Page 106 of Tide of Treason
“You don’t like her,” I stated flatly. Every man liked Mamma. It was a law of physics, I think.
He considered lying. I watched the impulse crawl over his face before he let it die.
“No.”
Well, well.
At least now I knew he was real.
At the curb,Kayla’s phone buzzed—Viviana, no doubt FaceTiming hamster catastrophes. She stepped aside to answer, leaving me to approach Ruyan di Santuorsro under the half-dead maple that shadowed the sidewalk. A sliver of humor cut through his gaze when I stopped three feet out.
“Lucius Andrade.” His voice was Warm Welcome at a luxury dealership, but the undertow read autopsy-cold. “Or do you prefer Director today?”
I slid my hands into my pockets. “Depends who’s asking. You the guy who puts rouge on the cheeks of stiffs or the one who sends them my way?”
“Logistics. You break them, I box them. Synergy, Director.”
A crow called overhead, the sound like a rusty gate creaking open.
“Odd place to network,” I mused dryly.
“Ah, I’m not networking.” He tapped a hand against his chest, smile slipping, and I noticed the subtle outline of a holster beneath the lining of his coat. “Not unless you were aiming to kill me in the next fifteen minutes. No one here to run interference, or do you think you can take me?”
I eyed the small graveyard of cars surrounding us. “If I wanted you zipped, you’d already be zipped. I know why you’re here—and it isn’t me.”
Ruyan’s smile grew, gaze fixed on Flavia as she retrieved Sophia’s fallen flower crown from a pew boy who flushed crimson beneath her attention. Fuck. Men always lost their heads over Sforza women, myself for one in particular. It seemed that Connecticut’s mortician was no different, if not a little more subtle with his perusal.
I let a minute tick by. “Listen carefully. I don’t know what’s going on between you and my mother-in-law. Maybe nothing. Maybe too much. Not my circus. But if you make Flavia upset, she’ll make Kayla upset. And if you make Kayla upset . . .” My eyes cut to his. “Then I’m fucking upset.”
Green eyes gleamed.
A gust rattled the maple, showering us with crisp leaves that skidded across the pavement. Too pretty a day to break his even prettier jaw—sacred ground and all that—but the temptation itched beneath my knuckles.
“You’re young.” His tone was mild. “That’s what’s going on with me and your mother-in-law.”
The comment slid off my skin, left a faint scorch. I stored the sting for later. Kayla returned just as Ruyan slipped away into black town cars and unspoken goodbyes. Her dark gaze narrowed at my chest, brows knitting in accusation.
“Where’s your rosary?”
My attention dropped to her mouth. It lingered there, half because I couldn’t look away, half because I needed a goddamn second to think.
“Probably on the floor of the Chevelle,” I admitted.
She blinked. Real slow. “You dropped it?”
A dry breath escaped my chest.
I’d ripped it off, snapped it off my rearview like it was choking me. It had belonged to my mother, that rosary. She used to clutch it so tight her palms bled, claiming it kept the devil out of the house. I wasn’t old enough then to tell her he lived there full-time. Ate from her dishes, slept in her bed, wore a badge and beat us both with the flat of his palm.
So no, I hadn’t walked into that church this morning with any fucking plans to beg for grace. The second I crossed that marble threshold, the crucifix inked across my chest burned, a brand searing deeper than skin. My lungs seized, air turning to lead, each breath a betrayal of the man I’d become. But Kayla—fuck—Kayla had climbed onto my lap at dawn with sleepy eyes and thighs still slick, telling me she’d like it if I came. To church. With her.
The request had sunk its teeth into my chest and shook. Hard. A visceral bite that infected me with something pathetic and terminal, something only she could make feel so damn good.
Maybe I deserved the name.
Lapdog.
Bootlicker.
