Page 42 of Tide of Treason
“Yes, but this one is particularly abrasive.”
I inhaled sharply, flicking my gaze to our mother, who was now in deep conversation with the wife of a man who had, to my knowledge, at least three secret families and a mistress in every borough.
“She took your paints again?” I asked.
She tapped her charcoal stubbornly. “No.”
Lie. She’d always been shit at hiding things from me. I softened my voice, teasing but edged with sincerity. “I’d retrieve them for you, but I’ve been banned from Il Cigno’s second floor indefinitely.”
She exhaled with enough drama to put half the Met out of work. “What did you do this time?”
I studied my manicure. “Stabbed a senator’s pinkie with a shrimp fork.”
“Why?”
“He said women don’t belong in organized crime, then tried to cop a feel while nobody was looking.” I shrugged. “Bad timing for him. Worse timing for my skewered hors d’oeuvre.”
She looked at me then, eyes dark and assessing. For all the softness of her features, there was steel beneath the surface. Viviana was our father’s daughter as much as I was. Her voicedipped lower, an echo of something heavy and wounded.
“I heard what Brando said. About me.”
My stomach curdled. “Then you know why I wanted to break his legs.”
Her gaze returned to the pond, where a koi was chasing its own tail in lazy circles. I’d never questioned my sister’s preferences. Not once. I’d simply accepted them. I’d accepted her, in all her stubborn, messy, chaotic forms. Our family, however, specialised in conditions.
“He’s a dead man walking,” I told her, low and fervent. “You know that, yes?”
She tilted her head, considering me. “And who do you think will do it first? You? Lucius?”
“Does it matter?”
A smile curved her lips. “Not at all.”
A breeze slipped through the trees then, catching strands of wisteria and brushing cool fingers along my skin. Comfortable silence settled between us, punctuated only by the rhythmic tap of the cigarette I refused to light.
Eventually, I asked, “Do you want me to get your paints back?”
Viviana nodded once, relief flickering briefly in her eyes. “Yes. Please.”
11 | Kayla
29 years old
Present day
The second floorof Il Cigno was strictly forbidden to those who did not have a standing invitation from Mamma. It was the haven of her women’s book club, a bastion of feminine influence, art, and sophistication, or so she called it.
In reality, it was where she fucked other men.
At six in the morning, the place was dead. Almost. I pulled a hairpin from my bun, twisted the tip into the keyhole, and gave it a few calculated flicks. There was a soft click, and then—
A very masculine groan from the other side.
Ah.
If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard Mamma’s lovers groaning through these walls, I’d have enough to buy her ahouse where she could fuck them in peace. Maybe even get her a loyalty card—five affairs and the sixth is free. Still, I had a mission. And unlike the unfortunate soul currently getting his soul sucked out of his dick, I wasn’t about to let a little moral ambiguity get in my way.
I cracked the door open just enough to peek inside.
