Page 125 of Tide of Treason
It opened strongly: “Your sister wants to elope with a woman who exclusively wears pantsuits.”
Then slid into accusatory: “Why hasn’t he proposed yet?”
And finished with predictable melodrama: “Should I try Botox?”
I didn’t call her back, staring at my reflection in the mirror and trying to reconcile the woman I saw with the one I used to be.
Pre-Lucius, I was tighter. Cleaner around the edges. My lipstick stayed inside the lines. My threats came with follow-through. My bedroom was mostly for sleeping. My uterus was a conceptual organ I’d only vaguely acknowledged. Now I was pregnant, unreasonably turned on by a man folding his socks,and wearing one of his undershirts with no bra because I liked the way he looked at me when I didn’t try.
I didn’t know who this woman was, exactly. But she was deeply in love with a man who hadn’t smiled without menace since 2012. Worse: she trusted him. I ran my tongue over my molars and wondered if this was how women went mad.
Soft.
Slow.
Willing.
He didn’t say much while my cousins lingered for espresso. Honestly, it was too much masculinity for one room. The windows fogged. My walls developed chest hair. Francesco clocked the new addition on the wall.
“Did you seriously install a shelf?”
Lucius glanced lazily toward my mouth. “Yeah.”
“For what?”
“My shit.”
The espresso didn’t even finish percolating before Franky lifted his brows as though he’d just spotted the ghost of sexual tension past.
“You two fucking again?”
“No,” I replied, just as Lucius harshly said, “Yes.”
“Oh, they’redefinitelyfucking again.”
Elio didn’t look up from his phone. “They never stopped.”
Francesco slapped my marble countertop triumphantly, rattling cups and spoons. “Called it. Fifty bucks. Fork it over, assholes.”
I forked nothing. “I’m not discussing my sex life in front of the cookware.”
“Elio, make a note. That’s code for she’s been defiled in every room of this penthouse. Including this kitchen.”
“She said she wasn’t discussing it,” Elio replied mildly. “Not that it wasn’t happening.”
My cousins were dicks. But they voted for Lucius.
And in this house, loyalty was the only currency that didn’t depreciate.
I sipped my espresso and let them bicker, knowing if they’d voted the other way, I’d have had no choice but to kill them. Two months later and Papà’s neutrality still itched beneath my skin. I hadn’t met his eyes since, unsure if I could without saying something that would shatter what was left of our shared bloodline. I needed to know where he stood on Lucius, but every time I tried to ask, the words withered in my throat and reformed into a sigh.
Because I already knew. Papà stood on a crumbling middle ground where men went to convince themselves they were still kings, even as the queens quietly moved their pieces. Where honor got repackaged as indecision. Where spine met sentiment and called it strategy. I understood it. Didn’t mean I respected it.
My father stood for tradition.
Lucius stood for me.
Vito leaned forward on his elbows, arms massive and glinting with the memory of blood. He flicked his chin at Lucius’s bum shoulder. “You shoot better with your left?”
