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She clearly doesn’t feel the weirdness, though. She grins at me and holds out her own hand to shake. With a wobbly laugh, I take it.
“Oh, trust me, you don’t need to tell me your name. I know it. I’ve been working my ass off the past month getting the room perfect for you under Elio’s supervision. What do you think of the bedspread? Beautiful, right?”
“Yes, it is,” I say weakly. I am getting whiplash. First, I’m abducted out of my own house and told I’m massively in debt to the mafia, and now I’m finding out the luxury of that room was completely prepared just for me?
“Did you choose all the violin stuff, too?” I ask.
She shakes her head as she lets go of my hand.
“Nope. That was all Elio. He’s fucking obsessed. Never seen him spend so much time researching mundane shit like what kind of cloths are best to clean a violin. God, he spent like a week on that! And don’t get me started on those little boxes of waxy shit for the bow strings. Picking the brand was like choosing a name for his firstborn child.”
I literally can’t picture a single thing she’s telling me. Whether she’s telling the truth or not, she clearly knows Elio well. She spends a lot of time with him and doesn’t seem afraid of him. And she obviously just walked through his bedroom unaccompanied.
I wonder what her relationship to him is. A funny, ugly sort of knot forms low in my belly.
“Is he… is he your fiancé?”
Her glossy mouth falls open, and then she gives a hoot of laughter.
“Hell, no! Miss me with that incest shit!” She gives a dramatic, exaggerated sort of shiver. “Got the fucking heebie jeebies now.”
“Sorry,” I stammer. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“No, no. It’s OK. I probably should have introduced myself first before droning on and on about Elio’s newfound horniness for all things violin.” She tosses her long curls behind her shoulder. “I’m Valentina Titone. Elio’s cousin.”
Elio’s cousin…
Vincenzo Titone’s daughter.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this. That the Don’s only child would be crouching beside my bathtub and talking to me so casually.
So, it looks like I’m gal pals with a mafia princess now.
But despite the shock of it, I’m glad she came in here.
“Hi Valentina. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but…”
“But circumstances prevent it?” she raises a flawlessly groomed brow and smirks.
Yeah, I really do like her. Can’t help it. She’s cute and clever and in a way is even more trapped than I am. She makes me feel a little less alone.
She rises and turns to look out the bathroom door she left open.
“Mamma and Papà are going to be looking for me. I’d better head back down.” Her brows take on a pinched look. “Are you going to be OK in here?”
I can’t hold back the bitter snort at that question.
“Tell your cousin to let me go and I might be OK.”
The pinched look deepens.
“Hon, if what I hear is true and both Sev and Darragh are looking for you and your father, then there’s nowhere safer in this city for you than here.”
I seriously doubt that, but I don’t get a chance to respond. A sound outside, beyond the bedrooms in the hallway, has distracted her.
“Could you close the door?” I cry after her as she turns and hurries away, high heels clacking on the stone.
I draw my knees up to my chest and wonder if I maybe shouldn’t trust Valentina too much after all. I’m sure she hears me as she goes.
