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“Fuck,” she hissed as her hands grabbed my arms, holding on, even though I had her.
“You alright?” I asked.
Then her gaze lifted to mine.
Close.
Fuck, she was close.
Close enough to catch a scent of something almost a little lemony, but mixed with something sweeter. She had it on subtly, too, just begging you to get a little closer to inhale more of it.
But I couldn’t get closer, damnit.
This was my house manager, not a dating prospect.
“I, ah, yeah,” she said, jerking away at the exact moment I decided to snatch my hands back. “You know, if my ego isn’t included in the equation,” she said, rolling her eyes at herself.
“Alright. Have a good shopping trip,” I said, making my way to the door.
I waited until she was heading back upstairs with another load of her stuff before I made my way down the street toward Lorenzo’s place, finding my little brother Anthony on guard.
“The fuck did you do to your face?” I asked, seeing a bandage on his face up near the side of his eye.
It was no secret that Ant just… had the worst fucking luck of anyone I’d ever seen in my life. I mean, the fucker was constantly getting hurt. Stabbed, shot, in a car wreck, the list was endless.
“No fucking idea,” he said, shaking his head at himself. “I was walking down the street on my way here this morning, and something whacked me in the face. By the time my vision cleared up, whatever it was was long gone,” he said, shrugging it off. I guess when you got hurt as much as he did, you had to learn to adopt a ‘it is what it is’ mindset about it.
“That was really close to your eye,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” he agreed. “Thought there would be an eye doctor in my schedule for the day. But it seems fine. Was that your new housekeeper?” he asked, nodding his chin toward my house.
“Yeah. Avery,” I said.
“She carried all that shit down the street herself,” he said.
“What? No,” I objected. There was too much. “You probably just missed the cab.”
“No, man. I was right here,” he said. “Didn’t know who she was, or I would have offered to help. But she had all the bags wrapped around her, and the boxes piled up so high that she couldn’t see past ‘em. Kept yelling out ‘I can’t see for shit, so watch out’ even though there was no one around.”
That… sure as fuck sounded like her.
But why the fuck hadn’t she taken a cab if she was moving so much of her stuff?
Then again, she had made the comment about the subway and her bed. The subway was quite a few blocks away. And I guess it just hadn’t clicked that she’d trek it on foot instead of getting a ride.
Maybe it was a money thing, since the subway was the cheapest way to get anywhere in the city.
I probably should have given her more money, I realized. For cabs or rides to and from the shops.
Objectively, I could have one of the guys in the Family work as my—and therefore her—personal driver. But that just seemed a little demeaning for most of them.
“So, is Ma planning the wedding now, or…” Ant teased, smiling when I whacked him in the chest before making my way past him and into Lorenzo’s house.
“Oh, good,” Lorenzo said, coming up from the kitchen with a coffee in his hand. “Did you hear anything about Cosimo yet?” he asked.
No.
And it was starting to stress me out.
See, he hadn’t been answering his phone ever since that cryptic-ass text I’d gotten the day before.
It will all make sense later. Apologize to the boss for me.
Not a great message to get from anyone, least of all from a member of a fucking mafia Family.
“Nothing,” I said. “And his Ma hasn’t heard from him either.”
“And Silvano?” Lorenzo asked.
“You know them,” I said, shaking my head. “They don’t really talk normally, so I doubt Cos would reach out now if something was up.”
“What are you thinking?” Lorenzo asked, sitting down at his dining table, waving for me to do the same. “Is this a ‘we should be worried he’s going to hurt himself’ type of thing?” he asked.
“I mean… I’ve never seen any signs of that in him,” I said. “But, I mean, that doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “I hope that’s not what this is.”
“I’m gonna send Brio to his place,” Lorenzo said. “His Ma wanted to go, but… just in case…”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
If it was that sort of shit, the last thing we wanted was for her to walk in on that. Brio, however, was used to all the blood and gore and twisted shit. It wouldn’t be easy for him to walk in on someone he loved like that, but he wouldn’t be traumatized for life like his mother would.
