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I kept flashing back to when I was six years old, sitting in the backseat of the car, right after the crash of metal and the tinkle of glass –
(STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT)
I pushed all of that out of my head.
We had more pressing problems at the moment –
Including what my dumbass bodyguard wanted to do.
“You’re really going to steal a car?” I asked as we walked down the dock where we’d moored the boat.
He smirked. “Does that offend you?”
The way he acted like he was a badass – and I was some little church mouse shocked by the big, strong mafioso – annoyed the fuck out of me.
“Uh, NO, idiot. After I snuck out the first few times, Nona had her thugs start locking our boats up – so the only option I had was to steal somebody else’s.”
“Then why did you sound so surprised?”
“I was surprised you knew how to steal a car. Unless you’re planning to carjack somebody.”
“No, I’m not going to carjack anybody,” he said, sounding like he was the one who was offended. “And I grew up in the Cosa Nostra. Of course I know how to steal a car.”
“I grew up in the Cosa Nostra, too, and I don’t know how to steal a car,” I pointed out.
“Because you grew up on an island without cars,” he said in a know-it-all voice.
Which annoyed me even more, because… okay, yeah, it was an obvious point.
“I’m just saying, just because you grew up in the mafia doesn’t mean you automatically know shit,” I retorted.
“But you know how to hotwire a boat, apparently.”
I scoffed. “Nobody has to hotwire a boat in Venice. Lots of people leave their fuckin’ keys in the ignition.”
He frowned. “Wait a second – have you even driven a car before?”
“No,” I said in a super-sweet voice laced with cyanide, “I grew up on an island without cars, remember?”
A brief flash of annoyance lit up his face, but otherwise he didn’t react to my tone of voice. “Not even on vacations?”
“What vacations? I lived almost my entire life with an old woman who doesn’t like the sun and was worried we’d get assassinated anywhere we went outside of Venice.”
“Oh.”
He sounded sad, like I’d just told him that I’d never had a pet.
Which was actually true, other than a couple of goldfish and a tiny turtle I’d named Henry (after the actor Henry Cavill, who I had a huge crush on when I was 12).
Nona hated animals. She said they left hair everywhere. Hence the turtle and goldfish.
I would have killed for a puppy growing up… or a kitten…
“If you never left Venice, have you ever ridden in a car before?” he asked.
It was a stupid question. Of course I’d ridden in a car – I wasn’t from some remote tribe in the Amazon.
But before I could answer, I flashed back to when I was six.
