Page 56 of The Tallest Tower (Underbelly Enchanted)

“And what does he please?” she wonders. “What does he want from you?”

“No drama.” Finished with my dinner, I pick up my plate, and hers too, then I push off the bed and carry them across the room to my desk. “He’s a man who prefers peace.”

“Ironic,” she drawls, watching as I set the plates down. “Considering you said he’s a man likely to press another’s face into boiling oil.”

Well… it’s not like she doesn’t have a point.

“Estefan Cordoza is a mobster, Christabelle. A very powerful one. But he abhors the turf wars and bullshit that can burn down a city and the people who rule it. So instead of allowing things to escalate between families after Pastore hurt Micah, he rebalanced the scales. Enabled justice. Pastore mutilated Micah’s hand and took his finger, so we took one of Pastore’s and called it good.”

“You chopped off his finger? Like,” her eyes widen, “snipped it off?”

“Not me personally.” Rather than heading back to the siren in my bed, I come around to the front of my desk and rest on the edge of the dark timber to merely observe her. Long,longlegs, and hair that dangles most of the way down her back. Her eyes are still sunken after her brushwith death. Her movements, sluggish. “Someone else did it. But I took great pleasure in hearing him scream.”

“Was it Micah? Or one of your other brothers?”

“No, Ms. Cannon. Someone else entirely. A woman, actually.”

“Minka?” she guesses, her journalist brain never fully at rest. “TheI’m-not-a-criminalMinka Mayet?”

“Nope,” I chuckle. “But she got to watch, too. You don’t know this other woman.”

Though I bet she would, if I tossed out a name.

That’s not my business, though. Not my news to share. And Christabelle Cannon doesn’t need more material for her front page.

“I have it on good authority this other woman is happily married and exceptionally protected. In the end, Pastore got what was coming to him, and now he continues to work his turf, while we work ours. Cordoza keeps the peace and stops the city from breaking out in war. And for as long as I manage our family, those who wish to punish my brothers for the crimes our father committed keep their distance.”

I set my hands together on my lap, the only defense I have when my fingers itch to stroke the beautiful Ms. Cannon’s silky legs. She wants my head on a skewer, but fuck, she’s pretty enough to make death tempting. “Your newspaper is adamant we’re evil people, Christabelle. And I guess to some, I am. But all I’m trying to do is keep my family alive. I won’t roll over for some dickless asshole who wants a little more pie.”

“You’ve actually convinced yourself you’re a martyr, haven’t you?” She straightens out her legs again and tidies the fabric of my shirt to cover her skin. “You really, truly think you’re doing something good here.”

I flatten my lips and lift my shoulder in a shrug. “I’m doing what needs to be done. Martyrdom isn’t a trophy I’m looking to collect. But there, I gave you information you never had before. Surely, it must appeal to your journalistic side. Now you owe me some. What do you know of our mothers?”

“Five women,” she sighs, “five sons. Each woman tends to die approximately nine months after her debut in Tim’s bed.” Then shelooks down at the very bed she sits on, her cheeks paling in repulsion. “This bed?”

“This room,” I admit. But then I shake my head. “Not this bed. What else have you got?”

She drags her eyes from the freshly laid sheets. The new covers. Changes made to eradicate the stench of vomit and stomach acid, after I was able to get her to the safety of Minka’s care. “Mostly I have questions. Like, why five sons?”

Such a simple query, and yet, I have no definitive answer.

“He liked fucking?” I offer. “He wanted an army? Your guess is as good as mine, Darling.”

“But where are the girls?”

“What girls? The mothers?”

“The daughters,” she counters. “No way a man purposely aimed for five sons and got them every time. There were surely women who birthed daughters he didn’t want. Where are they?”

“I don’t know.” I drop my gaze to my joined hands and chew my bottom lip. “I’ve had the same thought over the years. A hundred-percent success rate at securing that Y chromosome isn’t plausible. Which means there were probably girls, too. But I never saw a single one of them.”

“What about the mothers?” she demands. “It’s widely publicized theystayedin this house. They went to bed with him, they conceived his child. Then they went on a long vacation nine months later. Surely you saw these women during those nine months.”

“I was a child.” I push away from my desk and start back toward the bed. “Me, Tim, Micah, and Arch… we’re damn close in age, Christabelle. I was only a toddler by the time Archer arrived. I don’t remember the women.”

“What about Cato’s mother?” Her eyes bore into mine. The silver in them, like a bullet that already has my name and death certificate etched into the side. “The gap between yours and Cato’s arrival places you at, what, fifteen… sixteen years old?”

“Yeah. About that.” I come to sit on the side of the bed, close enough to touch. Though I don’t.Yet. “I never met her, though.”

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