Page 32 of First Comes Blood

My change of subject works and Ginevra begins to recite everything that she has done and still needs to do for her 2.5-million-dollar wedding. The cake alone is costing thirty thousand dollars. I pretended to wince when she came to me with all the bills, but anything for my baby sister. My only baby sister, now. We only have each other, and her special day is going to be lavish.

“I’m finalizing the table settings this weekend. Are your friends really not coming to the wedding?”

“Who?” I ask vaguely.

“Vinicius. Cassius. That other one.” A cloud passes behind her eyes and her smile dims.

“Lorenzo Scava?”

“Yes, that psycho,” she mutters, pushing her tart around her plate.

“You better than anyone knows why Lorenzo is the way he is.”

Ginevra’s eyes drop to her plate and she shrugs. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. We all went through the same thing and none of us turned out like he did. Something’s wrong in his head.”

I sit forward and grasp her wrist. “No. We didn’t all go through what he went through. He had it far fucking worse.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. Please let go.”

I ease up my grip and sit back, and Ginevra puts her fork down. Our conversation seems to have ruined her appetite.

“Why are you defending him, anyway? I thought you weren’t friends anymore.”

Anger burns through me. I forgot. Again. It’s going to take a long time getting used to this new normal. “Can we please change the subject?”

“I was surprised when you introduced me to Antonio. All these years, I expected you to want me to marry one of them.”

“No!” I sit up so suddenly and shout, that everyone turns around to stare at us. Ginevra stares, too, her mouth open.

“We had a—we were going to… Never fucking mind,” I finish with a growl. Ginevra wouldn’t understand. No one would understand what the four of us wanted to do. We didn’t even know how we were going to make it work. That’s why, four years after we came up with the idea, we never acted on it.

We wanted to, though. We really fucking did.

But we never found the right woman, and now it seems like we never will.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. I think I feel a headache coming on. I get to my feet and throw some bills on the table. “Enjoy your cake.”

I put my sunglasses on and start to walk away. Then I turn back, bend down and kiss her cheek. “I’m happy you’re happy, Gin. That’s all that matters to me.”

She gazes up at me with big, worried eyes. “And you? What about your happiness?”

I push my sunglasses up my nose and give her a thin smile. “I’ll be happy once I have Mayor Romano in the palm of my hand.”

As I walk back to my car, my smile vanishes. Why must women always prod and probe and ask so many fucking questions? How do youfeel?What do youwant?Why are you soangryall the time, Salvatore? I hope Chiara doesn’t develop this bad habit. I’ll put up with it from my sister, but not from my bride.

Ginevra’s words play on my mind all day.She doesn’t like you one little bit.

Plenty of women in this town would fucking kill to marry me, despite my reputation. Some of thembecauseof my reputation. I remember the two dozen girls standing at the school gate gawking at me, ready to get in my car and hand over their panties if I so much as smiled at them.

And there was Chiara in the middle of them all, reproach and mistrust filling those baby blues. If she hadn’t been so rude to me the night of her birthday I wouldn’t have lost my temper and clamped my hand around her throat. We started so well, too.

That kiss.

That was a really good kiss. I want my wife to want me. When I put my hands on her, she should burn up under my touch.

I pull on a suit jacket and comb my hair. Well, why don’t we start again? Another dinner. Another kiss. I’ll show her more of the life she can expect as the woman on my arm, and just how fucking nice I can be.

It’s nearly seven when I pull up at Mayor Romano’s mansion and knock on the front door. Chiara herself opens it.

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