Page 71 of Tide of Treason
Three Kaylas swam in my vision, all of them looking more lethal than the last. I blinked, trying to corral them into one corporeal woman.
“This is what happens when you let your emotions rule you,” Viviana snapped at her sister. “Dio, Kay, you could’vegiven him a concussion.”
“I didn’t mean—” Kayla bit off the rest, jaw clenching shut. A slip, a fracture in all that iron composure. You didn’t see that often, not from her.
“He needs a doctor.”
The room spun in and out of focus. Voices tangled together. Viviana was now yelling, Kayla was arguing back, and there was Flavia watching the show from the sidelines as if it was Sunday opera. I squeezed my eyes shut, riding out the noise.
When I opened them again, I was lying on the drawing room couch, an arm hanging off the side. A doctor had jabbed a couple of needles into me, something about dulling the worst of the pain. I only grinned in response, knowing there wasn’t enough morphine in the world to bury the voltage that still pounded in my veins. Cracked ribs, a slash that demanded stitches but got limp butterfly bandages instead, and a skull-splitting headache.
I’d live.
All of it was easier to ignore by focusing on the chandelier above me. I studied the beads, watching them cut through the light streaming in through the windows to paint the walls in fractured rainbows. My head throbbed in time with the muted tick of an antique clock, and somewhere between the morphine and the blood loss, I realised something crucial.
I was going to fucking die in this house.
Not by gunshot, or overdose, or any of the twenty-threestatistically probable ways I’d envisioned. Fate would mock me with domestic absurdity: drowned in a decorative fountain by a woman who hadn’t meant to push me that hard, beaten to death by a giant who was either repressing a bi-curious crisis or just really into me for no good reason. If Vito ever figured out which one, I was doubly fucked.
Kayla shoved at my chest with a frustrated sound.
“Easy,” I grated out. “Not sure how many more broken bones I can take from this family today.”
Had to be a new record. Jesus. Didn’t think the woman had a sympathetic bone in her body. She stared at my torso with something unsettling in her eyes.
“The doctor said he’s coming back tomorrow. You were too”—she flicked a wrist, elegant and dismissive—“large. Needed better equipment.”
A laugh rumbled in my chest. “First time I’ve heard that one. Usually, they say it after I’ve fucked them senseless.”
Kayla’s gaze snapped up, and whatever sympathy there’d been bled into something else. “If you’re awake enough to make comments like that, you’re awake enough to tell me why you’re bleeding.”
I was also awake to feel the hot imprint of her hand splayed wide across my bare chest, her other curled around the waistband of my trousers, inches from making her mother proud. The thought shot voltage southward.
“You! I’m bleeding because of you!”
Incorrect answer. Her eyes rolled skyward. “You’re bleeding because of your hubris. No one told you to get in thefountain. And even if I did push you, the first thing you should’ve worried about was getting out of the water. Not me. Not my mother.” Her eyes turned cold. “What’s a little water between family?”
I narrowed my eyes, wondering if she realised how her perfect little mask of indifference was slipping. She didn’t look nearly as detached as usual. Soft, even. Still dangerously pissed off, sure, but softer. I debated pointing it out, then quickly dismissed the thought. My chances of survival improved dramatically when I didn’t poke the lioness.
The anger wasn’t meant for me. It was self-directed, radiating from her like heat off hot pavement. She hadn’t meant for me to bleed. Which was, oddly, a damn shame, because I kind of liked the way she looked when she thought she had.
My attention drifted to the windows, massive and arched, moonlight spilling across polished floors. Night had crept in on rubber soles Last I remembered, I’d been peeling off wet clothes in the guest room. Light had sliced through those windows golden, and Kayla looked better in sunlight than any woman had a right to. I’d decided then that she tasted better in the dark
“What time is it?” My words bounced between her and the chandelier, because both of them judged me equally.
She twisted gracefully, glancing toward the antique clock over the fireplace.
“Late.”
“How late?” I pressed.
“After dinner.”
A half-cleared tray sat on a nearby table including remnants of soup and crumbs from a half-eaten roll. My stomach clenched with realisation. She’d stayed. The whole time. Something strange twisted deep in my chest, a weird, dangerous warmth filling the cracks left behind by pain. My mouth twitched upward before I could stop it. Shit. I rubbed roughly at my lips to erase the evidence.
“Don’t look so pleased,” she snapped. “It’s indecent.”
“Maybe I’m trying to be decent,” I countered, moving to sit up. Idiot move; pain bit down. In response, she planted her palm against my chest and shoved me back with an ease that burned. Her other hand landed against my stomach. A hiss worked its way past my teeth. Lifting my hips, her hand unintentionally slipped lower.
