AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It doesn’t seem like Valentina is easy to shock. She’s small, but I get the sense she’s mighty. Not the sort of person to be trifled with or who’s prone to being taken by surprise. But her eyebrows snap upwards at my words.
“Elio bandaged you up?” She sounds so incredulous I almost feel defensive. It’s not like I would make that up. But she seems completely stunned. “And those latex gloves?”
“Yeah, he wore them when he was cleaning the wound and putting on the bandage.”
“He… wore them.” Everything about her expression says does not compute. I kind of wonder if she’s just going to echo everything I say with that tone of disbelief.
“Yes,” I confirm, letting my foot fall back on to the bed and leaning forward to look at her more closely. “Are you… are you OK?”
She shakes her head slowly, hair swishing with the movement.
“Yes. Damn. Sorry. I just…” She shakes her head again, more quickly this time. “I just have never heard of Elio taking his leather gloves off in front of someone else before. Except for maybe Morelli, I guess, but he’s a doctor.”
I press my lips together, frowning down at the red duvet and sliding my fingers over its lush surface. For some reason, Valentina’s words make me feel weird.
“He must take them off in front of other people sometimes,” I say, wrenching my gaze up once more. I don’t know why, but I have an instinct that something about this is dangerous. It means something that Elio took his gloves off in front of me, and I don’t want to confront whatever that is head-on. So instead, I try to deny it. “He’s your cousin. You must have seen it happen at least once. When eating, or cooking…”
Valentina snorts a laugh.
“Cooking? Um, no. That is not what Titone men do.”
I swallow, reminding myself that the Titone family isn’t a normal one. They’re Cosa Nostra, and at the top of the fucking top, I guess Elio can’t be expected to roll up his sleeves alongside Rosa and roll out the pasta dough or fill the cannoli.
“But seriously, I’ve known Elio my entire life,” Valentina continues. “He’s more like a brother to me than a cousin. And I’ve never, ever seen him take off his gloves or even change them, even though I know he has like a hundred pairs. He even wears them in the summer. Pretty sure he sleeps in them.”
I chew the inside of my cheek, processing this.
“So, it’s weird that he took them off in front of me?” I say, still not sure what to do with all this information.
She laughs again, more softly this time.
“Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it. But then again, everything he’s done with you is out of character. He’s never brought a woman here before, against her will or otherwise.”
Now that surprises me. A tight gold dress, platinum blonde hair, and a manicured hand on Elio’s chest flash in the back of my head before I push them away.
“Never? No girlfriends?”
She shrugs.
“He hooks up with women, sure. Never brings them here though. He’s actually pretty private. Which makes the fact he put you in the room adjoining his and took off all the doors extremely out of character.”
Well, great. Elio’s bizarre behaviour isn’t just baffling to me, but even to his own family. I truly don’t know if that’s comforting or alarming.
“Why does he hide those scars? Why does he bother with the gloves?” I ask.
The skin I saw was absolutely ravaged, but Elio doesn’t exactly seem like the type to care that much about appearances. Plus, he’s helping lead one of the most ruthless crime families in the country. Scars would only serve to show just how strong he is, what he’s endured. A badge of brutal honour.
“He doesn’t seem to care about hiding his other scars that much,” I add. He took his shirt off in front of me the first night here, and I saw the patchwork of violence that was the skin of his chest.
Valentina makes a face.
“I think he has a complex about his hands because of the fire. I kind of can’t blame him considering what happened.”
My heart speeds up, and I don’t understand why. I know about the fire. The one he and his brother survived in Sicily against all odds. But based on Valentina’s pained grimace, there must be more to it than what I’ve heard from the vague local legends that cling to the Titone name like fog.
I hold my breath, wondering if she’ll say any more. I want to ask, but don’t trust myself to. I shouldn’t care about this at all, but for some reason I do, and I’m worried that if I ask too much, or appear too eager, she’ll retreat. I can’t mistake myself here – she’s a Titone. Her loyalty, when it really comes down to it, doesn’t lie with me.
She fiddles with the strap of her bag, rolling her pink lips like she’s deciding something. Then, she huffs out a breath and nods.
