Page 22 of Mafia Virgin (The Kings of Italy)

“You’re home.”

The feminine voice startled me. Emma stood in the doorway, still dressed in the clothes from earlier even though it was the middle of the night. Her brown hair was loose and soft, hanging around her shoulders. She looked tired and fragile, completely out of place in my world.

I returned my attention to my food. “Hoping to give me a heart attack? Then you could become a wife and a widow in one day, no?”

Her feet whispered over the tile as she padded over to the island and lowered herself onto the stool next to me. “I’ve been waiting for you to return. We need to—” She sniffed the air. “You smell . . . ” Her voice trailed off, as if she wasn’t quite sure.

“Like pussy? That’s because I was just eating and fucking one.” She recoiled, as if this news upset her. I sighed heavily and muted the game on my phone. “Would you rather I fucked and ate yours?”

“Of course not!” She shifted on the stool. “Jeez. I wasn’t expecting you to admit it, I guess.”

This proved she knew nothing about me, because I didn’t lie. Unless it was to the government, of course. “Dai, this is not a real marriage or a love match. It’s an inconvenience we must endure until I can find a way to end it.”

“Untilwefind a way to end it. I’m just as stuck as you are.”

She reached for a glass and filled it with wine from the open bottle on the counter. I snorted. “Are you old enough, little girl?”

“Yes, considering the legal drinking age here is eighteen.” She took a long drink. “I’ll be twenty-one next month, by the way.”

Madre di dio. Twenty years old. So fucking young.

Theresa was twenty-three, but she seemed much older, more womanly, than the girl at my side. “Good for you,” I mumbled.

“This is the part where you tell me how oldyouare.”

“Thirty-two.”

“Huh. I thought you were older.”

I shook my head.Young people. They had no concept of age. It was what made them reckless and stupid. “I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

“If you’re referring to my sisters, they’re both very smart.”

Considering their choices in men, I doubted this. I watched it my whole life with Nino—women drawn to money and power. They didn’t care if he was a stronzo, a coke head. The man treated women like shit, never faithful, and they came running back for more.

I put down my fork. “Why are you here in Palermo? Why did your father agree to marry you off to me?”

Her lips pressed tight as she stared at her wine. When she didn’t answer, it became clear. She wasn’t going to tell me. She didn’t trust me.

Honestly, I didn’t blame her. I had secrets, as well.

I returned to the football match and my food.

“You have to let me leave,” she said. “We’ll lie and tell Virga I’m pregnant. Then I’ll go back to Toronto and—”

“He will want proof. How are you going to fake a blood test?”

“We find a doctor willing to lie.”

I cast her a side glance. “I thought you wanted to be a doctor. Yet you are so quick to disregard the ethics when it suits your purposes. I’m impressed. A true mafioso, Emma.”

“Shut up. This is for the greater good, Buscetta.”

“No one calls me that.” I finished off the rest of the food and pushed the plate away. “Call me Giacomo. Or Mo, if you like.”

“Giacomo is a pretty name. Mo sounds like a cartoon character.”

I was too tired to make sense of this conversation. I needed sleep, because tomorrow I had to figure a way out of this mess. “There is no lying to Virga. He will insist on using his own doctor for the test.”

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