Page 48 of Fallen Rook

Not that I felt all that guilty. Bastard could write my autobiography at this point. I was just evening the score a little.

Tom made a disgruntled noise, trying his best to ignore my existence. The first ray of the morning sun sliced through the curtains, the light hitting his eyes. It made the cobalt blue turn pale, and a rich pool of gold pool around his irises. The beauty of it tormented me, legitimately squeezed the oxygen from my lungs, and I couldn’t handle it. I looked away.

Failure. Weakling. Pervert, my father’s voice chided in my head. Living in sin, condemned to hell.

Fucking asshole, I wanted to scream back. There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing. I’m not hurting anyone. I’m just figuring out who I am.

“You all right, kid?” Tom cocked an eyebrow. “You look seasick.”

“I need you to answer some basic questions so I don’t feel like I’m fucking a Russian spy or something. You’re giving me a complex.”

He finished dressing and strolled into my en suite, returning with toothpaste he rubbed across his teeth and gums with his finger. “I’m not a Russian spy.”

“See, that sounds exactly like something a Russian spy would say.”

He shook his head, putting on his signature you’re-dumb-but-I-still-want-to-fuck-you expression. “You get five questions, and I reserve the right not to answer any of them.”

Fucker.

Whatever. At least he was cooperative, I guess.

“You’re single, right?” I chewed on my bottom lip, chancing a nervous glance at him. “I’m not breaking up a family or some shit?”

It took him an excruciatingly long time to answer this yes-or-no question.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said finally.

“Well, that’s not promising.” I forced out a laugh.

“Neither of us is a cheater,” he replied. “Next question.”

Okay. Fuck. My mind drew a blank, because his first answer threw me off. What did it even mean? Why couldn’t he just say he was single?

“Where do you live?”

“New York.”

“Duh. Where in New York?”

“None of your business. You have two more questions.”

Wait, he’d counted the follow-up question as a question? And I still hadn’t received one straight answer from him.

“Aren’t you afraid we’ll get caught?”

“No. No one would believe we’re stupid enough to do something like this unless you tell them.”

“Why is it so stupid?” I challenged. “You work for the bureau, and I’m in…”

“Waste management,” he completed for me, looking unimpressed. “Sure. Your last question?”

“How do you know I won’t tell anyone?”

Heavy silence laced the air, tainting the oxygen with something toxic that singed my lungs.

“Because they’ll kill you,” he said softly. The finality of the words made my spine prickle with awareness. I knew who they were. My brothers. The Camorra. And I knew the implication of his statement—queer men brought shame on their Mafia families. They had no place in the underworld.

But I also knew my brothers well enough to be secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t do that. They’d taunt me endlessly, probably always look at me like I was an odd bird, but never take my life for something like this.