Page 56 of Lies like Rubies, Part One

A salt and pepper eyebrow rose, but he nodded, following me out the front door.

He grunted when I slammed him against the front of the house, uncaring that my men would see us. “What the fuck were you doing to Sofia during dinner?”

Oscuro shoved me back. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Was he fucking kidding me?

I pushed him right back into the wall. We were well-matched in size. He was taller, but I was bulkier and ten years younger. “Leave her the fuck alone.”

Oscuro’s eyes softened for a moment, the hard lines of his face gentling into something that almost resembled respect, before he pushed me hard and stepped away from the wall. “Did Tony Russo send you?”

“If one of the Russos saw you with your finger up her pussy during dinner, you’d be dead already.”

When Oscuro didn’t deny the accusation, I brought my fist back to deck him.

“Then why am I not dead now, Lorenzo?” The quiet deadliness of his question surprised me, and I lowered my fist.

“Because you’re protecting her from Accardi,” I snapped. “Whether I like it or not.”

“Sofia didn’t ask me for protection from Accardi,” he replied, frowning.

“Then what deal did she make that she’d allow you the disrespect of feeling her up during a family dinner?” I snapped, appalled at his behavior and that she fucking let him do it.

Oscuro ignored me. “Why aren’t the Russos protecting her?”

I ran my hands through my hair, frustrated, annoyed, and outraged that I was having this conversation with Dante Oscuro instead of Luca Russo. “I don’t fucking know! I don’t know why she didn’t tell anyone that she saw him this morning. I don’t know why she’s not freaking out that he’s back in town. I don’t know why she’s kept Lizzie at the campus daycare where we can’t keep an eye on her.”

The menace that radiated from Oscuro was so fierce I took a step backward. “What do you mean, he visited her this morning?”

“If you’re close enough to finger-fuck her during dinner, you’re close enough to ask her yourself,” I snapped. “Whatever your relationship is, don’t pull that shit again.”

Hands shoved into his pockets, Oscuro stared into the distance, clearly thinking. “You’re not going to tell the Russos about Sofia and me,” he stated, as if it were a foregone conclusion.

I jerked my head toward the garden. “Walk with me.” We strolled through the Russo’s gardens, two predators making an uneasy peace over a woman we both cared about, whether he wanted to admit it or not. “I won’t tell the Russos about whatever the fuck is going on between you as long as you keep her safe.”

Scoffing, he looked at me out of the side of his eye. “Isn’t that your job?”

“She won’t come back to the compound, and I’m not—” I cut myself off. “Her older sister was kidnapped when Sofia was ten. Tony saved Ginevra, who left as soon as she could. He wrapped Sofia in bubble wrap, pulled her out of public school, had her tutored at home, and refused to allow her to go to college. She barely set foot outside of the house for almost a decade. When he got into financial trouble, and Sofia got pregnant, one of Ginevra’s conditions for saving the family was that Sofia be able to go to college.”

Oscuro walked beside me, his face etched into rigid lines, as if he didn’t like what he heard.

“Tony would protect her by dragging her back home. Marriage is the only way she’d escape again, and you know this community. She’s a single mom, damaged goods. This bullshit with the port might nab her a husband, but she’ll end up with some asshole who beats her like Sergio did.”

“He fucking laid hands on her?” The rage that emanated from every tense muscle in his body reassured me. Oscuro might be a manipulative and dangerous asshole, but his fury on Sofia’s behalf was far more genuine than the fake smiles he gave her where she could see.

“She fucking should have told me,” he muttered, dragging his fingers through his curls. For half a second, his eyes looked haunted, but when he turned back to me, he looked relaxed and predatory once again. “Sofia didn’t ask me to keep her safe, and she certainly hasn’t offered me anything to entice me to do so. Do your fucking job, Morelli.”

23

NICK

I didn’t wantto take my sister’s call. I’d been ignoring her messages, well aware of the waves my one date with Sofia had sent rolling through my family.

“Caro, how are you?” I finally said, pulling into the visitor’s parking lot at the busy Yorkfield campus. Anticipation sizzled in my veins as I popped a breath mint and grabbed the bag of takeout from the front seat.

“Nico, why are you ignoring my messages?”

Because I didn’t want to answer questions about my date with Sofia Russo? Because I couldn’t even think of Sofia’s name without getting hard? Because she was everything I’d tried to avoid since I’d made my bones at eighteen when I murdered a drug dealer encroaching on my uncle’s territory and then walked away from it all, and I still couldn’t drag myself away from her?

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