Page 98 of My Dark Ever After
I startled like a spooked horse at the sweet tones of Guinevere’s voice, snapping my head around to see her sitting at the table with Renzo, Carmine, and Ludo, holding a fingermark-fogged glass filled with Carm’s sambuca. She sat so primly on the stool, back straight, legs crossed like a lady’s in the pristine white nightgown.
But there was cool, quiet rage in those black-velvet eyes and a tiny curl to her red-ribbon lips.
“Literally,” Ludo supplied. “We keep pigs a few fields over. Sheep, too, but for different reasons.” When Guinevere raised an eyebrow, he shrugged. “Angela and Carlotta make their own yarn to knit.”
“Of course,” she murmured, that sharp-edged smile deepening.
Renzo got up to do as I had asked, cranking the lever on the chains attaching Philippe to the ceiling so that he fell to the ground with a wet thump.
Guinevere’s gaze darted over before she looked back at me, utterly composed.
“Come sit,” she suggested, waiting for me to do so before she handed me the glass of sambuca. After I tipped it back in one swallow, she took my hands to lay them palms up on the table and methodically began to clean them as best she could with the already-stained handkerchief on the table.
“Have you considered that the mole might be in the Romano Group and not necessarily a man in your outfit?” she asked conversationally, the way one would inquire about the weather.
Small talk.
I blinked at her, too exhausted and wrung out emotionally to wonder if her composure was a good thing or bad.
“Not really,” I confessed, slumping slightly against the table. At this point, I’d had about ten hours of sleep in the last four days. “There is almost no way someone outside the life would know the inner workings of the Camorra the way they would have had to in order to strike at the heart of my operations.”
“Fair,” she acknowledged as she finished cleaning my hands as well as she could with the soiled fabric. She tossed it aside to begin a slow massage of my palm that wrenched a low moan of relief from my throat. “But I still think it is something to consider. You don’t have much to do with the Romano Group, right? You even admitted that you don’t sit on the board. It just seems like if there was going to be a mole, it would be a good place for them to hide.”
“Philippe clearly is not the only one,” Renzo agreed. “And Guinevere has a point. Apart from Tonio and Leo, we do not have many men we trust overseeing operations there.”
“Because it isn’t affiliated with the criminal activities of the outfit anymore,” I said. “But I agree. It is the weak link.”
“Are you saying I don’t have a handle on things with the Romano Group?” Leo asked over my shoulder as he placed his stool beside Renzo at the table.
“I am saying everything in my life is unstable,” I admitted with a twisted grin. “It is not a reflection on you, but on me,amico mio.”
Guinevere made a noise in her throat and slid her fingers through mine. “I am afraid my bad luck has rubbed off on you.”
“No, it is not luck but the history Aldo sowed finally cropping up in my life,” I corrected.
“It isn’t your fault,” Leo said, but he seemed just as dejected as me, maybe even more exhausted, his shoulders slumped as he swayed to bump into me. “Sins of the father and all that.”
I laughed, but it was more an exhalation of breath. “I think that deserves a toast.” After pouring another finger of sambuca for myself and then refilling everyone’s glasses, I raised the drink in the air. “To the sins of our fathers and grinding them into dust.”
“Cin cin,” my men echoed.
Guinevere did not say a word, but then again, she did not have a drink to toast with. Instead, she squeezed my hand and watched with low-lidded eyes as I swallowed down the harsh alcohol.
“I think that’s enough for the night,” she said with cool authority. “Leave us, will you?”
Leo hesitated, gaze darting between Guinevere and me, but Carmine got up with a burp and helped Ludo collect his various tech, and Renzo clapped me on the back before going to lever the dead body into a wheelbarrow.
I stared at my American girl through the commotion, trying to understand the intent in those night-dark eyes. She seemed more grounded than she had been since returning to Italy, a confident atavism that was utterly beguiling.
What might she do if she got me alone as she wanted?
Kiss me or kill me, I thought, sure of either answer.
“Leo,” I said when he was the last one lingering. My voice was gruff, scraped raw by exhaustion and emotional rawness. “Vai via.”
Leave, now.
His sigh was loud in the cavernous barn, but he did as I asked, dragging himself off the stool and shutting the sliding door behind him with a bang.
