AllFreeNovel
Share Us
One golden eye pops open, sizing me up slowly, before snapping shut again. “Seems like something that would put you on the map, and isn’t that what all of my father’s men typically try to avoid?”
“I’m not some sort of vagabond. I do have material possessions. A house, even, as I’ve said before.”
“Does anyone else know about it?”
My eyebrows knit together above the bridge of my nose as I study her still form. There’s something off kilter about her, something broken and timid that wasn’t there just moments ago. Her hands clutch the armrests, knuckles bleaching as she tightens her grip, carefully drawing in deep, shuddering breaths.
I recognize fear without even having to witness it. The pheromones released when a person feels threatened are minimal, but when you spend enough time studying them, noticing the slight change in scent and behavior becomes second nature.
It’s musty and damp. Soaked in sweat, it bleeds from our pores, affecting the chemical makeup of our brains. Makes us do and say crazy, unpredictable things.
And right now, Elena is afraid.
“Elena,” I say slowly, carefully pronouncing each syllable. “Are you all right?”
She remains perfectly still. “I don’t like planes.”
“You don’t?”
Shaking her head, she lets out a breathy laugh. “I know Riccis are supposed to be fearless. At least, that’s how Papá tried to raise us, why he put us in self-defense classes when my sisters and I were kids. You should’ve seen the way his eyes lit up the first time I put those skills to use.”
I think of the bruised knuckles and bloody lips she seemed to sport each time I came into town over the years, how the broken flesh seemed a permanent fixture. For such a warm, intelligent girl, her apparent appetite for violence never made much sense.
Though, I suppose, when you grow up in a world rife with it, you’ll do anything for a modicum of attention.
“Anyway,” she continues. “There’s nothing my fists can do to protect me from free-falling out of the sky, so I usually try to avoid air travel.”
I’m sure it helps that Rafael rarely lets his family leave Boston.
“You know, statistically speaking, you’re far more likely to die in a fiery automobile accident than you are in a plane crash.”
“Tell that to Buddy Holly, JFK Jr., and Ritchie Valens.”
“To be fair, two of those were the same crash.” I point a finger in her direction. “So, that’s not really an honest comparison. And you’re far too young to have been traumatized by them, anyway.”
Elena hums quietly, sitting up and peeling her eyes open. They sweep over me, as if cataloging every visible inch of flawed flesh she can. Tilting her head to one side, she purses her lips.
“You killed Mateo,” she says slowly.
“Had to. He posed several problems for me, and there was a good chance he was involved in the security breach at your home.”
“Is that what you base your line of work on?” Her eyebrows rise. “A chance?”
Inhaling deeply, I fold my hands over my lap and pin her with a dark look. “No, little one. In fact, every single decision I’ve made in my adult life has been carefully coordinated after exhaustive consideration. I don’t take risks unless I’m sure of the outcome.”
“And this marriage is, what? A royal flush?”
Instead of answering immediately, I lean back in my seat and reach into the sideboard to my right, riffling around until I feel the aged spine of a book I once kept on my person at all times.
I used to write down verses from the book and then tear them from my journal, leaving them on her balcony the few times a year I visited Boston.
Of course, I hadn’t known it was her balcony; I’d thought it was her mother’s. In fact, it wasn’t until she was eighteen and approached me at a cocktail fundraiser that I learned she’d been the one collecting the notes and sometimes leaving her own in return.
That night, she asked me to take her. To give her the gift of choice, the same way I’d given her hope to withstand her father’s world.
She said she’d recognized my handwriting and wanted to make our connection more concrete.
I’d refused, misquoting Paradise Lost and spent the next month trying to erase the image of a young Elena Ricci sprawled out like a feast beneath me.
