Page 14 of Twisted Minds of Sin

I gulp, my spine stretching and the food in my stomach unsettling. My fork slips out of my grip and clatters dramatically on my plate as I try to pick it up, fumbling through the process.

Goodness. How hard can it be to pick a damn fork?

I take a deep breath and pick it up gently, with trembling fingers.

I tighten my grip around the fork, feeling their eyes burning holes into my body.

She doesn't know what I am doing here. She is probably worried that I am here because Benedetto has to do Romano’s dirty work and kill me for him.

I reach for my cup of coffee and down the content, swallowing my mortification and fear with it. I look up at both of them, then drop my eyes to my plate and start to gobble my food.

“I'm not going to kill her if that's what you are asking,” Benedetto picks up the pastry and bites into it.

“Then why is she here, is Romano aware of this?” Maria continues with prying.

“What do you think?” Benedetto continues with eating.

“You know your cousin, he would stop at nothing and no one will be spared.” Maria no longer has the carefreeness she had with me, which means that she doesn't care much for me, the cheat.

“I do,” Benedetto sips from his cup of coffee.

“Then why is she here?”

“You wanted me to come down and have breakfast just so you can drill me?” He drops his cup of coffee with a soft thud that spills the dark liquid on the table.

Maria deflates, “No,” she turns to me, “I just need to be sure you are okay.” I know she doesn't mean me but I nod and she glares. Definitely doesn't mean me.

Putting it together, I now see that Benedetto has no plans of killing me for Romano, but I can't say whether that includes for himself too. I need to start thinking of what I might have done or didn't do in the past to upset the sociopath and give him a motive for murder.

“Do you think Tiziano will be ok?” I mumble under my breath, and almost clasp my palm against my mouth that now feels disconnected from my brain. I am sure I shouldn't be asking that but I can't help thinking he might already be dead, and it's worse because it will be because of me.

“Where is the bastard?” Benedetto ignores my question.

Maria sucks her lips in a fit of irritation, “It's been four years, and four years is enough for you to start treating Claudio with some respect,” Maria bites out.

“I will not respect him or what he did,” Benedetto growls and I swear it sounds like some thunderbolt shooting across the room. “He is not my taking my father’s place just because you decided to make your twisted affair with him legal,” he switches in the blink of an eye, making me flinch as he slams the table so hardhis Danish flies out of his plate, and his cup of coffee tumbles over, spilling.

“It is high time you get over it and stop being a boy about it,” Maria doesn’t seem fazed by this, she must have seen more of this side of him than me, “I did it to…”

“Fuck you and your reasons,” he swings her cup of latte and it crashes to the ground. “It’s high time you stop fucking your late husband’s brother,” he turns his eyes to the spilled coffee on the white tablecloth, biting so hard on his lower lip.

“You’re impossible, you come back after four years and we are still where we left off,” She takes a deep breath instead and gives a sad smile, then stands pushing her seat back.

“Teleport to the future and nothing will have changed,” he lets go of his lower lip and gulps.

“In that case, you know where to find him,” She gives me a passive look, “And I don’t know what this madness is, but she should leave,” she stabs her index finger at me.

“I don’t know what you’re deluded into thinking with your fuck buddy, but this is my house and I say who stays or leaves,” he scoffs, “You better watch it or you will have to find a new venue for your sexcapades.”

“You should have stayed in New York,” she chuckles bitterly.

“You should have been dead instead of him,” he grits.

I don’t have to meet her eyes to know that one cuts through her barricade of being put together. And as if Benedetto knows he has delivered a gut punch, he keeps his eyes on the window pane as she stomps out.

The silence her absence brings is deafening. I thought my family was dysfunctional for giving me to a man I feel no form of attraction or affection towards. I had thought my father was the worst of them all for never caring about what I would want in marriage or if I ever even wanted to get married at all. But seeing this tops the scale.

“That’s…” I clear my throat and titter, “That’s heavy.”

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