Page 105 of Tide of Treason
When I finally stepped outdoors, a soft pass of wind kissed the side of my neck and reminded me that I was sweating beneath my dress. I was sweating and my thighs were damp and my heels were pinching, and inside my clutch, I was holding a secret so heavy it made my wrist ache.
A folded slip of cream-colored paper.
Heavy stock.
OB-GYN letterhead embossed in delicate script.
Inside:viability.
That was the word printed across the top in thick, bold letters.
Below it: one heartbeat.
Seven weeks.
Due date pending.
“You’re pale,” Mamma observed, her rosary clutched in one hand, Sophia’s gum wrapper in the other.
I blinked. “I’m Sicilian.”
“You’re pregnant,” she announced, and walked away.
I didn’t move for a long time after Mamma left, frozenbeneath the stark clarity that accompanied moments of quiet dread. My stomach rolled in a lazy rebellion. That strange pressure, the one that lived just behind my diaphragm these days, ticked in slow pulses.
“Lucifer’s wife,” a voice mused, drifting in from my left. The sound wore amusement. Male. I felt my eye twitch.
“Excuse me?” I turned slowly.
The man leaning against the church railing had the kind of face that made women clench and cross themselves. Sharply carved. Dark hair that curled slightly at the ends, styled with enough care to imply vanity but not enough to look like he tried too hard. His tie was loose, jacket undone. Tan skin, green eyes.
“I said,” he clarified, not unkindly, “Lucifer’s wife. It’s what they call you. Around certain tables. The ones where I sit.”
“And where, exactly, do you sit?”
“Cosa Nostra’s northern end. I’m the sad cousin they keep in Connecticut.”
Ah. The polish suddenly made sense. He had Greenwich written all over him. “So, the black sheep tucked discreetly behind ivy-covered fences to avoid scaring the papal donors.”
“Sad cousin,” he corrected with amusement. “Black sheep is offensive.”
“To sheep?”
“To me. I’m sensitive.”
“Are you related to Niccolò?” Everyone here wore the same scent of old violence.
He offered me a tilt of regret. “Cousin. Please, accept my sympathies.”
Dammit. I liked him instantly for that remark.
“Name?” I probed, mostly to confirm he wasn’t an apparition conjured by heatstroke and disillusionment. Something about him was too clean.
“Ruyan. My mother was . . . theatrical. Also, drunk in a foreign country.”
“You’re not a stranger, are you?” The realisation slipped into my chest, cold and certain. He’d looked at me with an odd familiarity, one I didn’t fully trust and yet strangely found myself appreciating. Anyone who knew me usually kept their distance—or ran.
For a breath, his easy expression broke, fractured by something brittle and private. Nearby, Mamma was laughing at something Papà said, her head tipped back, mouth red as a crime scene, and Ruyan’s jaw went tight.
