is noble. Anni didn’t do anything to me. There’s a question I need to ask you.”

She gestures to a nearby vendor cart. “Buy me a pretzel and perhaps I’ll cooperate.”

“That sounds fair.”

Sabrina waits until I’ve paid for her pretzel and handed it over before she grins and says, “I want a soda too. Go get it.”

Clearly, she’s got a little bit of Anni in her. Once Sabrina has her pretzel and her soda she finds it too difficult to juggle everything so I end up holding her Hello Kitty backpack.

Though Sabrina might have a few things in common with her sister, she’s so oblivious to the rest of the world it’s downright comical. While she happily sucks on her soda straw and licks pretzel salt from her fingers, she takes no notice of the stares and open leering from passing men. Most of them avert their eyes when they catch me glaring.

Sabrina is nearly twenty-five, not much younger than me and Annalisa, and yet I still think of her as a kid. She’s completely unaware of the risky attention she collects. I feel very much like a protective big brother as I walk beside her.

“So what do you want?” she says as we proceed down Fifth Avenue. She’s not hostile, only curious as she peers up at me.

“I want to know about one of your father’s men.”

She scrunches up her face. “Shouldn’t you ask him? I’m no expert on my father’s goon squad.”

“He’d never give me an answer to this particular question.”

“This is starting to sound exhausting. You’d better cut to the chase before I get hungry again or you’ll be buying me a hot dog too.”

“Fine. Which one of those bastards on your father’s payroll put his motherfucking hands on my wife?”

She stops walking and astonishment makes her jaw drop. Then something clicks in her brain and the shock disappears, replaced with some sadness. “You’re talking about Rocco, aren’t you?”

Rocco. A regular member of Albie’s crew. Big guy, mid-thirties, with a gut like a truck tire and the face of a work mule. The day of the wedding, he was in the car that escorted us to the reception.

“Tell me what he did.”

She frowns and glances at the passing traffic. “What did Anni tell you?”

“Not much. I don’t think she intended to tell me anything.”

“Then I probably shouldn’t tell you either.”

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