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With that, he was gone.
He didn’t mean it, not really.
Silvano was more of an “after the deed” kind of guy when it came to murders. But I wouldn’t doubt that he and Cos would go a few rounds.
Christ, the fights those two used to get into as teens. I couldn’t count how many of them Lorenzo, Santi, Brio, and I had broken up. I don’t think there was a single week that one of them wasn’t sporting bruises or a busted lip from tussling with each other. Something their fuckhead of a dad encouraged.
The strong one will rise up on top.
Yeah, that sort of toxic shit.
Exhaling, I made my way out into the hall, figuring Silvano would be gone.
Only to find he’d gotten himself trapped with Avery, looking wide-eyed and stock-still as she chattered on and on. Talking to him, a stranger, more than she’d talked to me all week.
“Alright. Yeah, that’s about e-fucking-nough of that,” Sil said, shaking his head, then turning and walking away from her, leaving Avery standing there with raised brows, watching him go.
I was about to apologize for him when she burst out laughing, turning that beaming smile in my direction.
“Oh, he is so pleasant,” she said, shaking her head.
“Sil won’t be winning any Mr. Congeniality awards anytime soon,” I agreed. “He…”
“Whoops, that’s my phone,” she declared, even though I didn’t hear a damn thing from her phone.
But she was turning away, grabbing it, and bringing it to her ear. “Hello? Oh, hey! Yeah, I’m not busy,” she said as she picked up her paintbrush. “Oh, really? Tell me all about it.”
That was the fakest fake-ass phone call I’d ever heard. And I’d heard my sisters pretending to be on their phones with their friends when our ma would hear them talking to their boyfriends at night when we were kids.
Sighing, realizing we were still doing the avoiding thing, I decided to make my way out for the day.
Technically, it wasn’t my job to check on all the capos, but since Lorenzo had nothing else for me to do, and I clearly wasn’t wanted at my house, I decided to go ahead and do the rounds, get an idea where everyone’s heads were at, what their concerns were, if they had any issues in their ranks.
By the time I got back home, it was just after seven.
The downstairs was mostly dark save for the light left on over the stove where Avery had left bruschetta chicken over pasta, something I happily ate, deciding she had another winner of a meal on her hands and that it actually bothered me that I couldn’t tell her that.
I stood there in the kitchen debating it for what felt like ages before I finally decided I was done wondering, and that I was going to need to confront her about it.
I knocked on her door, but her TV was on so loud that she, I guess, didn’t hear.
“Avery?” I called.
When I got no answer, I got this knot in my stomach, this worry that she’d maybe fallen and hit her head or something.
“I’m coming in,” I added, pushing open the door, but seeing her nowhere in the room.
God, the TV had to be on as loud as it went. Stuck on some old documentary, the droning voice of the narrator filling the space, swallowing up my footsteps as I moved through the bedroom and to the Jack-and-Jill bathroom, the door open.
And there she was.
Kneeling in front of the bathtub.
“You alright?” I asked, then watched as she jolted and whipped around, eyes enormous, lips parted, and a kitten clutched to her chest.
There was a moment of stunned silence for both of us before she blurted out, “I’m so sorry!”
“You have kittens?” I heard myself ask, trying to wrap my head around what the fuck was going on.
“I know this is your house,” she rushed to say as those pretty eyes of hers flooded with tears. They were impatient ones, too, spilling out over the rims and pouring down her cheeks.
I’d never seen someone go from fine to absolutely hysterical as quickly as this woman could.
“I should have asked. Or said something. But it was raining! And they were so cold and wet… and… scared,” she added, sniffling hard. “I just wanted to get them warm and dry and their mom must have died!” she kept going, hiccuping she was trying so hard to talk through the tears. “And they were all alone and so skinny. They were starving to death! I should have asked. It’s not my place. I will… I’ll get them to a rescue, I swear. I’ll… I’ll do it,” she added with a lip tremble that said she wanted to do anything but that.
“Okay. Alright,” I said, trying to hold back a smile because she really was just fucking… wrecked over this. The guilt, sure, for keeping it from me, for keeping animals in my house without permission. But, more so, I thought, about having to get rid of them.
