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“Ah, but I’m not so sure the women part interests him. It seems as if he has one already. A special lady,” Lorenzo said with a twinkle in those dead eyes.
But it was fake, as everything else about this meeting was fake.
“Me?” I laughed and hooked an arm around the back of the circular booth. “You know I never dip into the same pool more than a few times. I like to sample the water at all the different beaches way too much.”
“You know, we used to think that, because you certainly seemed to enjoy the, shall we say, perks of your position. But that was before recently, wasn’t it? And I have to say, we’re pleased to have been matchmakers of a sort.” Marco gestured to one of the associates, who lifted an attaché case and removed a folder. Even before he opened it, I knew what it would contain.
Yet I still wasn’t prepared to see Carly’s face upturned to mine, with that stupid stuffed dog in her arms. The dog still in my living room because she’d forgotten to take it and I wouldn’t throw it out.
Stupid all the way around that I’d even taken her to that carnival. I’d known we could be followed at any time, for exactly this reason. Everything was leverage, and she was mine. I would do anything for her, still, and somehow they knew it.
She was the weakness that would bring me down.
“So?” I shrugged. “She’s a hot little piece. You saw that yourself, did you not?” The smirk I flashed made my chest hurt. I hated them with every breath, but even more because they gave me no choice but to denigrate Carly. “Pretty sure you were watching.”
Everyone laughed, as expected. Because it was all a big fucking joke to take advantage of a young, beautiful girl whose biggest crime was naively stepping into the lion’s den.
“That we were, amico mio. I saw how much you liked her. We all did.” Marco’s lascivious grin set my teeth on edge. “We’ve also seen you parading her through the club, guarding her like a steak from a pack of drooling dogs. And I don’t blame you. That gattina, she is sweet. I would love a taste myself.”
I didn’t blink, didn’t so much as take a breath. But inside, I seethed.
“You see, our women become like family. We all share in their care. But there is a problem with this one, as lovely as she is.” Marco pressed the blunt tip of his thumb over Carly’s face, captured in black and white. The photos were always black and white for some reason. “Her sister is a problem. So she is a problem.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “If she’s yours, she becomes our problem.”
Tumblers clicked like locks sliding into place in my mind. The conclusions I’d drawn that day in Mia and Fox’s office were obviously right. Carly hadn’t been idly selected that night. They were still angling to pay back Mia for her disrespect, and they would use Carly in a heartbeat.
“She’s not mine.” Saying it was like dragging razor blades over my throat. I could feel myself bleeding internally, the thick liquid clogging my airway. “She’s never been mine. She’s a piece of pussy. That’s all.”
“Good. We’re happy to hear you say that. Because women, gumba, they can be a distraction. Especially troublesome ones like this, who are so eager to spread their legs.” Marco nodded to the associate again, and out came another photo.
This one was of Carly with a guy in a sandwich shop that I happened to know had just opened last week. They were leaning toward each other across the booth, their heads tipped close. His hand was on her arm, his fingers curled around her wrist. She was smiling at him the way she’d smiled at me.
He certainly qualified as clean-cut. I couldn’t see a tattoo on him, and he could’ve appeared on a poster advertising the merits of the Boy Scouts. If I’d had any question that he was the guy she’d dated before, the socially acceptable one, the bright green Salad Hut shirt he wore proved it.
Didn’t take you long to move on, now did it? Or go back to where you started.
I shrugged again. The pain inside me didn’t have borders and couldn’t be defined. It filled me so entirely that it was a miracle I could still speak. “She’s free to do as she wishes.”
“As are you. We will make sure you’re not alone for long.” Marco leaned forward and smiled, friend to friend. Or that was the image he wanted to portray. “You do this for us, and you’re in. No more loyalty tests. No more questions.” He exchanged a look with Lorenzo and chuckled. “Not for a good long while.”
“Tell me what you want me to do,” I said woodenly, and for once, I wasn’t thinking of Emilia or revenge.
I was thinking of red-gold curls, and guileless eyes that had torn me apart.
“Well, now, this is a hard subject. It’s always difficult when a friend harms us. We treasure loyalty. Value it above all else. Which is what makes it so upsetting when one of our own takes advantage of our loyalty and twists it. Don’t you agree, Giovanni?”
Some part of me understood the conversation had ventured into a dangerous, boggy place. The rest of me was envisioning that sandwich shop.
Had she let him touch her, only hours after I had? Had she called out his name like she’d called mine? Ripped welts in his skin, like the ones I still had on my arms and back?
I couldn’t blame her. I’d driven the knife into what we had when she asked me those questions, and the guilt behind the answer I’d given her didn’t matter. We were finished. But between dealing with Marco and Lorenzo and those photos, I was on the verge of upending the motherfucking table and saying to hell with all of it.
Emilia was dead. Our child was dead.
Your turn.
“Yes. Loyalty is all that matters.” My response was by rote.
Though right now, it sure as hell sounded like truth. Carly’s loyalty to me hadn’t lasted long. If it had lasted at all. For all I knew, she’d still been sleeping with that guy while she was with me. I hadn’t demanded for her to be faithful, just agreed when she’d requested we only be with each other. Maybe she’d made that request for only her own benefit. Even if I had demanded faithfulness, such a demand was worth less than the breath it required.
