by Sophia Reed
And then Gabriel’s voice came through my closed door. “Bro, can I come in?”
I didn’t want to see him, I didn’t want to think about him, especially not with Molly. I considered ignoring him, but he walked in without permission. I hadn’t thought to lock the door. My fists were clenching and unclenching, yearning to wrap around his throat. Seemed I wasn’t far enough removed from past generations, after all.
“Look, I don’t know what you think you saw…” he began, but I interrupted.
“Why her?”
“What?”
“Why her? Why Molly?” I growled out, not even sounding human.
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. She’s yours, so I’m not going to…”
“She’s not mine. Not anymore.”
“Still, I wouldn’t…”
“You were touching her,” I accused him, but instead of backing away, he came closer. He sounded exasperated himself now.
“I was helping her up. That’s all. That’s all you saw.”
I looked at him, gauging the truth of his words. His expression was clear, his gaze one hundred percent sincere. I sat all at once on the bench at the foot of my bed. The quilt Molly and I had bundled up in together sat innocently next to me, bringing more memories to mind that mocked me.
“I don’t want her like that, and I wouldn’t pursue something with her even if I did.” He sat beside me on the quilt, blocking most of it from my view. It helped. “And Luca, she wasn’t flirting or anything, either. She was pacing up and down the hallway looking completely wrung out, so I asked her what was wrong. She told me she couldn’t sleep, so I suggested working out.”
She wasn’t sleeping, just like me. Because of me.
Shit.
“I know why you broke up with her,” he continued. “I get it. But has it occurred to you that it might not be necessary?”
“It is necessary,” I told him, staring at my hands. “I don’t want her suffering some godawful fate.”
“What if it doesn’t work like that? What if you’ve already paid enough?”
“You mean like Dad paid enough?” I didn’t mention the disappearance of Gabriel’s mother, my father’s mistress. I was sure he didn’t want reminders of his lost mother any more than I wanted reminders of mine.
He took a deep breath. “I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. I think if he hadn’t cheated, if his time with my mom had been above board, she might still be alive.”
I stared at him. I’d never thought about it that way. There was no rulebook when it came to the curse. All of us Varasso men had to make our decisions as if blindfolded with our hands tied behind our backs. But after losing Alana, I’d begun to compare the curse to Death. There was no way to reason with it. And by that logic, there was probably no way to lift or dodge it, either.
Probably.
Gabriel and I sat there together for a long while, letting the minutes tick by in silence. Then, as the sky started to lighten outside, he patted me on the back and left.
22
Molly
It’d been two and a half weeks since everything had blown up between Luca and me, and I’d done my best to become the queen I’d promised myself I’d be. Before, when he’d acted as if he enjoyed my company, I’d adored being by his side learning about everything. Then, when he essentially put me in charge, it’d felt incredibly meaningful.
It still did most of the time, but lately, I’d become tired in a way I’d never been. Maybe it was all the insomnia and the stress to prove myself, but I felt more than worn out, I felt almost ill. But I didn’t have time to come down with anything, I’d decided to do something I’d never done.
I started looking for a house.
Now that I had access to all this money, I felt like getting out of the mansion would be a good idea. Not that I was abandoning the Varassos. My job had become too significant in my life to do that. But I wanted some distance from Luca.
I needed it.
Right now, I still saw him on a regular basis, even if it was only in passing. I’d go down the hall and hear Anna speaking baby talk as her father encouraged her to say new words in a high-pitched voice. It would’ve been adorable if I’d been able to be a part of it like I once was. I missed her.
And though I’d refuse to admit this to anyone else unless under threat of torture, I missed him.
I also hated him.
Let’s just say my feelings about Luca Varasso were complex.
Which was why I had to move. The house I planned to buy was within a block of their vast estate, but it was far enough away that I wouldn’t have to see him near as often. I might even stop my weird habit of going to their Sunday dinners. His brothers had gone from giving me the stink eye to welcoming me, so I’d continued to join them.
I’d liked feeling like I belonged, especially since I’d never really belonged anywhere else.
I’d been telling myself that it was about being a part of the organization, that it was like attending a business dinner, but that was just not true. These were family dinners. No other employees came. Not ever. So me inserting myself into them was basically inappropriate.
Once again, I was having trouble sleeping. Despite my bed being the most comfortable object I’d ever laid on, I kept tossing and turning. It’d been this way ever since Luca’s rejection. Which made me so mad at myself. Why was I letting him continue to upset me like this?
I shifted from my side to my stomach, then switched positions again because my breasts felt too tender to lay on, a sign my monthly time was about to start. I’d never been regular, but I could always tell it was coming by the way my body felt. Which meant I’d likely spend tomorrow all crampy.
Yay for me.
I turned over onto my back, feeling grumpy and out of sorts. I had this dull headache rolling up from the back of my skull to whack me right between the eyes. I closed my eyelids, and at last drifted into a light slumber.
I woke up when it was still dark. Of course. I glanced at my watch to see that it was four in the morning. I’d only slept for three hours. At least my headache had gone away.
But now, I was starving. I’d eaten dinner, but apparently my stomach had decided it wanted breakfast early. I threw on my robe, then padded downstairs to the kitchen. I doubted anyone else would be up. Once there, I searched around for something easy. Rosa usually made these elaborate meals, so I was sure she’d have a variety of ingredients down there.
I hadn’t cooked since I’d been here. Even though it used to be my primary skill, I hadn’t had to put it into practice since Rosa did all the meal prep. I didn’t miss doing it. It’d been something I was good at, but it’d also been a chore. I dug around the many cupboards, not finding anything that appealed to me, then peeked into the huge fridge.
There was lots of food, but it was the carton of eggs that caught my interest. I turned one of the gas burners on and started to scramble the yolks and whites together. I saw a bottle on the counter. The contents inside had separated out. I pulled the cork and smelled it: oil and vinegar. I’d never put something like this on my eggs before, but it sounded good.
I shook the bottle and poured some in a skillet with the egg mixture. It smelled delicious.
Without bothering to put it on a plate, I started eating the eggs right from the pan. It burned my tongue, so I blew on the next bite. God, I was so hungry. I couldn’t seem to get it into my mouth fast enough.
After finishing my extremely early breakfast, I cleaned up and headed back upstairs. Maybe I could get a couple more hours of sleep before the texts and phone calls started streaming in. I had so much to do today.
I was halfway up the stairwell when a cramp hit me. It wasn’t a menstrual cramp, but a stomach cramp, accompanied by just enough nausea to make me put my hand over my mouth. The pain of it doubled me over, and I stopped where I was, attempting to breathe through it.
Crap, what if those eggs had gone bad? Or the oil and vinegar? Maybe it’d sat out on the counter
for too long.
I thought about going back to check the date on the eggs, but I felt pretty terrible. I needed to get back to bed. I continued to climb up the rest of the stairs, gripping the railing the entire way. Then, I edged toward my room, leaning on the wall. My door seemed like it was miles away, but I had to get there.
By the time I did, I felt near to collapse. Stupid food poisoning!
I seized the small trash can from my bathroom and with barely enough strength to crawl back under my blankets, I laid my head on the pillow and fell into a deep sleep.
***
I was awakened by movement. Someone was shaking me, and the motion made me seasick, so I told them to go away. Or at least, I thought I did. I never actually heard the words leave my mouth. I felt like I’d been run over by a Mack truck. I slit my eyes open but that hurt, so I promptly closed them again.
“What’s wrong with her?” came a voice, Luca’s. It sounded like it was coming from several feet away, which made no sense. How could he shake me and be across the room at the same time?
“Hangover?” a female voice this time, coming from right next to me, but it wasn’t Rosa or Greta, the nanny. It took me a long minute to identify it as the rude housekeeper’s, Francesca. She kept my room neat and my clothing freshly pressed, but I rarely if ever saw her.
I pulled my arms out from under the bedlinens to push her away. “I’m not drunk. I have food poisoning.” I’d meant to yell at both of them for blustering into my room like they had, but my words came out as little more than a whisper.
There were some mumbles I couldn’t make out, then a cool hand covered my forehead. “You’re not feverish, at least.” Luca again. “What did you eat, Molly?”
“Eggs with oil and vinegar.”
“Yuck, no wonder you’re sick.”
“Hey, don’t judge me. It tasted good at the time.” He removed his hand and slowly, I pulled my eyes open again. It didn’t hurt so bad this time. Maybe my headache was going away. I looked around. We were alone. I glanced up into his face. It’d been a while since I’d been this close to him.
His eyes had slate gray circles under them, and there was a grim set to his mouth. He looked as exhausted as I felt, even after I’d gotten some sleep last night. He also seemed… down. His expression reminded me a little too vividly of how he’d looked the night of his father’s murder, the night I’d watched him sob over his daughter, believing she’d been shot, too.
I wished I didn’t have that memory. Seeing him like that had been part of the reason it’d been so easy to fall in love with him. Even now, thinking of it made me want to touch him, soothe him. Which was nothing but foolishness. Whatever he might be down about, it wasn’t me.
But then that must mean…
“Is Anna okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t she be?” He frowned, watching me carefully.
“It’s just… never mind. Oh, God, I haven’t checked my texts and Matteo was supposed to…” I forced myself into a seated position, and my stomach churned so wildly I reached for my trash can again.
Luca bent and handed it to me. “Don’t worry about any of that. We’ve got it covered.” I squinted my eyes closed. “Have you vomited at all?” he asked me after the moment passed.
“No. I haven’t let myself. I hate puking up my guts.”
“I’m not a fan of it, either, but food poisoning doesn’t usually give you the choice.”
“You’ve had it before?”
“Just once. It was disgusting.” He glanced away, shaking his head as if remembering. “Of course, Anna used to spit up on me all the time, so it doesn’t bug me as much now.”
“Baby spit up is way cuter than grown up barf.”
He chuckled at that. “Well, I don’t know if I’d call it cute, exactly.” His grim expression had relaxed into bemusement. Things between us felt almost like they had before. Almost.
But what the hell was I doing? Talking to him? Sharing funny anecdotes?
Really?
Maybe he could read what I was thinking through my facial features because the grim stoniness came back. “Do you need anything?”
Well, you telling me you love me back would’ve been nice, but that ship has sailed. “I’ll be fine, Luca.” In other words, leave me alone.
Taking the hint, he left, but within a couple of minutes he was back with an insulated glass and a package of unopened saltines. “Ginger ale,” he said. Damn him. Didn’t he realize he wasn’t supposed to do this sort of stuff? Kind, sweet, nurturing stuff?
It was starting to piss me off. Or it would have, if it didn’t make my heart ache for him all over again.
“Thanks,” I said begrudgingly.
“Feel better, Molly,” he told me. And then he was gone.
23
Luca
I’d contacted Matteo who’d reported that he’d had to shunt a postal delivery from Cuidad Obregon to another location due to a new taskforce searching trucks at the border. Much of our product came through using this process, which tended to be the most efficient.
The postal service packaging appeared generic enough not to draw attention, and each box had a tracking number, useful for keeping tabs on it. But since these patrols had brought drug sniffing dogs to check all deliveries, we’d had to redirect to another route. Sounded like we’d need to meet with a few members of this taskforce to see who we could bribe.
This sort of thing happened sometimes, but since law enforcement officers made very little in the way of a paycheck, there was nearly always at least one of them who could be paid to look the other way. Typically, a single conversation would allow me to identify which cops would be amenable to an extra couple thousand dollars every week.
Reading people had always been easy for me. I’d planned to teach that skill to Molly in greater depth than I already had, but that door had been shut tight.
I thought about how tough she’d been the first day I’d met her, how she’d taken the hand she’d been given and turned it into something extraordinary. She remained tough to this day, even while obviously sick, and I knew that would never change. What had changed was the level of trust between us.
I’d broken that trust by lying to her, by hiding how I truly felt about her. And ever since I’d let her believe that lie, it’d made being around her hard. I wanted to come clean. I wanted it desperately.
An unmistakable example had been earlier today.
We’d only spent a few minutes together, but that’s all it’d taken for her to sneak in under my guard. And hers had been down, too. We’d slipped right back into the effortless relationship we’d previously had, and it’d felt so right. But that effortlessness had been short lived.
All because I’d torched what had once been between us, and now it was gone forever.
To get past that fact I’d been concentrating as much as I could on the day to day goings on of the business and on Anna’s progress. She’d begun to walk more confidently, sometimes too confidently, as she’d started to get into things. I had to put her in her walker to keep her entertained. She’d also begun to pick up more and more vocabulary.
Greta had been thrilled and had pulled out the same children’s books all the Varassos had grown up with. I was surprised we hadn’t retained more of her Italian accent since we’d all been taught our fundamental speaking and reading skills by her.
“So Queen Molly’s hurling hard, I hear,” Marco said from the door of the nursery. I’d come by to feed Anna her lunch like I did whenever I could. I was surprised to see him here. While my brothers visited their niece, Marco seemed almost intimidated by her.
“She’s not that sick. I saw her about an hour ago.”
“Oh, well, I’ve got an update for you, then. She’s a lot sicker now. You probably shouldn’t let her get too close to the baby.”
“Molly’s not contagious. It’s food poisoning,” I told him, but I was still glad I was so meticulous about washing my hands before picking Anna up.
&n
bsp; “Whatever you say. How’d the meeting with Bianchi go this morning?” I stared at him. I hadn’t told him about it, so how had he known? Marco threw me a predatory smile devoid of any levity whatsoever. “Don’t look so stunned, brother. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
“Sandro told you?” I assumed.
“No, actually. I overheard you two talking. Thanks so much for keeping me in the loop, by the way,” he said, his sarcasm dialed to eleven. He kept his tone even, but I could tell he was miffed.
“Marco, look—” But he cut me off.
“You would think as the second in command, the second son, I would’ve been informed before Alessandro, but I guess you neglected to inform me about the change in ranks.”
Anna, sensing the growing tension, made a whimpering sound. “We’re taking this elsewhere.” I forced myself to remain outwardly calm as I kissed the top of her forehead. Greta, always discreet, had made herself busy at the far side of the nursery, but as I stood, she approached my daughter, grabbing her out of the walker and wiping a smear of food off her face with a soft cloth.
“Time for your bath, little one,” she said, disappearing into the attached bathroom.
I led my brother to the adjacent room, the one we called our main headquarters, though it mainly functioned as an office. In it were everything from burner phones and computer monitors to the dusty old ledgers our father’s accountant had used.
“I was planning to update you and Gabriel tonight at dinner, so get off your high horse.”
“But you went off without informing us this morning. What if the Bianchi’s had shot you dead while they had access to you? Ever think about that?” Marco demanded, and though annoyed, I appreciated the sentiment.
Somewhat, anyway.
“Dad did whatever the fuck he wanted and never informed us about shit,” I told him.
“And now look where that’s led.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Luca, there’s evidence that Dad was ripping the Bianchis off. Not just records but video footage. But it’s of the man who told us over and over again to act with subtlety, to take people out only when no other way could be found. He’s not someone who would start a war with a family almost as strong as we are. Something about all this stinks. Its stinks to high hell.”