Page 3 of Devil Among Men

“Since when do you give anyone space?”

“Since I don’t have much of a choice.”

Adagio reaches for the open bottle of wine sitting on the counter rather than bothering with a glass, then he drops back into his seat.

“So,” he says, “are we going to talk about the elephant in the villa, or are we going to keep circling it ’til dinner?”

“Nothing to talk about,” I say. “I told her the truth. She’s angry. That’s fair.”

“Angry’s an understatement based on the look she gave you last night.” Adagio takes a pull straight from the bottle. “But hey, at least you finally told her. That’s growth, Calderone. I’m almost proud of you.”

Maurizio sets the whetstone down, his expression sharpening. “Growth is nice. It doesn’t matter much if Vito decides to move before you’ve got the chance to fix things with her.”

“You think he already knows,” I say.

“I think a man like him doesn’t wait long once he knows he’s been played. We should be watching the perimeter tighter than usual tonight. All of us. Not just the men on the gate.”

“Cheerful,” Adagio mutters.

A silence settles over the table, lasting several seconds ’til Jayla passes by the kitchen window outside, cutting through the garden toward the terrace, her voice drifting faintly as she hums to herself.

Maurizio’s eyes track her the whole way across the window before he catches himself and looks back down at the blade in his hands.

“You want to tell me what that was?”

“What?”

“That.” Adagio sets the wine bottle down with a thud, the easiness draining out of his tone. “You just watched her cross the garden like you were counting her steps.”

“I watch everyone. It’s my job.”

“Bullshit.” Adagio leans forward, elbows on the table. “You don’t look at anyone else like that. Not the men on the gate, not Portia, not me. Just her.”

Maurizio’s jaw clenches. “She’s yours, isn’t she? What is there to complain about?”

“She is mine. Which is why I’m questioning you. So either tell me I’m wrong or tell me why I’m not.”

The two of them glare across the table, unspoken tension crackling between them. With the mess I’ve already got to deal with, I decide it isn’t my fight to referee this morning.

“Enough,” I say. “We’ve got bigger problems than this.”

Maurizio breaks first, looking away, saying nothing in his own defense. Adagio holds the look a moment longer before pushing back from the table.

“Bigger problems,” he agrees. “Right. On that note, I’m going to go find my girl.”

He heads out toward the garden, and Maurizio watches him before gathering his knife and whetstone and heading off to check the grounds himself.

I sit alone in the kitchen a while longer, turning Maurizio’s warning over in my mind ’til it starts to feel less like caution and more like premonition.

Dinner is a quiet, strained affair, everyone at the table performing normalcy for each other’s sake and failing at it in different ways.

Portia sits across from me, pushing food around her plate. Every time our eyes meet, she looks away first. I don’t blame her. I’d look away from me too, if I could.

“You two are killing the mood,” Adagio says, leaning back in his chair with a glass of wine dangling loosely from his fingers. “Somebody say something. Anything. I’ll even take a fight. At least a fight’s entertaining.”

“Not everything’s entertainment, belloccio,” Maurizio mutters.

“Everything’s entertainment if you frame it right.” Adagio winks at Jayla, who huffs out a laugh despite herself, still favoring her left ankle under the table. “Isn’t that right, tesoro?”