Page 3 of Of Murder and Matrimony

He cleared his throat, and his dark eyes appeared even darker when he looked up, his face void of all expression. “I’ve got another lead to check out. A tech expert, my intel says, used to be friendly with Olesya.”

I scoffed. “That can’t be right. No way the men in that family would let her be friendly with a man who wasn’t blood.”

“I don’t think it was like that. The guy is a hacker. I’ll track him down and see what he has to say. If I don’t get anything out of him, I’ll keep looking.”

“Thanks,” I said as my brother stood. He wasn’t much for casual conversation. He might have just used all his allotted words for the day during our conversation.

He nodded once and turned to exit, stopping in the doorway and looking back. “Call Mia. She wasn’t doing so great when I talked to her.”

As he left, I picked up my phone, swiping over my sister-in-law’s number. Family took care of family.

“Hey, Dante,” her quiet voice echoed down the line when she picked up.

I flexed my fingers when I heard the waver in her words. “How you holding up?”

“I’ve been better,” she admitted. I hated that her association with my family led to even more heartache in her life. She’d already lost all of her blood relatives and miscarried her first baby.

“I’m sorry.” The words never came easily, but I felt like I owed them to her. I should have insisted on better security at the wedding.

She sighed. “It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. The men shooting those guns did this.”

“I’ll make them pay,” I vowed. I’d told Romeo the streets would run red with Russian blood, and the retaliation doled out at my command quickly made my promise a reality.

“I know you will. I’ll pray for their souls.”

She was everything good and pure, always trying to think the best. She never judged, only loved.

I heard a groan and chuckled. “How’s the patient?”

“Anxious to get out of here,” Mia answered.

I shook my head. “Not until the doctors say it’s safe.”

“Fuck you,” came Niccolò’s weak, raspy reply, spoken with a slow, cautious breath between each word. Getting shot in the chest, undergoing emergency surgery, and flatlining multiple times took a real toll on the body.

But he was alive, and that was all that mattered. Even if he couldn’t fulfill his job at my side as a family representative at the funerals.

I smiled and allowed myself a moment of sentimentality. “Ti amo, fratellino.”

Stoicism could go fuck itself for a few seconds while I ensured I didn’t waste a second with the people who mattered most. You never knew when that last chance would be ripped from your grasp.

Chapter Two

One. More. Knot.

“There we go,” I said cheerily, finishing the suture and clipping the suture thread, then carefully covering the wound with a bandage to keep it clean before tossing the packaging along with my gloves. “You’re all done, Emmy.”

The little blonde girl looked up at me with her tear-stained cheeks. “Promise?”

I nodded. “Absolutely. You have your mom bring you back in a week, and we’ll get those sutures out. Go tell those brothers of yours that you not only climbed higher than them, but you survived the fall from the tree and have a cool scar to show for it.”

Emmy giggled, her pigtails bobbing in agreement.

I turned to her mother, who was smiling gratefully. “Sally will give you the care instructions. Keep her out of trees and out of ponds. The most important thing is to keep that knee clean while it heals.”

“Thank you, Doctor Smith,” she gushed. Even after a decade of using my new identity, my name still sounded odd whenever somebody spoke it. I’d learned to school the twitch at the corner of my lips every time I responded to the unknowing lie on others’ lips.

“I’m happy I could help.” Turning to Emmy, I added, “After I remove those sutures, I don’t want to see you back here until your yearly visit, okay?”

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