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“Why did you do that?” I ask
“What?”
“What you just did.”
He grins. “Eat your pussy?” I hate that I feel my face burn. “I should take my belt to your ass for running away in the first place, you know that?”
“Why don’t you? You’d like that, right? I felt how hard you were when you spanked me. Is that what gets you off? Hurting women? Overpowering them to hurt them?”
He steps closer, the look on his face base, degrading. “Don’t forget you got wet when I spanked you.”
How can he turn everything around on me? Am I that easy a target?
I spin to go, but he catches my arm.
“I want to go to my room, Stefan.”
“One more question.”
I don’t have a choice, so I wait for it.
“Who put the marks on your back?”
“You already know that too.”
“Say it.”
“I hate you.”
“Say it.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to hear it.”
“My father did! My father. All right? Happy?”
He pauses like he’s really considering that question. “Not really, no.” He doesn’t release me.
“Let me go. Please, Stefan, just let me go. I want to go.”
“Away from me.”
I nod. It’s what I want, right?
It takes him a moment, but when he releases me, I bend to pick up my panties.
He steps on them, blocking me from taking them.
“I’ll keep those,” he says.
It takes me a moment, but I leave them and straighten. “Whatever, pervert.” I walk to the door. I’m twisting the doorknob when he calls out my name.
“Gabriela.”
I stop. I don’t look back. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. Because what the hell just happened in here?
“Tomorrow is Alex’s memorial service. I thought you’d want to go.”
At that, I turn. Does he mean to take me?
“Do you?” he asks.
I nod, but I’m cautious. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I would do anything to go.
“Car leaves at nine.”
5
Stefan
Once she’s gone, I sit back down and pick up my whiskey. I drink it, lean my head back.
Rafa.
My cousin has lied to me before. I know he lies. This particular lie bugs me.
The question, though, isn’t that he lied but why? Is it because he knew I’d be pissed that he took Gabriela out of the house without protection or permission? Or is it something more?
As far as who he met with, I would be surprised if it was anyone other than his father.
Francesco Catalano was a gracious host to me these last couple of days. I went to personally thank him not because I’m stupid enough to think he helped me out of the goodness of his heart. Gabriela’s question about how he knew, well, that’s my question too. It’s too fucking convenient that some of his people overheard the men from that boat bragging about what they’d done. Way too convenient.
Francesco is my mother’s sister’s husband. He isn’t blood.
My father never liked Francesco. Never trusted him. He’s not Sicilian born, for one thing, and with my father, that alone was enough. But there was more than that and if there’s one thing I learned from my father it’s to always trust your gut.
But my father did love my mother and he loved her family. My aunt Gina, Rafa’s mother, and my father were good friends. He met my mom through Gina. Gina lived with us before I was born. The three of them were all close. She came to my father if she needed advice and all my father had to do to make sure Gina took that advice—even when it wasn’t asked for—was raise an eyebrow.
It was for her that he gave Francesco responsibility over one of our most profitable routes north. And when the first shipment came in short, he turned a blind eye. For her. But then it happened again. And again after that.
He could never prove it was Francesco, though, and Francesco always had an answer.
I’ve never felt particularly close to my uncle. Honestly, I’ve never liked the man. But Rafa and I grew up best friends. I think that was because Gina spent more time here with Rafa than at her own home in Taormina.
What I told Gabriela about the constantly shifting line between ally and enemy, I’ve watched it play out multiple times over my lifetime. I’m watching it play out now.
Rafa. Where do your loyalties lie, cousin?
I finish my drink, put the glass down and look at the ring on my finger. Our family ring. Passed down from father to son. It was supposed to have gone to Antonio.
I twist it. Think about each of them. Each dead and in his grave now.
When I get up to get more whiskey, I see that photo album. Instead of going for the whiskey, I pick it up and sit down in the chair where Gabriela had been reading when I came in. I open it, leaf slowly through the pages.
