Page 69 of Tide of Treason
“Cwiminals are ugly.”
“Good girl.”
My knuckles itched. I squared my shoulders, walked up to that nightmare in a suit, and punched Mr. Potato Head dead in his foam jaw. A stray arm flailed, clipped my shoulder, but Ibarely felt it. I wrenched the stupid mustache off its face and threw it like a goddamn frisbee.
Sophia screamed with delight.
“Kill!” she shrieked. “Kill!”
I pulled back for a kick, the plush potato center caving under my shoe with a crisp, satisfying noise. A whimper seeped through the costume.
Rafael lit a cigarette and muttered, “Fucking Mondays.”
“Don’t see any problems,” I said, ripping off that ridiculous top hat.
Sophia gasped dramatically. “Oh, Lu-Lu, he’s bald!”
Viviana peeked through the patio doors, took one glance at the massacre on the terrace, then turned on her heel and vanished inside. Self-preservation—one of her better qualities.
My gaze returned to the mangled heap in front of me. Humiliation or obliteration? Choices, choices. Dragging him across the courtyard by his oversised shoes would make good sport, but leaving him to crawl away in his tighty-whities beneath a dozen mocking Sforza gazes held undeniable appeal. Before I could settle on the perfect blend of shame and destruction, Sophia cupped her tiny hands around her mouth, screaming, “FINISH HIM!” in a pitch that’d make Mortal Kombat proud.
My spine tightened, fist wound for the coup de grâce, when the oak doors behind us groaned open on arthritic hinges.
“Madonna puttana.”
If nicotine possessed a dialect, it would have purred inFlavia Sforza’s throat. The original femme fatale. Certified wet dream for the entire male population of 1990s Italy. A woman whose voice had once made men weep in the balconies of La Scala, whose face had been immortalised on the covers of magazines, whose tits had been responsible for at least a decade’s worth of black-market VHS tapes traded between greasy-palmed teens and repressed priests.
Leaning over the stone balustrade, her gaze slid across Foam-Boy’s limp form before crawling onto me. Interest flared dark as espresso: cynical, calculating, a lick of hunger she didn’t bother hiding.
A tug on my leg. “Lu-Lu, why’s she lookin’ at you like that?”
“Like what, peanut?”
Sophia scrunched her button nose. “Like she wants to eat you.”
Jesus. Out of the mouths of babes.
Kayla’s jaw was carved from glass. “Mamma, don’t you have a party to host?”
“The party can wait.” Flavia’s tone purred low, fingertips sliding over the marble rail. “Il mondo non finisce.And it isn’t every day Lucius graces my table.”
I tilted my head. “Limited edition, then? Or a stray mutt that wandered inside?”
“That depends entirely on whether you’re housebroken.”
Sophia puffed her chest. “You can’t talk to Lu-Lu like that! He’s my assassin.”
A brow arched, centuries of menace in a single flick. “Your what,cara mia?”
“Assassin,” Sophia repeated proudly. “He’s gonna kill Mr. Potato Head.”
Flavia flicked a token glance at the foam-mangled corpse of children’s entertainment bleeding stuffing all over the courtyard, although the second was brief since her attention boomeranged to Kayla. Something razor brightened those motherly eyes.
“You’ve quite the temper,figlia mia.”
The air iced over, every molecule crystallizing at Kayla’s inhale dragging icy teeth down my spine.
“I wonder where I get it from.”
